Dedicatory Inscriptions and Donor Portraits (7th-15th c.). A Project in Progress at the University of Athens, in Andeas Rhoby, ed., Inscriptions in Byzantium and Beyond. Methods - Projects - Case Studies, [ÖAW] Vienna 2015, pp. 135-156. (original) (raw)

Epigraphic Traditions in 11th-c. Byzantium

Vorgelegt von w. M. JOHANNES KODER in der Sitzung vom 24. Oktober 2014 Umschlagbild: Orchomenos, church of Skripou, inscription of central apsis (a. 873/74), ed. N. OIKONOMIDÈS, TM 12 (1994) 479-493 © Andreas Rhoby Mit Beschluss der philosophisch-historischen Klasse in der Sitzung vom 23. März 2006 wurde die Reihe Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik in Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung umbenannt; die bisherige Zählung wird dabei fortgeführt.

Ideology and Patronage in Byzantium: Dedicatory Inscriptions and Patron Images from Middle Byzantine Macedonia and Thrace, Turnhout 2023

Brepols, 2023

Based on the evidence of epigraphic material in combination with monumental painting, this book explores important dedicatory inscriptions (9th-beginning of the 13th c.) from Macedonia and Thrace, which have so far been investigated mainly from a philological-historical standpoint, thus neglecting the major issue of Middle Byzantine patronage. Through patron inscriptions and textual sources, the role and the motives of military officials in the patronage of defensive and fortification works, and the manner of publicizing them, are examined systematically. Patronage is looked at through the ideological messages that the donors endeavor to promote in a local society or monastic community, and which echo their relationship with the state and their views on education and faith. The new interpretations presented in this book result from the collation of historical, prosopographical, archaeological and visual data, which offer valuable evidence about military patronage, the relation of the donation to the personal life of the donor and his family, the spiritual life of monasticism and the building complex of the monastery, and the relationship between inscriptions, space and iconography. Interesting methodologically is the co-examination of the various categories of inscriptions in combination with historical texts and donor portraits, which opens up new avenues of research for the study of the interdisciplinary material in question.

Inscribing Texts in Byzantium: Continuities and Transformations

Papers from the Forty-Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, Oxford, 18-20 March 2016, 2020

In spite of the striking abundance of extant primary material, Byzantine epigraphy remains uncharted territory. The volume of the Proceedings of the 49th SPBS Spring Symposium aims to promote the field of Byzantine epigraphy as a whole, and topics and subjects covered include: Byzantine attitudes towards the inscribed word, the questions of continuity and transformation, the context and function of epigraphic evidence, the levels of formality and authority, the material aspect of writing, and the verbal, visual and symbolic meaning of inscribed texts. The collection is intended as a valuable scholarly resource presenting and examining a substantial quantity of diverse epigraphic material, and outlining the chronological development of epigraphic habits, and of individual epigraphic genres in Byzantium.

Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium

This book explores the nexus of art, personal piety, and self-representation in the last centuries of Byzantium. Spanning the period from around 1100 to around 1450, it focuses upon the evidence of verse inscriptions, or epigrams, on works of art. Epigrammatic poetry, Professor Drpić argues, constitutes a critical – if largely neglected – source for reconstructing aesthetic and socio-cultural discourses that informed the making, use, and perception of art in the Byzantine world. Bringing together art-historical and literary modes of analysis, the book examines epigrams and other related texts alongside an array of objects, including icons, reliquaries, ecclesiastical textiles, mosaics, and entire church buildings. By attending to such diverse topics as devotional self-fashioning, the aesthetics of adornment, sacred giving, and the erotics of the icon, this study offers a penetrating and highly original account of Byzantine art and its place in Byzantine society and religious life.