The conservation of a Byzantine Manuscript from the Public Library of Lixouri, Kefalonia (original) (raw)
2016, Historical Book Binding Techniques in Conservation, Conference Proceedings, 28 April- 1 May 2014, Bergen:,Austria
AI-generated Abstract
The conservation of the Byzantine manuscript MS Lix. 25 from the Public Library of Lixouri involved studying its structural integrity and historical context. The manuscript underwent extensive damage, primarily from insect activity and mechanical stress, leading to a re-evaluation of its dating to the early sixteenth century. Conservation efforts focused on restoring the binding and addressing ongoing preservation challenges, highlighting both the manuscript's artistic significance and the importance of proper conservation techniques.
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R. Betancourt, Performing the Gospels in Byzantium
If you walk into a church on Sunday morning, you will hear a passage from the Gospels. 'Wisdom! Stand up! Let us listen to the holy Gospel. Peace be to all! The reading is from the holy Gospel according to Luke. Let us attend', thousands of Orthodox priests declared last week, 23 January 2022, proceeding to intone in a solemn, melodious voice those nine verses from the evangelist's text that tell about Jesus healing a blind man. Such is the custom today. The book under review is an attempt to imagine what would happen a thousand years ago. Imagine one must, because no direct records of the practice survive. What we do have is several hundred manuscripts of a type that scholars term 'Gospel lectionary'. In them, passages like the one from Luke are collected and ordered by the days on which they were to be read, e.g. John 1:1-17 for Easter Sunday, Matthew 2:1-12 for 25 December, and so on. Betancourt has chosen nine such manuscripts, listed at the bottom of his p. 3. All nine date from the eleventh century, 1 all are illustrated, all are exceptionally well preserved, all are likely to have been produced in Constantinople. This sample is homogenous enough to ensure a focused study. It also provides for a large number of beautiful colour photographs which embellish Betancourt's text. Copiously annotated with bibliographic references, the latter clearly results from extensive research. The nine lectionaries themselves are a marvel to behold. Their pages are interspersed with numerous small pictures showing episodes from the Bible. The beginning of each new passage is signalled by colourful ornament, including on occasion plants and birds. One codex opens with a full-blown carpet-page. The front leaf of another carries the image of a church wherein,
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The British Library has sixty-six Gospel books and seventy-two Gospel lectionaries, spread amongst its various collections of manuscripts. Gospels are by far the most numerous type of Byzantine book to have survived, not just in the British Library, but in all libraries. In surveying these British Library books for my doctoral thesis I was struck by the extent to which, far from resembling one another, they contained many unusual or unique features. This article considers a small number of such Gospel manuscripts, and argues that they were not merely intended to be read in a public or private context, but in addition could function as reliquary-like receptacles, containing holy material. In some cases the presence of this holy material was clear, but in other cases it was disguised or hidden, so that the book’s user had to work in order to find or understand it. An element of cryptographic investigation will therefore be important to my argument. A sixth-century hagiography records ...
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