Event 1:
A one-day international symposium on the Skylitzes Matritensis will be held at the National Library of Spain, Madrid, on June 13th, 2024.
THE SKYLITZES MATRITENSIS, BYZANTIUM AND NORMAN SICILY: New and Old Issues on an Exceptional Greek Manuscript
The aim of this international symposium on the Sykilitzes Matritensis (BNE, Vitr. 26-2) is to delve into one of the most precious manuscripts of the National Library of Spain, which still poses many issues to scholars today.
It is the oldest and most extensive surviving copy of an illustrated Byzantine chronicle, the Synopsis Historiarum by John Skylitzes, containing 574 miniatures. The manuscript was produced in the mid-12th century in Sicily, during the Norman period, and its creation involved two scribes and seven miniaturists with very different artistic backgrounds. This reveals the multicultural environment of the island, where Latin, Greek, and Muslim cultures coexisted. Scholars will approach various aspects of the manuscript from a multidisciplinary perspective -paleographic, codicological, philological, and historical-artistic -, and address some issues related to its commissioning, place of production and creative process, from the materials used by the miniaturists to their working methods. It will be an outstanding occasion to rediscover Byzantium, the fascination for Constantinople, as well as some aspects of the12th-century Sicilian culture.
Free entrance
For further information, please contact: info@mabilus.com
Live streaming on the BNE YouTube channel
Event 2:
A one-day International Seminar on Byzantine Manuscripts will be held at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), on May 17th, 2024.
BYZANTINE MANUSCRIPTS. New Insights into the Study of Byzantine Manuscripts: Text, Image, and Liturgy.
II MABILUS International Seminar
Dir. Manuel Castiñeiras
The study of Byzantine manuscripts has undergone a deep transformation in recent years. Digitization, laboratory analysis techniques and interdisciplinary projects have allowed a better knowledge of a very valuable written and illuminated heritage which, in the case of Spain, is very well represented in the collection of the National Library of Madrid and the Library of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. On the occasion of this international seminar, a series of experiences in the field of Byzantinology will be presented. They are helping to enhance and disseminate the Byzantine legacy from a wide range of perspectives. These talks will be complemented by the presentation of the book, The Akathistos Hymnos and Intermedial Compositional Processes in Later Byzantium-Sung, Written, Painted, edited by Jon C. Cubas(Palgrave, Cham, 2024).
Free entrance
For further information, please contact: info@mabilus.com