Francine Nicholson wrote:
>...What makes you think Byzantine monks in particular went there, beyond the
similarity in artistic style....
Indeed.
Quite a bit out of my baliwick, but i understand that the connection between
"Byzantine" (or perhaps more properly "Early Christian") painting (manuscript
and otherwise--the "otherwise" monuments being almost
entirely lost) and the (comparatively) few surviving illuminated Irish
mss is entirely iconographic in nature, rather than "stylistic" (even using
that quite elastic term in its most generous sense).
As such, one need not posit the existence of Byzantine *monks* in Ireland to
explain the connection, only some much more likely vectors such as
Byz. mss (since lost, i assume); or simply the existence of some particularly
itchy-footed clerics among the notoriously peripetetic Irish who might have
visited the East and brought back the memory (and/or some "model books") of
what they had seen in those exotic places regions
nearer the Center of the world.
Indeed, speaking theorectically (and in general blisfully devoid of the pesky
encombrances generated by actual knowledge of the subject), my own preference
would be for the latter rather than the former hypothesis: if the Irish
illuminator had before his eyes an actual Byz. ms, we might indeed expect to
find some more concrete traces of its presumably quite
sophisticated "style" than we do.
I await correction, if not chastisement.
Pippin?
Best from here,
Christopher
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