Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium

This book centers on the copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus produced in Constantinople around 880 for the emperor Basil I as a gift from the patriarch Photios. The manuscript includes forty-six full page miniatures most of which do not directly illustrate the text they accompany but instead provide a visual commentary. Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium deals with how such communication worked and examines the types of messages that pictures could convey in ninth-century Byzantium.