A Fountain of Fire: Idolatry, Alterity, and Ethnicity in Byzantine Book Illumination
Affiliation:
1. SARAS—Department of History Anthropology Religions Art History Media and Performing Arts, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
Abstract
This article examines the visual representation of pagan idols in Byzantine book illumination and investigates how such images were employed to convey a sense of geographical or ethnic distance. The main focus of this study is a group of illuminated manuscripts containing two of the most popular texts in the Byzantine world: Barlaam and Ioasaph and the Alexander Romance. These manuscripts include numerous representations of statuary that Byzantine readers would have easily recognized as being associated with the religious practices and superstitions of distant and foreign populations, thereby reinforcing their own self-identification with “civilized” characters. Through a comparative analysis of manuscripts such as Athon. Iviron 463 (Barlaam and Ioasaph) and Venice, Istituto Ellenico cod. 5 (Alexander Romance), this article explores the variety of iconographic solutions adopted by Byzantine artists to enhance the “ethnographic” function of idol images. A close examination of these solutions sheds new light on how visual narratives contributed to the construction of notions of identity, otherness, and ethnicity in Byzantium.
Funder
the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
the HUJI Center for the Study of Early Christianity
the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
ANAMED Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civi-lizations
Subject
General Materials Science
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