The History of the Library in Western Civilization, Vol. 3: The Byzantine World: From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion

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.