HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION: THE BYZANTINE WORLD - FROM CONSTANTINE THE GREAT TO CARDINAL BESSARION.|THE

Staikos, Konstantinos

ISBN 10: 9061944597 / ISBN 13: 9789061944591

Published by Oak Knoll Press and HES & DE GRAAF Publishers BV, New Castle, Delaware, 2007

About this Item

8.5 x 11.5 inches. hardcover. 608 pages. Vol. III From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion: Imperial, Monastic, School and Private Libraries in the Byzantine World. The third volume of The History of the Library spans a period of more than a thousand years and covers an area stretching from Alexandria and Trebizond to Calabria and Sicily in the south of Italy. The author explores the end of the ancient world and the closure and destruction of its monumental libraries, and describes the formation of the great monastic libraries, such as St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai, the Monastery of Studius in Constantinople, the group of monasteries on Mount Athos and the famous library in the Monastery of St. John on Patmos. Finally, he examines all the known palace, public, university and private libraries in the whole of the Byzantine Empire, and discusses the book trade as well. Among the libraries included in this third volume are those formed in the states that emerged after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204, such as the Empires of Nicaea and Trebizond, the Despotate of Epirus and the Kingdom of Thessalonica. In addition, special attention is given to the book collections of monasteries in the Kingdom of Cyprus and the libraries in the Despotate of the Morea, one of the last Greek bastions to hold out against the Turkish conquest, where the famous Neoplatonist philosopher Plethon taught. Altogether there are nine chapters in this volume and the text is enlivened with more than two hundred color and black-and-white illustrations covering a wide variety of subjects, such as illuminated manuscripts, engravings, maps, drawings, archaeological sites and imaginary and real library interiors. The ninth chapter deals with the architectural characteristics of Byzantine libraries from the end of Late Antiquity to the monastic libraries of the eleventh century onwards. Co-published with HES & DE GRAAF Publishers BV, The Netherlands and Kotinos Publications, Athens, Greece. Sales Rights: Worldwide. Order all five volumes of The History of the Library in Western Civilization series at one time and get the Index volume for free. Seller Inventory # 76542

Bibliographic Details

Title: HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY IN WESTERN ...

Publisher: Oak Knoll Press and HES & DE GRAAF Publishers BV, New Castle, Delaware

Publication Date: 2007

Binding: hardcover

About this title

Synopsis:

This work is the third part in an important, five-volume series addressing the unique role libraries have played in building and preserving Western culture. Mr. Staikos has become one of our foremost scholars on library history, writing such books as this as well as works like ""The Great Libraries,"" a classic in its field. This third volume spans a period of more than a thousand years and covers an area stretching from Alexandria and Trebizond to Calabria and Sicily in the south of Italy. The author explores the end of the ancient world and the closure and destruction of its monumental libraries, and describes the formation, of the great monastic libraries, such as St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai, the Monastery of Studius in Constantinople, the group of monasteries on Mount Athos and the famous library in the Monastery of St. John on Patmos. Finally, he examines all the known palace, public, university and private libraries in the whole of the Byzantine Empire, and discusses the booktrade as well.