A Book of Psalms from Eleventh-century Byzantium

Book excerpt: "This collection of essays offers new and deeper perspectives on a relatively little-studied manuscript of the Greek Psalter at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, codex Vaticanus graecus 752. As the title suggests, the perspective of the editors is an inter-disciplinary one. Thus, the volume covers three broad areas: the material aspects concerning the manuscript, the textual contents consisting of Psalms and their catena commentary, and the over two hundred images that illustrate the psalms. Barbara Crostini has been mainly responsible for Parts I-II, and Glenn Peers for Part III, and the writing of this introduction follows this basic division of tasks. Ultimately, however, the editors would like to see these parts not as divided, but as mutually integrated, each providing clues to the major unresolved issues of provenance and production of this codex. Thus, it is capturing the complexity of the interrelationship between these elements in the creation and use of the manuscript that remains our ideal aim.Consider Vat. gr. 752 as a particular edition of the sacred page. As such, it came about and first lived in a specific context. Grasping this reality, though a past and necessarily elusive one, is surely the historian's task,and his/her attempt at doing so is both limited and sharpened by the tools at his/her disposal. The first part of this volume is an attempt to address this historical context."--