Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium
  • Cited by 12
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
August 2016
Print publication year:
2016
Online ISBN:
9781316584989
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316584989
Subjects:
Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, History, European Studies
Information

Book description

This book explores the nexus of art, personal piety, and self-representation in the last centuries of Byzantium. Spanning the period from around 1100 to around 1450, it focuses upon the evidence of verse inscriptions, or epigrams, on works of art. Epigrammatic poetry, Professor Drpić argues, constitutes a critical - if largely neglected - source for reconstructing aesthetic and socio-cultural discourses that informed the making, use, and perception of art in the Byzantine world. Bringing together art-historical and literary modes of analysis, the book examines epigrams and other related texts alongside an array of objects, including icons, reliquaries, ecclesiastical textiles, mosaics, and entire church buildings. By attending to such diverse topics as devotional self-fashioning, the aesthetics of adornment, sacred giving, and the erotics of the icon, this study offers a penetrating and highly original account of Byzantine art and its place in Byzantine society and religious life.

Awards

Co-winner, 2017 Runciman Book Award, The Anglo-Hellenic League

Winner, 2019 Karen Gould Prize in Art History, The Medieval Academy of America

Reviews

'In this engaging and beautifully produced book, Drpić investigates the relationship between epigrammatic poetry and art in Byzantium, with a particular emphasis on patronage and personal devotional piety. … an impressive achievement. Drpić’s clarity and elegance of prose, confident grasp of the material, careful use of theoretical frameworks, encyclopedic knowledge of the bibliography, deep knowledge of the nuances of Byzantine Greek, and uncanny ability to see things that the rest of us have missed, all make this an exemplary study, useful to both students and scholars in Byzantine studies and beyond. After finishing Drpić’s book, one cannot help but feel very optimistic about the future of the field.'Vasileios Marinis, Byzantinische Zeitschrift

'This publication, which is based on the author’s Ph.D. thesis, marks a new level of intellectual engagement with epigrams written for donors who commissioned icons or new precious metal covers for older icons. … This is an important and very substantial book exploring the framing of Byzantine art by texts, and it offers some good insights into possible links between words and images.'Robin Cormack, The Burlington Magazine

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents
  • 1 - From composition to performance: epigrams in context
    pp 18-66
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • Export citation

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.