Of the precious codex of Smyrna, reduced to ashes in the fire that devastated the city in 1922 and witness, among other works, of the Physiologus, the author reconstructs the surviving iconographic material (dating to the 14th century) by publishing 89 photographs of the miniatures, taken between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and now found in various archives around the world. The careful study of the manuscript, which constitutes the only illuminated oriental testimony of the Physiologus, explains the importance of such a recovery for the history of both Byzantine illumination and the naturalistic and exegetical knowledge of the Eastern Middle Ages. The miniatures reproduced here in fact depict the physical nature of the animals described in the text, as well as the moral hermeneia that follows from the parallel established between the behaviors of animals and those of men, interpreted in the light of the Scriptures. The Physiologist's investigation of zoological sources places emphasis on naturalistic treatises and other works of antiquity. Other depictions were instead introduced into the illuminated cycle from different iconographic sources, probably in the Palaeologan era. - [Abstract]

128 pp., 54 pp. of plates, illustrations, bibliography, index.

Language: Italian

ISBN: 88-87027-24-2; LC: PA4273.P9; OCLC: 40624656