Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538) 14–15 / 2015 Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538)* Elina N. Dobrynina The two manuscripts discussed in this paper were examined for a special study, the results of which were published in 20091 and subsequently included in the Corpus of Greek Illuminated Manuscripts.2 They are: the Homilies of Gregory the Theologian at the Moscow Historical Museum, GIM Syn. gr. 63 (Vlad. 144) and the Four Gospels at the Austrian National Library, Wien, ÖNB Theol. gr. 240. The purpose of this research was to reveal the decoration of both manuscripts as the work of one and the same artist, conditionally referred to as the ‘Master of the Arabesque Style’, and to date the manuscripts to the 940s. Attribution was based solely on analysis of the artistic material, since there are no other factors allowing us to compare the manuscripts: the content and format are different, the text was copied by different scribes and there are no common codicological features.3 The only characteristic that applies equally to both manuscripts is the exceptionally high quality of preparation (both in treatment of the parchment and the composition of materials used). The Viennese and Synodal manuscripts are unique examples of tenth-century Byzantine book illustration, remarkable for the unusual ornamental style created from the artist’s imagination on the basis of Sasanian and arabesque motifs. A distinguishing feature of this style is the large medallions involving a complex palmette motif with details painted in ine gold lines, while the same gold pattern covers the rich dark* This article is written on the basis of a paper presented at ‘Modern Problems of Archaeography’, the All-Russian International Conference dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library (St. Petersburg, 21–24 October 2014). 1 Dobrynina 2009. 2 Dobrynina 2013. 3 The hand was identiied as belonging to the circle of scribe Ephraem by Kavrus 1983 and Fonkitch, Polyakov 1993: 60, no. 144. 365 E. N. Dobrynina blue or light-green backgrounds. The Sasanian palmette motif is repeated in various combinations. The ornamental style created by this artist is unique in the history of the Byzantine manuscript book, only existing for a short period and evidently corresponding to the activity of this one illuminator; the style was not subject to further development, possibly due to the dificulty of reproduction without manuscript models. Both manuscripts were provisionally dated to the second quarter of the tenth century, probably the 940s, due to various circumstantial factors. The manuscript Berlin, Phillipps 1538,4 which contains a Treatise on Horse Medicine (Hippiatrika), was taken as one example of such circumstantial evidence. Although also a priceless source for the history of book art in the mid-tenth century, the Berlin manuscript has mainly attracted the attention of scholars as the oldest copy of a treatise on equine medicine, i.e. in its textological aspect. For this reason the manuscript has appeared in many publications over the last century.5 However, its artistic decoration, exceptional in both volume and quality, has not yet received the elucidation it merits in academic studies.6 This large-format manuscript with almost square leaves of 296 x 269 mm contains 394 folios, each adorned with elements of artistic ornamentation – headpieces, initials, dividers and tailpieces, moreover on both sides.7 Since they decorate literally every paragraph of the book, a single folio may include several headpieces and initials. But the codex is not only distinguished by profuse artistic decoration (few manuscripts can compare), but also because it contains examples of all the ornamental styles popular at this period. The manuscript serves as a unique ‘reference work’ on Byzantine book decoration and plays a key role in the attribution of mid-tenth century illuminated manuscripts. It has long deserved a monograph study, on a par with the Bible of Leo the Patrician, Vat. Reg. gr. 1, an equally important monument of Byzantine book art from the turn of the ninth to early tenth centuries.8 Production of the Phillipps 1538 relates to a particular period in the tenth century. It was shown as long ago as 1900, in the study by Cohn,9 that work on compiling 4 Kirchner 1926: 16–17, Abb. 20, Taf. 3; Tikkanen 1933: 94, Anm. I, 103, 164; Galavaris 1989: 334–335, ig. 2; Weitzmann 1996: 16–18, Abb. 104–112, Addenda: 28; Froehner 1937; Irigoin 1959: 180; Doyen-Higuet 1984: 115. 5 Oder, Hoppe 1924: V–VI (Edition nach dem Berol. Phill. 1538, Sigel B: VII–VIII, 1–464, am Rand der Seitenumlauf der Hs.); McCabe 2007: 23–27 (The B Recension) und passim, colour plates 3–5. 6 Grabar 1951: 53–55, ig. 19. 7 Since I was only able to study the manuscript in digitised form in the library reading room, all codicological data is taken from a description on the following site: : http://beta.teuchos.uni-hamburg. de/TeuchosWebUI/manuscripts/tx-container-manuscripts.action.. 8 Canart 2011. 9 Cohn 1900: 158. See also: Weitzmann 1996: 16–18, Irigoin 1959: 180. To support this hy- 366 Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538) this voluminous collection with 132 chapters of citations from ancient authors on veterinary skills was commissioned by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, and thus limited to the period of his rule from 945 to 959. As soon as Weitzmann’s monograph on Byzantine book art of the ninth to tenth centuries was published in 1935, this manuscript was made known to art historians by three plates with black-and-white reproductions of the twelve headpieces.10 Notably, this was the only manuscript from a period of 200 years that the monograph’s author accompanied with such a large number of illustrations to demonstrate its stylistic diversity. Returning to my attribution of the manuscripts to the ‘Master of the Arabesque Style’, it should be emphasised that for a comparative analysis of artistic decoration I was obliged to use these same reproductions, which in turn led to a rather oversimpliied conclusion on the secondary nature of decoration in the Berlin manuscript, as related to the Gospels at Vienna and the Synodal Homilies of Gregory the Theologian.11 I have now been granted an opportunity to examine colour reproductions of all the Berlin manuscript folios, and would like to amend this conclusion. It transpired that many of the Berlin codex folios, mainly those in the second half, were actually decorated by the same artist as the Vienna and Synodal manuscripts, and not according to common manuscript models (Fig. 1–2). The pattern of the ornament and individual techniques of their execution are suficiently similar to establish that decoration of the manuscripts is the work of a single hand. Ornamentation with the motif of a miniature lower in medallions framed by two rows of gold palmettes with a tapered tip is replicated to the inest detail. Also characteristic is the sequence of backgrounds: a rich dark-blue colour and light green with a nuance of jade. This shade of green used in all three manuscripts can be included among the speciic features of the master’s painting technique. The type of ornamentation and the green pigment are unknown in other Greek manuscripts of this period. Decoration by this artist can be distinguished by the jade tone of the green paint, which gives his work a vivid singularity and serves as a physical characteristic of his painting technique (Fig. 3). Evidently this paint had special ingredients, or most pothesis L. Cohn cited a reference to the parchment manuscript Hippiatrika, discovered by him in the Catalogue of the 16th c. at the Emperor Mikhail Kantakuzin Library in Constantinople. This reference includes the following speciication: “πρὸς τὸν αὐτὸν κωνσταντῖνου πορφυρογέννητον βασιλέα”. Hence the Berlin manuscript is the older copy of this version of the Hippiatrika, compilation of which derives from the period ruled by Emperor Constantine VII, together with “The Natural History of Animals” and a compendium on medicine by Theophanes Nonnos. Work on production of the entire complex of books, including the richly decorated Berlin copy of Hippiatrika can be dated to this Emperor’s rule, i.e. prior to 959. 10 Weitzmann 1996: 16–18. 11 “Certain details of the decoration coincide to such an extent that clearly one and the same manuscript models were used” (Dobrynina 2013: 150). 367 E. N. Dobrynina probably there were certain nuances in the composition, which he may have mixed himself. This is corroborated not only by the unusual shade, but also by identical crumbling of the green pigment in all three manuscripts, while other, surrounding pigments have reacted differently to the test of time.12 Corner decorations in the form of a trefoil with an exaggeratedly elongated and spirally coiled crest should be added to the list of distinguishing features in this master’s work (Fig. 4). Such intricate shapes emanate either from rectangular brackets or from a double fretted leaf motif and rest on crossbars, occasionally with scroll-like ends. Details of the headpieces could be from one and the same manuscript, they are so similar: the only variation is in the colour of paint used for the different elements. The hand of a single master is indicated by the manner of execution of gold contours surrounding the spiral crests, and slightly curved dashes on their sharp outlines, reminiscent of ‘tails’ on letters in the script. The artist’s singular style is also apparent from the rendition of initials in the three manuscripts under examination. These are the so-called ‘compass’ initials adorned by fantastic motifs shaped like Chinese parasols, with several motifs capped by a sequence of dots and dashes. The technique enlivens the background around the central image or creates the effect of a subtle mist. Absolutely exact repetition of a pattern or motif is rarely encountered and we clearly see the master’s effort to create new combinations of patterns and his brilliant mastery of the endless multiplication of patterns (Fig. 5). For this artist the very idea of reproducing a set combination of elements, however successful, was apparently inadmissible, particularly for one and the same manuscript. In this respect his style differs from Byzantine book decoration, which for centuries used precisely the same combinations. Our master was evidently intrigued by the unending process of this search for a new schema, like a continually changing kaleidoscope. A common feature that remains constant is the decorative structure based on a sequence of large gold-ground medallions, the space between them illed with ine gold tracery on a pale-green or dark-blue background. The assumption that one artist devised the three manuscripts under scrutiny brings us to the following conclusions: The Vienna Gospels, Wien, Theol. gr. 240, which apart from the ornamental headpieces contain four miniatures with full-igure images of the Evangelists, should be classed among manuscripts from the Imperial scriptorium and dated to the period from 945 to 959.13 12 Green paint of a similar shade can be seen in the miniatures of the Old Russian Gospels-Aprakos (Fyodorovskoye Gospels) from the irst half of the 14th c. This manuscript underwent restoration at the Art Grabar Conservation Centre, where pigment analyses established that the paint was based on atacamite. 13 Previously a different date was assumed: circa 1000 or the third quarter of the 10th c.: Belting H., Cavallo 1979: 40, Taf. 61c; Hunger, Lackner 1992: 134–136; second half of the 10th 368 Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538) We broaden our perception of production from the Imperial scriptorium in the period ruled by Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos by the addition of the Vienna Gospels and the Synodal Homilies of Gregory the Theologian, and hence also the two scribes of these manuscripts, who are not identiied as the scribe of the Treatise on Horse Medicine. The link revealed between these scribes and the Imperial scriptorium may in future provide the basis for new attributions, including those of manuscripts without illustration.14 With regard to the development of minuscule script, the Berlin manuscript is particularly interesting because the letters are written on ruled lines. In manuscripts of the mid-tenth century this phenomenon is quite rare. Another even later example is known, the GIM manuscript, Syn. gr. 60 (Vlad. 140) dating from 975, which originates from Asia Minor and not from the centre of Byzantine book culture.15 Obviously the scribe responsible for the Treatise on Horse Medicine was regarded as a distinguished calligrapher after receipt of such an important commission (he copied this sizeable work in its entirety), and the origin of his activities should be sought in the irst quarter of the century. The archaic characteristics found in the Berlin codex copy are in accordance with the illumination. A series of motifs which were actively employed at the turn of the ninth to tenth centuries but then fell into disuse make an unexpected reappearance in this manuscript. Several examples are listed below: The bead motif is seldom encountered and analogies can be found only in midninth century manuscripts, e.g. in the tail pieces of the GIM Four Gospels, Syn. gr. 399 (f. 1, 5v, 7, 102, 163v), or the frame of a lost miniature in the Four Gospels, RNB Gr. 34.16 In the RNB Profetologion, Gr. 51 (f. 22v, 24v, 31, 32v, 87v) this motif is found in textual dividers with similar leafy sprigs at the ends (Fig. 6). The motif of a double row of gold discs outlined by a blue-red contour is only known from headpieces in the Four Gospels of the late ninth to early tenth century at Tirana, ANA, Korcë 93, f. 13, 9317 (Fig. 7). Also among the ornamental motifs that were now falling into disuse is the very complicated pattern of semicircles painted along the contours of initials that decorated early, modestly embellished ninth-century manuscripts. At the turn of the century this ornamental pattern became coloured, with large red or green beads scattered over a light-coloured background at the base of initials, e.g. in the Homilies of Gregory the c.: Mazal 1981: 476–477, Kat. 377, Abb. 19, and the third quarter of the 10th c.: Weitzmann 1996: 16–18. 14 See on identiication of the hand of the scribe that produced the Treatise on Horse Medicine (a grandiose folio) in the miniature miscellany of Anacreontic poetry Vat. Barb. gr. 310: Wilson 1983: 143: “the handwriting and some features oft he ornament are identical in a collection of anacreontic verse by various authors (Barb. gr. 310).” 15 Dobrynina 2013: 170–176. 16 The miniature was placed between f. 274 and 275, judging by a trace of the paint layer on f. 275. 17 Džurova 2011: 107; Dobrynina forthcoming. 369 E. N. Dobrynina Theologian, GIM, Syn. gr. 57 (Vlad. 139),18 and in two other manuscripts from the irst third of the tenth century: Vat. gr. 411, f. 42v and Paris, BnF, Coisl. 48, f. 166v. The Berlin treatise presents a more sumptuous version of this decoration, with the use of gold. The appearance of a large number of patterns that originated from manuscripts of the preceding period can be compared to the deliberate collection of rarities no longer used on a regular basis. This can also be applied to the novelties, the newly created motifs and emerging styles. In this respect special mention should be made of the lily motif – the most important element of the ‘lower-petal’ style. It is already known that the earliest dated manuscript featuring this motif is the Four Gospels, Athens, EBE, cod. of 953. The Treatise on Horse Medicine from the same period also has diverse forms of the motif at an early, undeveloped stage: on a stalk, and with closed petals. This vestigial form soon developed into the polypetalous and intricate lily that would gain unprecedented popularity in book decoration, lasting to the end of the Byzantine Empire (Berlin, Phillipps 1538m, f. 14v, 393v). Another headpiece shows the same motif but in a very free rendition, where the upper petals of the lilies appear tousled by a gust of wind (Fig. 8). Clearly the ‘lower-petal’ style was not yet irmly established and artists still experiment with different versions, but such striking representations would not be used in future years to create canonical patterns of this popular decorative feature. Like the use of black pigment, they were excluded from the palette of Byzantine artists and only known to us from single manuscripts, e.g. in tables of the Gospel canons, RNB, Gr. 67.19 These cited examples are by no means a comprehensive study of illumination in the Berlin manuscript. The list of particularities observed in the Phillipps 1538 can be continued, since for unknown reasons it contains numerous elements created many years previously and assumed to be obsolete, together within innovations that were in some cases later abandoned. The Berlin manuscript should therefore be used as a reference for the attribution of manuscripts from the second half of the tenth century. Abbreviations ANA: Albanian National Archive, Tirana BnF: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris EBE: Η Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ελλάδος, Athens 18 19 Fol. 141v, 160v, 235v, 288v. Likhacheva 1977: Fig. 30–32. 370 Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538) REFERENCES Belting, Cavallo 1979: Belting, H. and G. Cavallo. Die Bibel des Niketas: Ein Werk der hцischen Buchkunst in Byzanz und sein antikes Vorbild. Wiesbaden, 1979. Canart 2011: La Bible du patrice Léon. Codex Reginensis Graecus 1. Commentaire codicologique, paléographique, philologique et artistique. Dir. de P. Canart. Città del Vaticano, 2011 (Studi e Testi 463). Cohn 1900: Cohn, L. “Bemerkungen zu Konstantinischen Sammelwerken.” BZ 9 (1900): 154–160. Dobrynina 2009: Dobrynina, E. N. “Two manuscripts by a “Master of the Arabesque Style” (Moscow, Syn. gr. 63 and Wien, Theol. gr. 240)” Chrysograph 3 (2009): 42–61. Dobrynina 2013: Dobrynina, E. N. 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Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Berlin 1935). Wilson 1983: Wilson, N. G. Scholars of Byzantium. London, 1983. About the author ... Elina N. Dobrynina is Senior Research Fellow at the State Institute of Art Studies and Head of the Department for the Research and Restoration of Parchment Manuscripts at the Grabar Art Conservation Centre in Moscow. She works on the history of Byzantine illuminated book, on codicology and palaeography of Greek manuscripts and on topics related to their restoration. 372