Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/672

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painted OD a parchment MS, and Vorro collectedieven busdred sucfi portraits of illustrioua men. (Th* por- traits of Vbe Evangelista in medieval MSS. result from this tradition.) None of these works remains and the only traces of the illumination a of antiquity are found in the following MS8. of the fourth and fifth centuries: (1) the "Vir«ir of the Vatican (Lat. 3225), written by a single hand, has fifty miniatures which appear to he the work of at least three different painters. These are small pictures bordered by colourwi hands (six of them fil! a whole page); some of them, especially in the "OeorKios", represent countiy landscapes the fresh- ness of which IS worthy of the text they illustrata. The background of buildings and temples recalls the paintings at Pompeii; (2) the " Iliad" of Milan (similar technic); (3) the Bible of Quedhnbijrif (Berlin), con- taining the most ancient Christian miniatures known; (4) the "Calendar" of Philocalus, composed in 364, the original of which, acquired by Peirese, has disap- peared, but the copies at Brussels, Vienna and the Barberini Library evidence a work of a purity thor- oughly antioue; the most curious portion is an illus- trated calendar in which each month is eymbolized by a scene of country life; this is a species of illustration of ancient origin which recurs very frequently in the miniatures of the Middle Ages.

II. Eastehn MiNiATUREB. — Eg'jpt.—The tradition of miniatures on rMipyrus was preserved till the Chris- tian era. On a Berlin papyrus (Emperor Frederick Museum) wefindapictureofChristcuringademoniao. In the Goleniscev collection there are sixteen leaves of a universal Coptic chronicle on papyrus, dated 392 and decorated witn miniatures in a very barbarous style, intended as illustrations of the text. In the margin are seen successively the months (women crovmed with flowers), the provinces of Asia (fortified gate- ways), the prophets, the kings of Rome, Lydia, Mace- donia, Roman emperors, and perhaps the Patriarch Theophilus presiding at the destruction of the Scra- peum. The author was a native monk and a complete stranger to Hellenic art. Syria and Afesopotamta. — TTie existence of Persian MSS. on parchment very rich

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with a decorative frame formed of zign^, curves, rainbows, etc. The Gospel canons are set m arcades

ornamented with flowers and birds. The scene of the Crucifixion is treated with an abundance of detail which is very rare at this period. The works of the Syro-Mesopotamian School seem to have missed the meaning of the Hciienic figures (figures in flowing

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figures), but relied mainly on the ornamental tradi- Itotis of the ancient Orient, The masterpiece of this school is the Syriac Evangeliary written m 586 at the Monastery of Zagba (i^sopotamia) by the monk Rabula (since the fifteenth century in the Laurentian Library, Florence). The miniatures arc real picturea

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draperies) of which they retained the tradition. On a Syriac evangeliary in the Boi^ian Museum (MSS. Syr., 14, f. k.) men and animals are painted in unreal colours and are bordered with black lines which give to the illuminationB the appearance of eloisonnfi enamels. The work, which is dated 1546, eoems to have been inspired by an older model.

Armenia.— The Armenian School of illuminating also belong to Syria. It is represented by the evan- geliary of Etschmiadzin (tenth century), the minia- tures of which are derived from a sixth-century model; the evangeliary of Queen Mike (Venice, Monastery of the Mechitarists, dated 902), and the evangeliary of To bin gen, dated U13. In ail these works the richneaa of the framework and the hieratic character of the human face are noteworthy, fl/ussufman Arl. — All the above characteristics carried to extremes arc found b the Mussulman schools of miniatures (Arabic, Turk- ish, and Persian MSS.); tbe oldest date only from tiie thirteenth century. Together with copies of the Koran, admirably illuminated with purely geotnetrical figures radiating symmetrically around a central imifi/like the design ofacarpet, there is found especially in Persia, B fruitful school of painters which did not fear to depict the human face. Nothing is more picturesque than the varied scenes intended to illustrate the books of chron- icles, legends, etc. Besides fantastic scenes ("Apoca- lypse of Mahomet", Paris, Bib. Nat., supp. Turk., 190) are found contemporary reproductions of scenes from real life which take us into the streets of Bagdad in the thirteenth century or permit us to follow an army or a caravan on the march ("Maq&mdt" of Hanrij Bib. Nat., Paris, supp. Arab.. 161S). Eastern artists, whether Christian or Mussulman, frequently portray their subjects on backgrounds of gold; in Persian MSS., however, are found attempts at land- scape backgrounds, several of which betray a Chinese influence.

III. BrzANTiNTi HiNiATTntBS. — The history of By- Bontine miniatures is yet to be written; it is impossible at present to determine its origin or to study its devel- opment. It seems more and more evident that Bysaa- tineart, far from bein^ an original creation, is no more than a prolonged survival of the Hellenic-oriental art of the fourth to the sixth centuries. The Greek monhl chai|^ with the illumination of MSS. never ceased to copy models, but, following the fashion ai\dtb!>>««:R>^