Menologion of Basil II
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The Menologion of Basil II is one of the main works of Byzantine book illumination . It concerns a Constantinople Synaxarion (review B *) created around 1000 for the emperor Basil II (976-1025 ), a collection of short lives of saints for liturgical use in the Byzantine rite . With 430 miniatures on a gold background , it is the most splendidly decorated Byzantine manuscript. The manuscript, written on parchment in Greek and so-called pearl script, is now in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana , signature: Vaticanus graecus 1613 (Vat. Gr. 1613).
Important manuscript of hagiography
The Menologion of Basil II is one of the most splendidly painted surviving manuscripts from Byzantium . A page usually consists of a sixteen-line text for which a painter has created a picture for one or a group of saints or a feast day. The more than 430 pictures are an important example of hagiography , the honoring of saints, in book art in Byzantium. Texts and images represent only one half of the saints calendar of the Byzantine liturgical year (September to February), so it can be assumed that there was a second volume of the work, which was lost.
Liturgical work of the Byzantine Empire
The work was probably commissioned by the emperor and intended for use by the clergy at court. It also glorifies the emperor and portrays him as a fighter to protect Byzantine Christianity against the advance of the Bulgarian Empire , whose attack on the Christians is illustrated drastically. Figures like the archangels are also portrayed in a combative manner by the painters.
Artist
The artists who contributed the pictures to the Menologion paint in perspective and are thus moving away from the flat representation that was often common up until then. The gestures of the figures and the folds of their clothes are shown vividly and the architecture and background are well observed. The facial expression is also painted in a natural way. It shows the painting style of an era sometimes referred to as the Macedonian Renaissance , in which painters again made greater use of ancient models.
On the edge of the pictures in the Menologion - extremely unusual for a Byzantine manuscript - the names of the painters of the respective illustration are given in the hand of a scribe . A total of eight names can be distinguished. A painter by the name of Pantoleon, who can possibly also be traced in other documents of the time, seems to have been the leading master of the group that probably worked together as court painters in a workshop. Georgios, Michael the Younger, Michael of Blachernae, Simeon, Simeon of Blachernae, Menas and Nestor are also distinguished.
The names are not, however, the signatures of the painters themselves, since, as was usual in the Middle Ages, the focus was not on the individual artist, but on the message of the picture. Hence, signatures were by no means common. The meaning of the information about the painters of the pictures, which was added by another hand in the Menologion of Basil II, cannot be clarified with certainty, and it is not common today to assign one of the names in the illustration of the illustrations.
Menologion of Basil II: The Archangel Michael
Menologion of Basil II: Encounter of Joshua with the "leader of the Lord's army"
Menologion of Basil II: Gentiles and Christian martyrs
Menologion of Basil II (Master Nestor): Martyrdom of the Apostle Philip
Menologion of Basil II: Theophano Martiniake
Menologion of Basil II: Transfer of the relics of St. John Chrysostom to the Apostle Church
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See also
literature
- Il Menologio di Basilio II (cod.Vaticano Greco 1613) . Turin 1907 (black and white facsimile complete edition).
- Ihor Ševčenko: The Illuminators of the Menologium of Basil II. In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16, 1962, pp. 248-276.
- Nancy Patterson Ševčenko: Menologion of Basil II. In: Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. New York, Oxford, 1991, Vol. 2, pp. 1341-1342.
- Francesco D'Aiuto (ed.): El "Menologio de Basilio II". Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Gr. 1613; libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Città del Vaticano / Diaconía Apostólica de la Iglesia de Grecia, Athens / Testimonio Compañia Editorial, Madrid 2008, ISBN 978-88-210-0789-7 , ISBN 978-960-315-615-4 , ISBN 978- 84-95767-58-5 .
- Andrea Luzzi: The "Menologio de Basilio II" and the semestre invernal de la recensio B * del Sinaxario de Constantinople . In: El "Menologio" de Basilio II: Città del Vaticano, Vat. Gr. 1613: libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil . Dirigado por Francesco D'Aiuto. Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2008. 47-75.
