The Byzantine Script and the Aesthetics of Byzantine Manuscripts Origin The byzantine script is not an autonomous system of writing, but constitutes an evolved form of writing by using the common alphabet that the ancient Greeks used. Specifically, the roots of Byzantine script go far back as the Militos alphabet, which in the year 403/402 BC overtook all other local Greek alphabets and was adopted in ancient Athens as the common way of writing. The Byzantine script is the advanced system of writing of a thousand-year civilization, from the founding of Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by the emperor Constantine the Great in 330 AD up until the fall to the Ottoman Turks in the year 1453. In its heyday the Byzantine Empire extends across significant regions of Europe, Asia and North Africa. Main characteristic of Byzantine culture is the commitment to Christianity and Greek culture. The need for communication between the various Christianized populations leads to the spread of the Koine Hellenistic language and the use of the Greek alphabet in the Byzantine style of writing. From the evolution of the Byzantine script, the modern Greek writing system arose, in which the upper case letters are generally modeled on the letter shapes of ancient Greek inscriptions, while the lower case letters are based on the tradition of Byzantine minuscule handwriting. Forms and Kinds The Byzantine script has two forms: 1) the majuscule (uncial) script, a continuation of the classical way of writing in ancient scribes, characterized by the harmony and 1 symmetry of the carved letters as in at individual artistic creations through the constant flow of words, that were not, at the time, separated; and 2) the minuscule script, a new form of writing that started in the 9th century AD in documents of varying content and codices from the copying centers of the Byzantine empire, mostly the large copying center of the Studium monastery in Constantinople. A. Majuscule Byzantine script: The majuscule (uncial) script is the only form of Greek writing used until the middle of the Middle Ages. It has the characteristic geometric form of the ancient epigraphic Greek script that survived the first centuries of Christianity through carved Byzantine scribes, but also through hand-written books (codices) and was maintained for the titles and the initial letters of the manuscripts. It is the script of the papyri of the Hellenistic period, meaning the period after the death of Alexander the Great, when, within the vast borders of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the conquered areas, the intellectual interest and demand for copies in order to study older texts of the classical Greek antiquity. The symmetrical majuscule script of the 2nd century AD shows a light mobility with an elongation of the letters and a tendency for connecting some points of them (bachhyleidia uncial script). At the same time, a rounded version of Roman majuscule script is presented, that will effect the form of the letters, as can be seen by the formation of the letters E and Ω. Between the 2nd and 3rd century the writing of the Gospels, the holy texts of Christianity, in Greek, and the large demand of liturgical books from Christian churches formed a new manner of majuscule script, more eccentric, painting style characters with light shading in the inscribing of the letters, the Biblical majuscule script. This script does not ignore other scripts of the time, such as the Coptic script, the script of the Copts in Egypt, and appears in manuscripts from the Patriarchy of Alexandria. The Coptic script has characteristic top spikes with a large width and their influence in majuscule biblical script is evident in various books that contain excerpts from the Gospels (Evangelistaria). The most flamboyant, artistic script will appear in 2 the 6th century in luxurious Byzantine manuscripts with gold or silver letters on purple dyed parchments. From the 4th to the 9th century, the majuscule script took on a new style, due to the large demand for manuscripts of bureaucratic texts for the growing Byzantine Empire, at first in Latin and later in Greek. The need to reduce writing time and the increase in writing speed in order to produce more letters by pressing the pen on the writing material forced the letters to connect and thus, create a new kinetic for of letters, the Byzantine slanted form (episesurmeni) of the majuscule script, that was beneficial for faster writing of everyday manuscripts and well known from the Alexandrian era. The majuscule form will continue to be used in, mostly liturgical, books up to the 12th century, even though Byzantine scripts underwent a great transformation in the 9th century with the appearance of the miniscule form. B. Miniscule Byzantine script: The miniscule script is the type of Byzantine script that appeared in the 9th century AD and prevailed as the common script for the next centuries in all the empire's regions; the evolution of this script also helps to form modern Greek letters. The 9th century has been called the “century of Byzantine Humanism”, with the turn towards ancient Greek standards and the copying of manuscripts of ancient Greek writers. The large bibliographical workshop of the Studium Monastery in Constantinople established a new form of writing, the “studetic” script, that presents with rounded, cursive formation of the letters from large to small, decorated with accents, scribed with a slant to the left and with a strict line placement. The accents (tone), the breathing signs and the punctuation, which had already appeared in the Hellenistic period at the end of the 2nd century BC to facilitate the pronunciation of Greek words for the foreign users of the Greek language, and also a 3 large number of ligatures (basic ligatures hold for the script in general, while unique ligatures apply to specific letter combinations), now routinely used in the new type of Byzantine writing and gradually led to the separation of words. With the communication between monasteries, other workshops in Syria, Jerusalem and Mount Sinai cultivated similar forms of writing. Well known Byzantine intellectuals created copying workshops that gradually transformed the majuscule script into the miniscule. A mixed form of capital letters and small ones will prevail until the mid-11th century AD. It will become the standard for book writing, either with the form of the upright cursive writing or with cursive slanted writing. The miniscule script developed up to the 13th century in groups of new, calligraphic forms, such as the letters formed as pearls on a string, the margaritaroplexti style, the curly style (bouletee), the writing in a formation as if on a ivy leaf, the “assos – pika” style, the small, hastily-written and gathered together letters of the “kolivogrammata” style, the uneven in height and distance letters of the “anissostrogili” style (uneven and rounded form). In the last two centuries of the Byzantine Empire, the script is transformed into a wide array of styles that mirror the personal style of the manuscript transcriber, which indicates the instability and anxiousness for the upcoming decline and fall of the Byzantine state, with the exception of religious manuscripts, which retain their stable and clear script. However, the calligraphy schools of the 15th century will improve their form, in order to be competitive, and will apply the “philological script of the 15th century”, especially for transcribing classical texts that were in high demand from the West; soon after, the first typographical elements will come to prominence. Byzantine Manuscripts: Types of Books, Tools and Writing Materials, Places of Production Byzantine manuscripts were written in two types of books, in scrolls (ilitaria) that were popular among ancient Greeks and Romans, and codices. The ilitaria were 4 cylinders, initially made of papyrus leaves, a plant that grew in the Nile valley and various parts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine; it quickly became a popular writing material in many civilized nations through the expeditions of Alexander the Great. The text in the ilitario was usually vertically aligned and rarely was horizontal. Constantly unrolling the scroll, made of the fragile material, made reading sections only impractical. The needs of the Christian world for studying parts of holy texts brought changes to the shape of the manuscripts; first, individual sheets were cut and bound together, forming the first codices in the mid-2nd century AD. The new material that was used for the pages was processed cow, goat and lamb skin, which was durable, elastic and could withstand changes in temperature and moisture. It was named “pergamini” in Greek, after Pergamon, the city where this process first started, under king Eumenes II (197 – 158 BC). Many official codices that were made for the Byzantine emperors were dyed red and the letters were either gold or silver. Many texts from ancient papyri were transcribed to parchments; many texts were erased for reasons of frugality and were covered by new texts, and as palimpsests they offer valuable information for various time periods. However, many Byzantine parchments also remain. The Byzantines used various colors of ink. The ink for the body of the text was usually black and was called “melan”. For the ornamental title letters and the initial letter of the manuscript, red ink was used, that was extracted from an insect called cochineal (kokkos o vafikos). To write or dye in color red they used a coloring called “porfyra”, a very expensive dye made of the shell murex, and was used mostly by imperial workshops for valuable documents. They also used a blue-green pigment made of iron oxide and yellow from safran flowers. Expensive metals such as gold or silver were used only in exceptional cases of official documents for the entire text, rarely for entire religious or other texts and more often for titles or initials.