Description
Book SynopsisThe central theme of the articles reproduced in these two volumes is the role of the visual arts and architecture in the cultural interaction between medieval societies, Christian and Muslim, in the eastern Mediterranean. Visual forms of production and communication amongst Christian communities themselves, and between Christian and Muslim, are discussed within their specific social and political contexts. Placing the emphasis on areas which passed between Christian and Muslim raises questions of the formation of identities as well as the relationship of the periphery to the centre.
Focusing on the areas of Egypt, Syria and Palestine in relation to Byzantium, Islam, and the West provides a framework for consideration of particular issues, especially the identity of particular communities. The core of the work considers the period between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, when these areas were at the centre of eastern Mediterranean politics, and seeks to interpret little known evidence in the light of political and cultural circumstances with an interdisciplinary approach as its starting noint.
Vol. I features papers on the legacy of Byzantine art, and the medieval Christian art of Egypt. Vol. II covers the Christian art of Medieval Syria, and the art of the Crusader states.
Table of ContentsPreface
Christian Art in Medieval Syria: Cultural Transmission: Illustrated Biblical Manuscripts from the Medieval Eastern Christian and Arab Worlds
The Syriac Buchanan Bible in Cambridge: Book Illumination in Syria, Cilicia and Jerusalem of the later Twelfth Century
A Woman's Prayer to St. Sergios in Latin Syria: Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Icon at Mount Sinai
Eternal Light and Life: A Thirteenth-Century Icon from the Monastery of the Syrians, Egypt, and the Jerusalem Pascal Liturgy
Manuscript Production by Christians in 13th-14th Century Greater Syria and Mesopotamia and Related Areas
Art & Architecture of the Period of the Crusades: Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, and Crusader Wallpainting of the mid-Twelfth Century
Art and Colonialism: The Mosaics of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Problem of 'Crusader' Art
Artistic and Cultural Inter-Relations between the Christian Communities at the Holy Sepulchre in the 12th Century
Excommunicate Generatione: Christian Imagery of Mission and Conversion of the Muslim Other between the First Crusade and the Early Fourteenth Century
Manuscript Collection: Introducing the Catalogue, in Progress, of the Illustrated Manuscripts in the Coptic Museum, Old Cairo
Additional Notes
Index
