Bizans Resim Sanatı Research Papers (original) (raw)

The Byzantine Empire was one of the most important states that shaped the religious, political, cultural and artistic environment of the Middle Ages. Thousands of manuscripts had been scribed or copied from the beginning of the empire to its collapse. Although the examinations on manuscripts have an important place in the art history studies; a terminological dictionary on manuscripts has not been created yet. In the Turkish academic studies, some of the Ancient Greek and Latin terms related to Byzantine Art can be seen, but those terms have no Turkish translation. Most of the terms associated with Byzantine MSS do not have Turkish either. The main reason of this problem can be explained by the lack of need for the terms related to manuscripts to
be used outside of the academic studies. Manuscripts are examined in several ways. Codicological investigation is based on the material-technical characteristics of the manuscripts, the dimensions, the form of a book, the sewn gatherings (quires), the stitches, the binding, the cover, etc. Palaeographic studies focus on aspects related to the text and page layout, such as the forms of the letters in the text of the MS, the typeface, the characteristic of handwriting, the forms of majuscule or minuscule, the arrangement of row and column, the title, the abbreviations, the bracket and the marker. Iconographic studies are based on miniatures of a book. Based on the relationship established between text and image, the iconography interprets the paintings by considering elements such as the selection of
subjects, the origin, the artistic style, the ratio-proportion and the perspective.
In this study, the terms related to the Medieval and specifically the Byzantine MSS, their abbreviations in international catalogue and inventory systems, and the problem of terminology in the academic literature related to manuscripts in general are discussed.