Examinations of the use of diagrams, symbols etc. found as commentary in medieval texts. In our electronic age, we are accustomed to the use of icons, symbols, graphs, charts, diagrams and visualisations as part of the vocabulary of communication. But this rich ecosystem is far from a modern phenomenon. Early medieval manuscripts demonstrate that their makers and readers achieved very sophisticated levels of "graphicacy". When considered from this perspective, many elements familiar to students of manuscript decoration - embellished characters in scripts, decorated initials, monograms, graphic symbols, assembly marks, diagrammatic structures, frames, symbolic ornaments, musical notation - are revealed to be not minor, incidental marks but crucial elements within the larger sign systems of manuscripts. This interdisciplinary volume is the first to discuss the conflation of text and image with a specific focus on the appearance of various graphic devices in manuscript culture. By looking at their many forms as they appear from the fourth century to their full maturity in the long ninth century, its contributors demonstrate the importance of these symbols to understanding medieval culture.
Author(s): Michelle P. Brown, Ildar H. Garipzanov, Benjamin C. Tilghman (eds.)
Series: Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, 11
Publisher: The Boydell Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 316
City: Woodbridge
List of Illustrations vii
List of Contributors xiv
Introduction: The Role of Graphic Devices in Understanding the Early Decorated Book / Michelle P. Brown, Ildar H. Garipzanov and Benjamin C. Tilghman 1
I. GRAPHIC DEVICES IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL BOOK: CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON A COMPLEX PHENOMENON
1. ‘In the Image and Likeness of God’: The Dedication Monogram in the Calendar of 354 and Early Medieval Monogrammatic Initials / Ildar H. Garipzanov 15
2. ‘Character’ and the Power of the Letter / David Ganz 31
3. Tangled Voices: Writing, Drawing and the Anglo-Saxon Decorated Initial / Catherine E. Karkov 45
4. Graphic Visualization in Liturgical Manuscripts in the Early Middle Ages: The Initial ‘O’ in the Sacramentary of Gellone / Eric Palazzo 63
5. Graphic Quire Marks and Qur’anic Verse Markers in Frankish and Islamic Manuscripts from the Seventh and Eighth Centuries / Lawrence Nees 80
6. The Graphic Cross as Salvific Mark and Organizing Principle: Making, Marking, Shaping / Cynthia Hahn 100
II. INSULAR AND CAROLINGIAN GRAPHICACY: SHARED PRACTICES IN DIVERGENT SETTINGS
7. The Visual Rhetoric of Insular Decorated Incipit Openings / Michelle P. Brown 127
8. The Relationship between Letter and Frame in Insular and Carolingian Manuscripts / Tina Bawden 143
9. Patterns of Meaning in Insular Manuscripts: Folio 183r in the Book of Kells / Benjamin C. Tilghman 163
10. Graphic and Figural Representation in Touronian Gospel Illumination / Beatrice Kitzinger 179
III. CONTRAST AND COMMONALITY: BYZANTINE MANUSCRIPTS
11. Meaning from the Margins: Graphic Signs, Frames and Initials in a Ninth-Century Byzantine Manuscript / Leslie Brubaker 205
12. An Exercise in Extravagance and Abundance: Some Thoughts on the 'marginalia decorata' in the Codex Parasinus graecus 216 / Kallirroe Linardou 218
IV. EMBEDDING GRAPHIC DEVICES IN UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLETE CODEX: EXTERNALIZATION AND INTERNALIZATION
13. The Cross on the Book: Diagram, Ornament, Materiality / David Ganz 243
14. Graphic Glosses and Argumentative Ornament / Herbert L. Kessler 265
Index 290
