ABSTRACT
Few manuscripts offer such rich ground for an art-historical exploration as the Byzantine illustrated Octateuchs, with their pictorial cycle comprising over 350 miniatures. Six illustrated Byzantine Octateuchs are known.1 The eleventhcentury codex Laur. Plut. 5.38, which contains only six miniatures illustrating the text as far as Genesis 1:26, stands apart from the others where the illustration cycle covers the entire text of the eight Biblical books and, therefore, it will not be discussed extensively.2 In the remaining five Octateuchs the entire text of the eight Biblical books is illustrated. The earliest of these codices, Vat. gr. 747, is likewise dated to the eleventh century.3 Three manuscripts, Seraglio Library, cod. 8, Vat. gr. 746 and a codex formerly in the Evangelical School in Smyrna,
1 All illustrations of the six Byzantine Octateuchs were published by K. Weitzmann and M. Bernabò, The Byzantine Octateuchs (Princeton, 1999).
