Manuscripta Illuminata

Manuscripta Illuminata
Author: Colum Hourihane
Publisher: Index of Christian Art
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780983753735

Princeton University's unique collection of medieval manuscripts, stretching from Ottonian to the late Gothic-early Renaissance periods, forms the nucleus of this collection of essays. Written by some of the most celebrated scholars in the field, the studies make every effort to help us understand the power of the written and illuminated word.

Greek Manuscripts at Princeton, Sixth to Nineteenth Century

Greek Manuscripts at Princeton, Sixth to Nineteenth Century
Author: Sofia Kotzabassi
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2010
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN:

This is the first comprehensive scholarly publication of the rich holdings of Greek manuscripts and miniatures in Princeton, New Jersey, housed in the Firestone Library and the art museum of Princeton University, in the Scheide Library, and in Princeton Theological Seminary. This important material represents both a broad range of time--from the early Byzantine period through the mid-nineteenth century--and a broad range of content, from Byzantine copies of classical texts to Gospel books, Lectionaries and patristic homilies, hymns and texts of the liturgy, medical books, and Holy Land pilgrimage guides. Among the manuscripts are some spectacularly illustrated works, key monuments in the history of Byzantine illumination: an eleventh-century codex of John Klimax's Heavenly Ladder with vivid and unusual depictions of monastic life; evangelist portraits from a number of artistic periods and centers; extraordinary pages of pure ornament; and fine examples of post-Byzantine liturgical illustration of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the most significant texts are a sixth-century palimpsest with Greek hymns in an extremely early form of musical notation, and a thirteenth-century copy of Aristotle's Organon, heavily annotated by the renowned Byzantine scholar and teacher John Chortasmenos (ca. 1370-1430). The collection also includes a fascinating eighteenth-century genealogical chronicle--a 45-foot-long roll with 562 illustrations of biblical events and personalities from the Creation to the Ascension of Christ, a work that was probably produced in the area of present-day Romania. This collection offers insight into many aspects of the artistic and intellectual life--theological, monastic, scholarly, ecclesiastical--of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine world. It also contributes to the history of Greek philology and the development of the Greek book over more than a millennium, from the earliest centuries of manuscript production down to the period when, long after the appearance of printing, liturgical texts continued to be copied by hand and lavishly illuminated. The catalogue provides codicological and art-historical analysis of all 64 manuscripts and leaves, along with detailed information on their content, provenance, and bindings; extensive bibliographies; and ample plates, almost all of them in color.

Binding Words

Binding Words
Author: Don C. Skemer
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780271046969

In the Middle Ages, textual amulets--short texts written on parchment or paper and worn on the body--were thought to protect the bearer against enemies, to heal afflictions caused by demonic invasions, and to bring the wearer good fortune. In Binding Words, Don C. Skemer provides the first book-length study of this once-common means of harnessing the magical power of words. Textual amulets were a unique source of empowerment, promising the believer safe passage through a precarious world by means of an ever-changing mix of scriptural quotations, divine names, common prayers, and liturgical formulas. Although theologians and canon lawyers frequently derided textual amulets as ignorant superstition, many literate clergy played a central role in producing and disseminating them. The texts were, in turn, embraced by a broad cross-section of Western Europe. Saints and parish priests, physicians and village healers, landowners and peasants alike believed in their efficacy. Skemer offers careful analysis of several dozen surviving textual amulets along with other contemporary medieval source materials. In the process, Binding Words enriches our understanding of popular religion and magic in everyday medieval life.

Princeton's Great Persian Book of Kings

Princeton's Great Persian Book of Kings
Author: Marianna Shreve Simpson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Epic poetry, Persian
ISBN: 9780300215748

Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at Princeton University Art Museum, October 3, 2015-January 24, 2016.

The Regiment of Princes

The Regiment of Princes
Author: Thomas Hoccleve
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
Total Pages: 290
Release: 1999-11-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1580444199

Thomas Hoccleve was born in 1367 and entered government service as clerk in the office of the Privy Seal in 1387, an office that he held until his death in 1426. His earliest datable poem (the Epistle of Cupid, a free translation of Christine de Pisan's Epistre au Dieu d'Amour) was completed about 1402. The Regiment of Princes, written about 1410-11, was composed at a time when England was still feeling the consequences of the deposition of Richard II. Essentially it is addressed to a prince on the subject of his governance, but it exhibits considerable generic instability and thus raises fundamental questions about how we should understand the tone of considerable portions of the poem. For all the problems it presents, The Regiment shows that Hoccleve has strengths as a poet. At times he could be a very talented prosodist. In autobiographical sections of the poem he creates a most interesting early-modern subjectivity. He has distinctive observations to make about his time, and, in his self-critical awareness, probes the limits of what is means to be a poet writing in the wake of Chaucer.

The Splendor of the Word

The Splendor of the Word
Author: Jonathan James Graham Alexander
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005
Genre: Illumination of books and manuscripts
ISBN:

Across the River and Into the Trees

Across the River and Into the Trees
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-05-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1476770034

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him “the most important author since Shakespeare.”