Pinakes | Πίνακες

Résumé :

The illuminated Tetraevangelion, Moscow, State Historical Museum, Synod. gr. 519, comes from Mount Athos, where it was deposited in one of the monasteries in the early 13th century. The characteristics of the handwriting and the miniatures point to the 12th century being the time when the manuscript was created. Narrower datings have been suggested for the miniatures. All four quarters of the century have been put forward in this context. Yet not one of the hypotheses was accompanied by sufficiently extensive argumentation. The aim of the present publication is to establish more precisely the time when the miniatures were created, based upon an analysis of their iconography and style. Both these aspects of the manuscript have analogues among works from the first half of the 12th century, among which two groups can be identified very precisely, dating from the first and second quarters of the century respectively. Consequently, it is possible to conclude that the miniatures in question appeared at the cusp of those two periods, i.e., in the 1120s.