Of all the Old Testament books, the Book of Job remains acutely contemporary today. Written between the 6th and 3rd c. B.C., it deals with subjects such as the presence of evil in the world, the misery, the quest for justice, the faith, and the behavior of people when they face sudden twists and turns of life. It seems that the ancient text had been illustrated since the Early Christian period because of its fascinating novel-like narrative style. In her own study on the Book of Job, Stella Papadaki-Oekland probes into all the Byzantine illuminated manuscripts of the illustrated Greek text. The number of miniature illustrations included in these fifteen manuscripts, dating from the 9th to the 16th century, comes to more than 1800 of which 2/3 of the about 380 illustrated herein are previously unpublished manuscript images.The book is an unabridged version with minor changes of Papadaki-Oekland's Inaugural Dissertation at Heidelberg University (1979) and is published posthumously by her daughters, Helen-Aina and Astrid-Zoe -in homage to Byzantine Art. The fifteen Byzantine Illuminated Manuscript Illustrations of the Book of Job studied, illustrated and discussed are: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome: cod. Vat. gr. 749; cod. Vat. gr. 751; cod. Vat. gr. 1231 and cod. Vat. Pal. gr.230 - The Monastery of St. John the Theologian, Isle of Patmos: cod. Patmos 171 - Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venezia: cod. Marc. gr. 538 - Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai, Egypt: cod. Siena 3 - Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and All Palestine, Jerusalem: MS. Taphou 5 - Monastery of Vatopedi, Mount Athos: Vatopedi 590 - Monastery Magisti (Great) Lavra, Mount Athos: Lavra B100 - Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens: MS. 62 - Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS. Barocci 201 and MS. Laud gr. 86 - Bibliothegue nationale de France, Paris: MS. gr. 134 and MS. gr. 135 - National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg: MS gr. 382 (former folio of Taphou 5) The study of the Septuagint Book of Job in Byzantine tradition include comparative analysis of the interrelationship of the individual miniature cycles, their general arrangement and artistic character, the origin and development as well as its contents and significance in the literary and popular tradition. Finally, the six Comparative Tables presented at the end of the volume provide the reader for the first time a complete cross reference interrelationship between the individual 1800 images of the 15 manuscripts and Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's English translation of the Septuagint Book of Job passages. Further examples of images discussed herein of early Christian Job representations include: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome, MS.Reg.gr.1 - known as the Bible of Queen Christina of Sweden; Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris, MS gr. 510, MS syr. 341-the Syriac Bible and MS.gr. 923- Sacra Parallela; Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Naples, Coptic MS IB 18, Catacomb of the Via Latina, Rome and the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Basilica di San Pietro, Rome. Furthermore, the book is of invaluable importance due to its methodological approach. As the leading art historian Hans Belting points out, the study of Stella Papadaki-Oekland calls in question Kurt Weitzmann's rigid theory about the process of the Byzantine illuminated manuscripts production. There's no doubt that, even though it was written a lot of years ago, this remains the most complete and comprehensive study about the Book of Job in Byzantine art

A collection of Ioannis Spatharkis' influential papers, some published here for the first time, on illuminated manuscripts from the era of Iconoclasm and the Macedonian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries through to the Palaeogian period in the 14th and 15th centuries. Other papers examine iconographical themes and the wall paintings of Crete.

Recent discussions on Byzantine art have been dominated by the question of representing realia. Among these, however, the way works of art reflect the daily life of women have not received much space or attention. The present book studies various images representing women's status and her performative tasks, and their significance from the fourth century to the fall of the Empire, through analysis of archaeological evidence and works of art. It addresses a wide range of questions, some pertaining both to pictorial traditions and to their late antique antecedents, others peculiar to changing and evolving Byzantine culture and mentality. The first chapter deals with the imagery of childbearing, starting with conception and concluding with the care given to the new born and the mother. The second chapter investigates motherhood imagery (breastfeeding, child care, and child-mother intimacy) and the portrayal of women as caretakers and managers of the household (preparing food, bringing water, carding and weaving, or working side by side with their husbands). The third chapter is dedicated to representations of women holding positions outside the house: midwives, maidservants, wet nurses, and mourners. Images of women engaged in disreputable occupations-dancers, musicians, prostitutes and courtesans - complete this chapter. The fourth chapter discusses images of women portrayed in the metaphorical margins - looking out from the gynaikon (the women's apartments), or at their private toilette; it also deals with representations of women who stray from the societal mainstream - concubines; adulteresses, women consenting to sexual acts or being coerced into them - considered symbolically as belonging to the margins of society. The book concludes with a discussion of the degree to which the visual material reliably reflects reality and changing attitudes toward women between Late Antiquity and late Byzantium; and further, to what extent it reveals embedded perceptions and conceptions of women, constructed by canonic regulations and imperial law, popular beliefs and accepted customs. The book aims to lift a veil from known and less known works of art and to present the rarely described picture of the daily life of women in Byzantine art over a very wide chronological span of time, in an effort to expand our knowledge of women in Byzantium and their realia.

This volume offers an overview of Byzantine manuscript illustration, a central branch of Byzantine art and culture. Just like written texts, illustrations bear witness to Byzantine material culture, imperial ideology and religious beliefs, as well as to the development and spread of Byzantine art. In this sense illustrated books reflect the society that produced and used them. Being portable, they could serve as diplomatic gifts or could be acquired by foreigners. In such cases they became “emissaries” of Byzantine art and culture in Western Europe and the Arabic world. The volume provides for the first time a comprehensive overview of the material, divided by text categories, including both secular and religious manuscripts, and analyses which texts were illustrated in Byzantium, and how. Contributors are Justine M. Andrews, Leslie Brubaker, Annemarie W. Carr, Elina Dobrynina, Maria Evangelatou, Maria Laura Tomea Gavazzoli, Markos Giannoulis, Cecily Hennessy, Ioli Kalavrezou, Maja Kominko, Sofia Kotzabassi, Stavros Lazaris, Kallirroe Linardou, Vasileios Marinis, Kathleen Maxwell, Georgi R. Parpulov, Nancy P. Ševčenko, Jean-Michel Spieser, Mika Takiguchi, Courtney Tomaselli, Marina Toumpouri, Nicolette S. Trahoulia, Vasiliki Tsamakda, and Elisabeth Yota.