The New York Cruciform Lectionary (College Art Association Monograph)

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Description

For elegance and beauty, the Constantinopolitan scribes set standards rarely surpassed. The Gospel lectionary used to be a few of the books that attracted the most enthusiastic attention of scribes, illuminators, and their patrons. As a very powerful liturgical item, the lectionary used to be frequently exquisitely decorated. The subject of this study, the lectionary in the Pierpont Morgan Library, is bizarre even among such luxury manuscripts because its scribe laboriously copied each and every page of text in the shape of a cross. It’s one of just three such manuscripts made in Constantinople around the middle of twelfth century, and it’s the only one that comprises narrative illustration.

Jeffrey Anderson provides a full description of the manuscript, and he has translated and indexed its calendar of saints. Every of the miniatures is reproduced, described, and discussed, and Anderson relates some scenes to versions found in other Byzantine lectionaries and Gospels. The illustrations are attributed to two illuminators, and in a separate chapter Anderson situates their contributions with regard to the ruling, writing, and illumination of the pages. He also relates, through style, the cruciform lectionaries to dated twelfth-century monuments to establish their place in the history of Byzantine art.

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