Byzantine painting treatises: the case of Codex Panteleimoniensis 259

Abstract

This article aims to examine the material of a codex entitled Hermeneia of the Painters. The manuscript in question constitutes a copy of an esteemed constitutio textus of late byzantine period regarding the descriptions of Saint’s physiognomy along with quotations from their dicta and an entry of verses and epigrams related to biblical events. As I am intended to prove, byzantine painting manuals were not just a collection of technical and iconographical advises, like the post-byzantine ones, but mainly a corpus of theoretical knowledge necessary for artists’ nurture.