Middle Byzantine Evangelion Manuscript: Grec 74 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

The manuscript, which is the subject of the PhD thesis entitled "Middle Byzantine Evangelion Manuscript: Grec 74 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)", the manuscript is now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) (French National Library) under the title Grec 74. Dating to the third quarter of the 11th century, the manuscript consists of 215 folios. There are 375 illustrations in the work, of which 147 folios are illustrated. In manuscript no. Grec 74, there are 108 illustrations in Matthew, 68 in Mark, 103 in Luke and 95 in John. Information about the author and the artist of manuscript no. 74 is very limited. The manuscript, which is thought to have been produced at the Studios Monastery, contains five epigrams. Each epigram ends with an image of the artist and/or commissioner of the manuscript at the end of the relevant Gospel passage. According to the leaf at the end of the manuscript, which contains an epigram addressed to an emperor, the manuscript must have been made for Emperor Isaacos I Komenos (r. 1057-1059). Although the Grec 74 manuscript has been the subject of a number of scholarly studies since the end of the 19th century, the manuscript's 375 illustrations have never before been analyzed in their entirety. Therefore, within the scope of the PhD thesis titled "Middle Byzantine Evangelion Manuscript: Grec 74 (National Library of Paris)", the 375 paintings in question were first compared within the context of iconographic analysis, then with the earliest depictions and other manuscripts produced in Constantinople workshops dating to the half of the 11th century, and with examples of monumental mural art.