The Creation of the Illustrated Octateuch
By (author) Jeffrey C. Anderson
Hardback (Published)
(June 2022)
ISBN: 9783752006162
8.27 x 11.69 inches
Price: $165.00
In stock
The illustrated Octateuch is among the most complex creations of the Middle Byzantine period. The Septuagint text of the first eight books of the Old Testament contains hundreds of miniatures in addition to a dense commentary, notes with variant readings, prologues and epilogues. The author shows that the text and images all derive from a single manuscript created in Constantinople around 1060. He accomplishes this by concentrating on one of the manuscripts in comparison with an example that is not illustrated but belongs to the same text family and shares a group of distinctive lacunae. This related Octateuch reveals how the designer of the model of the illustrated manuscripts worked to integrate the various form of content.
The illustrated Octateuch is the most complex work of its kind produced in Byzantium. It consists of the first eight books of the Old Testament in the Septuagint translation, which is surrounded by thousands of comments from the writings of the Church Fathers and notes with variant readings; the text itself is interrupted by hundreds of illustrations. There are five Octateuchs and they date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; one example, destroyed in 1922 and known only from low quality reproductions, is published here from a newly discovered set of photographs. Since the early twentieth century the five manuscripts have been taken to be closely related, deriving from two different models that ultimately depend on a single, Early Christian source. In a preliminary chapter the author introduces the constituent parts of the manuscripts and the studies used to evaluate them. A group of miniatures that is considered to be the foundation for the theory of two sources receives a careful review. Then, working from the interruptions to and restored lacunae in the text, as well as the notes to it, the author shows that the manuscripts all descend from a single source; with the help of two Octateuchs related by textual content (but without illustration) it is possible to describe the lost source with considerable accuracy. Analysis of the illustrations shows that the source was made around 1060. The conclusion lays to rest issues that have been actively debated since the time of Josef Strzygowski. The principal audience for this study consists of Byzantinists concerned with manuscript studies. It should also be of interest to medievalists generally, art historians and those concerned with the transmission and use of the Bible in the Middle Ages. The author expects the book to be read with profit by graduate students, who can benefit from the approach.
- By (author) Jeffrey C. Anderson
„[…] Im Ganzen handelt es sich um ein sehr anspruchsvolles, akribisch recherchiertes Werk mit einer Unmenge an Material, das einen weiteren wichtigen Baustein in der Geschichte der Oktateuchforschung darstellt. Die Untersuchung wirft ein neues Licht auf den spannenden Entstehungsprozess dieser genuin byzantinischen Handschriftengruppe und steigert zugleich die Wertschätzung für den vatikanischen Oktateuch Vat. gr. 747 in seinen vielfältigen Facetten.“<br/><br/>Von Martina Horn<br/>In: The Byzantine Review 05/2023<br/>doi: 10.17879/byzrev-2023-4670
—
Other Titles in this Series
Funktion und Nutzung der Krypta im Mittelalter
Heiligsprechung und Heiligenverehrung am Beispiel Italien
Cilicia as Sacred Landscape in Late Antiquity
A Journey on the Trail of Apostles, Martyrs and Local Saints
Kapitelle des 11.-13. Jahrhunderts im Veneto
als Nachgestaltungen antiker und spätantik/frühbyzantinischer Modelle und das „revival“ im Kirchenbau
Flankenräume im mittelbyzantinischen Kirchenbau
Zur Befundsicherung, Rekonstruktion und Bedeutung einer verschwundenen architektonischen Form in Konstantinopel
Die Christianisierung der spätrömischen Welt
Stadt, Land, Haus, Kirche und Kloster in frühchristlicher Zeit
Byzantinischer Schmuck des 9. bis frühen 13. Jahrhunderts
Untersuchungen zum metallenen dekorativen Körperschmuck der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit anhand datierter Funde
Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile / Nola
Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur
Capital continuous
A Study of Vandal Carthage and Central North Africa from an Archaeological Perspective
Frühbyzantinische textile Kopfbedeckungen
Typologie, Verbreitung, Chronologie und soziologischer Kontext nach Originalfunden
Die Wiener Genesis im Rahmen der antiken Buchmalerei
Ikonographie, Darstellung, Illustrationsverfahren und Aussageintention
Die Christianisierung der Städte der Provinz Scythia Minor
Ein Beitrag zum spätantiken Urbanismus auf dem Balkan
Transforming Sacred Spaces
New Approaches to Byzantine Ecclesiastical Architecture from the Transitional Period
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
Shame in the Worlds of the Hebrew Bible and Akkadian Texts
A Linguistic Study and Its Implications
Volume 33
The Body
Lived, Cultured, Adorned: Essays on Dress and the Body in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Nili S. Fox
The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life
A Contextual Reading of Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz
