ABSTRACT

The two manuscripts under examination here are well known, but their strategies for visualizing history are poorly understood. Owing to its unambiguous Bulgarian identity, the Vatican Manasses manuscript (Vat. slav. 2) has evaded the infatuation of Byzantinists. In contrast, the Sicilian illustrated Skylitzes manuscript (now housed in Madrid, B.N. Vitr. 26-2) has been embraced at times by both scholars and popular imagination as an authentic vision of Byzantium. Mined by designers of book jackets for scenes of life in Byzantium, scholars have oĞen treated Skylitzes’ images as eyewitness snapshots of Byzantine life rather than as sophisticated political and cultural constructs (See Fig. 12.1.) Though both manuscripts engaged in the visualization of Byzantine history and drew to an extent on Byzantine artistic forms, each created a partisan and outlandish vision of Byzantium.