Treasures of Mount Athos. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessalonike, 1997

Catalogue of the treasures of Mount Athos which are for the first time being exhibited at the Museum of Byzantine Culture at Thessalonike, Greece. The treasures of Mount Athos, closely guarded for centuries in the historic monasteries, have always been somewhat difficult of access for lay visitors. Indeed, as Academician Manolis Chatzidakis has commented, owing to the strict exclusion of women from the Holy Mountain, they have for centuries been totally inaccessible to half the human race. The time has now come for these peerless artworks of inestimable religious, spiritual, and historical importance to be put on public display for the first time. This is the significance and the enormous interest behind the exhibition that will open in the second half of this year, the crowning touch to the celebrations attendant upon Thessaloniki's role as European City of Culture for 1997. The presentation of the treasures of Mount Athos in this magnificent exhibition is thus a major cultural event of global importance. Monuments of Byzantine and post-Byzantine painting, Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons, illuminated manuscripts, music manuscripts, Byzantine sculptures, Byzantine and post-Byzantine works of minor art, incunabula, Byzantine, post-Byzantine, Ottoman, Slavonic, and Romanian documents, seals, coins, ceramics - all these masterpieces of a thousand years of art will add their lustre to this splendid exhibition. During the ten centuries of its existence, as times have changed and history has taken its course, the distinctive monastic society that evolved on Mount Athos has applied itself to almost all forms of art and scholarly inquiry, bequeathing great achievements and unparalleled artistic monuments, which are now presented to the admiring gaze of visitors. The texts in this volume are written by distinguished scholars and will assist a deeper understanding of the hallowed artistic output of the Athonite monks down the centuries.