Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British Eyes: Papers from the Twenty-ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, King's College, London, March 1995

Ashgate
edited by Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys
ISBN: 0860786676
price: $79.95   hardcover

The papers in this volume derive from the 29th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. This was held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies at the University of London in March 1995, in order to complement the British Museum exhibition "Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture."
The symposium explored the ways in which British scholars, travelers, novelists, architects, churchmen and critics came into contact with Byzantium, and how they perceived what they saw. The present volume sets out some of the results of this enquiry. Byzantium is treated both as a source of influence on British culture as well as an "idea" which British culture constructed in different ways in different periods of history. To give some comparative context, attention is also paid to attitudes towards Byzantium in continental Europe.
Papers deal, among other topics, with the collecting of objects representative of Byzantine culture and with the changing appreciation of Byzantine manuscripts. They also include a series of case studies of individual historians and Byzantinists, and two deal in particular with Ruskin, who emerges as a perceptive 19th-century critic of Byzantine culture.
Through the Looking Glass is volume 7 in the series published by Ashgate/Variorum on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
Contents: Introduction, Robin Cormack; Section I: Encounters with Places: Byzantine "purple" and Ruskin's St Mark's, Venice, Michael Wheeler; Twin reflections of a Byzantine city: Monembasia as seen by Robert Weir Schultz and Sidney H. Barnsley in 1890, Haris Kalligas; The great palace dig: the Scottish perpective, Mary Whitby; The British contribution to fieldwork in Byzantine studies in the twentieth century: an introductory survey, David Winfield; Section II: Encounters with Books: The distorting mirror: reflections on the Queen Melisende Psalter, Barbara Zeitler; Byzantium perceived through illuminated manuscripts: now and then, John Lowden; From Britain to Byzantium: the study of Greek manuscripts, Patricia Easterling; Greek scribes in England: the evidence of episcopal registers, Jonathan Harris; Fair exchange? Old manuscripts for new printed books, Colin Davey; The Gospels of Jakov of Serres, the Family Brankovic and the Monastery of Saint Paul on Mount Athos, Zaga Gavrilovic; Section III: Interpreters: "A gentleman's book:" attitudes of Robert Curzon; Bury, Baynes and Toynbee, Averil Cameron; O.M. Dalton: "ploughing the Byzantine furrow," Christopher Entwistle; R.M. Dawkins and Byzantium, Peter Mackridge; Section IV: Other Perspectives: Du Cange and Byzantium, Jean-Michel Spieser; Pyotr Ivanovich Sevastianov and his activity in collecting Byzantine objects in Russia, Olga Etinhof; Section V: Encounters with the Imagied Byzantium: Simpering Byzantines, Grecian goldsmiths et al.: some appearances of Byzantium in English poetry, David Ricks; "As the actress said to the bishop. . . :" the portrayal of Byzantine women in English-language fiction, Liz James; Index.