Persia and the Classical World
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Advance Book Information Frankfurt 2019 ADVANCE BOOK INFORMATION Persia and the Classical World A comprehensive survey of Persia’s encounters, cultural exchanges, and economic entanglements with the classical world across more than eleven centuries The ancient Greeks viewed the Persian Empire, which reached from the borders of Greece to India, as a vastly wealthy and powerful rival, and often as an existential threat. When the Macedonian king Alexander the Great finally defeated the Persians in 331 BCE, Greek culture spread throughout the Near East, but Persian dynasties soon reestablished themselves. The rise of the Roman Empire as a world power quickly brought it, too, into conflict with Persia. Conceived to accompany a major international loan exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, this ambitious and deeply researched volume will trace the interactions and influences between Persia and the classical world during three major phases of the former’s evolution: the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550–330 BCE), the Parthian Empire (247 BCE–AD 224), and the Sasanian Empire (AD 224–651). • Explores the artistic, political, intellectual, and religious relations between Persia, Greece, and Rome from 550 BCE to AD 651 • Features a wealthy of color illustrations and seventeen fascinating essays by established scholars of antiquity • Appeals to a range of audiences, including historians of ancient art and culture, archaeologists, and nonspecialists EDITORS Jeffrey Spier is senior curator in the Department of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Timothy Potts is director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Spier and Potts are coeditors of Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World (Getty Publications, 2018). 384 pages, 9 ½ x 11 ½ in. (24.1 x 29.2 cm) Exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty 269 color illustrations Museum at the Getty Villa from Hardcover, Retail price: US$65.00 March 17 to August 30, 2021 Spring 2021 Rights available: All languages except English www.getty.edu/publications Persia and the Classical World Table of Contents Director’s Foreword Lenders to the Exhibition Honorific and Scientific Committees Introduction – Timothy Potts and Jeffrey Spier Part I: The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) Map The Medes – Wouter Henkelman The Achaemenid Empire – Robert Rollinger The Greco-Persian Wars: Image, Effect, and Afterlife – Margaret Miller Impact of Empire? The Greco-Persian Middle Ground of Anatolia – Jeffrey Spier and Nicholas Cahill Persian Art in the Mediterranean – Margaret Cool Root Persians on Cyprus? – Antigoni Zournatzi 60 catalogue entries Part II: The Parthian Empire (247 BCE–AD 224) Map The Parthian Empire (247 BCE–AD 224) Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, and the History of Central Asia – Rolf Strootman and Stefan Hauser The Question of Parthian Art – Lucinda Dirven Religion – Albert de Jong Understanding Parthian Hellenism: Seleukia and Susa – Vito Messina and Miguel John Versluys 35 catalogue entries Part III: The Sasanian Empire (AD 224–651) Map The Sasanian Empire – Rahim Shayegan Visualizing Kingship between Tradition and Innovation – Matthew Canepa Rome and Persia: Entangled Relations – Touraj Daryaee or Engelbert Winter Roman Perceptions of Persia – Rolf Michael Schneider The End of Antiquity 35 catalogue entries Chronological Table Bibliography List of Contributors Illustration Credits Index Total Estimated Word Count: 75,000 www.getty.edu/publications ADVANCE BOOK INFORMATION Touching Skin Why Medieval Users Rubbed, Touched, and Kissed Manuscripts On the cutting edge of scholarship, this book looks at the interactive and performative uses of medieval illuminated manuscripts as evidenced by specific traces of wear on their pages As literacy grew during the three centuries before the printing press, people learned not only how to read but also how to handle their manuscripts. Certain physical gestures that readers enacted with illuminated manuscripts— kissing or laying hands on sacred images and rubbing out the faces of the reviled—imparted a ritual significance to books. These sorts of book-centered ceremonies originated with priests, but they were soon imitated by secular authorities and other laypersons. In this groundbreaking study, the author treats many kinds of volumes, including service books for the clergy, prayer books for both religious and lay owners, and romances for courtiers. The presentation is organized around the locations in which authority figures demonstrated the use of these various types of books: altar, shrine, court, cloister, nave, and guildhall. While recent studies examine the development of style in illuminated manuscripts and their role in legitimizing authority—with art historians consistently looking beyond images they consider “damaged” to focus on these other concerns—none has examined the physical traces of wear as evidence of how readers interacted with their books. The author is virtually alone in analyzing such effects on medieval manuscripts. As such, her research contributes significantly to not only the study of illuminated manuscripts, but to the history and anthropology of reading. And her research is especially fascinating in the context of the digital age, when a whole new set of gestures related to reading on screens has developed. AUTHOR Kathryn M. Rudy is senior lecturer in art history in the School of Art History, University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, and former curator of illuminated manuscripts at the Royal Library of The Netherlands. She is the author of Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books (Yale University Press, 2015). 328 pages, 8 ½ x 10 ½ in. (21.6 x 26.7 cm) 230 color and 80 b/w illustrations Hardcover, Retail price: US$79.95 Spring 2020 Rights available: All languages except English www.getty.edu/publications Touching Skin Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Altar: Priestly rituals conducted around the missal Chapter 2. Nave: Laypeople, their lips, and the osculatory target Chapter 3. Court: Animating the image during public readings Chapter 4. Convent: Reading aloud Chapter 5. Courthouse and Guildhall: Swearing an oath with an image Chapter 6. School: Books for children’s learning Chapter 7. Shrine: Libelli and the behavior of crowds Conclusions Total Estimated Word Count: 77,600 www.getty.edu/publications ADVANCE BOOK INFORMATION Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta The dazzling opus of master calligrapher Georg Bocskay and Europe’s last great manuscript illuminator, Joris Hoefnagel, this exquisite facsimile returns to print in a second edition with beautiful new photography Between 1561 and 1562, Georg Bocskay, imperial secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, created the Mira calligraphiae monumenta as a demonstration of his preeminence among scribes. Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts in his codex, which nearly thirty years later were further embellished with exquisite illustrations of flora and fauna by the artist Joris Hoefnagel. This book, now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, is reproduced here in complete facsimile form, accompanied by a full description of the manuscript; a discussion of the work’s patron, Emperor Rudolf II (Ferdinand I’s grandson), and his cultural milieu; biographies of Hoefnagel and Bocskay; and an analysis of the manuscript’s role in the two contributors’ careers. Seeking to demonstrate the superiority of his illustrations over Bocskay’s calligraphic prowess, Hoefnagel employed every resource of illusionism, hue, and form in a rich, striking, and witty scheme. Brilliantly colored and executed illustrations of a variety of objects and creatures—flowers, fruit, butterflies, caterpillars, monsters, and masks— stand in counterpoint to the masterful lettering and elaborate on the nature of the universe, the word of God, and the glory of the Holy Roman Emperor. • Lavish critical reception, including The Los Angeles Times’s praise of the work as “the ultimate book-lover’s gift book,” spurred four printings of the book, which sold out in 2011. • Stunning renderings of flora, fauna, fruit, and decorative “grotesques” offer a feast for the eyes. • Of consuming interest to scholars, the book will also be a source of inspiration to graphic designers, typographers, practicing calligraphers, and devotees of the art of the book. AUTHORS Lee Hendrix is the former senior curator and head of the Department of Drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Thea Vignau-Wilberg is the former curator of Netherlandish prints and drawings at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. She is the author of Joris and Jacob Hoefnagel: Art and Science around 1600 (Hatje Cantz, 2017). 424 pages, 5 ½ x 7 ½ in. (14 x 19 cm) 183 color and 3 b/w illustrations Hardcover with slipcase, Retail price: US$100.00 Fall 2020 Rights available: All languages except English www.getty.edu/publications Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta Table of Contents Foreword –Timothy Potts Preface – Thomas Kren Mira calligraphiae monumenta: An Overview – Lee Hendrix Georg Bocskay, the Calligrapher – Thea Vignau-ilberg The Writing Model Book – Lee Hendrix The Constructued Alphabet – Thea Vignau-Wilberg Codicological Description of the Manuscript – Prepared with the assistance of Linda Ogden and Nancy Turner Total Estimated Word Count: 36,000 [Street Address], [City], [State][Postal Code] www.getty.edu/publications ADVANCE BOOK INFORMATION Under the Skin The Art of Anatomy Explores the history of anatomical illustration from the Renaissance to modern times, drawing on the rich collection of rare books and prints