ABSTRACT
With a total of 250 illustrations, Venice Hellenic Institute Gr. 5 contains the only fully illustrated copy of the Greek Alexander Romance to have survived to the present day.1 Each illustration is accompanied by rubrics wriĴen in red ink, as well as Turkish notes that were added at some later date when the manuscript came into Turkish hands.2 Since Andreas Xyngopoulos first published the manuscript’s illustrations in 1966, the codex has been firmly connected with fourteenth-century Trebizond on the basis of the title given the emperor in the frontispiece illustration (Fig. 8.1).3 This Trapezuntine emperor, clearly the book’s patron, is in all
1 Only one other illustrated version of the Greek text survives. Oxford Bodleian Library Barocci 17 is a small book with 31 illustrations done in a summary and rough manner, and spaces for an additional 89 illustrations that were never carried out. The illustrations are published in I. HuĴer, Corpus der byzantinischen MiniaturenhandschriĞen II/2 Oxford, Bodleian Library (StuĴgart, 1978), 33-6, 116-23. The author wishes to thank Deree College – the American College of Greece – for providing funds for reproductions.
