Decorative Bird Initials in the Medieval Armenian Manuscript Culture

Description In the scholarship about Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts decorative initials are classified and discussed through an art historical perspective as illustrations, design, and decoration of the manuscript. On the other hand, miniatures take the lion’s share in publications as art history in manuscript illumination, often associated with the value of the manuscript, its beauty, and the iconography, which is analyzed by its relationship to the text. Bibliographical methods can bring together questions raised by paleography and art history for the analysis of decorative initials as more than mere decorations but as the symbolic aesthetic intervention of letters in dialogue with the exegesis of the text. This paper discusses the decorative initials in the exquisitely illuminated early 14th-century manuscript, the Gladzor Gospels [Armenian MS 1, Four Gospels, UCLA Special Collections] from a paleographical point of view, offering a brief historical background about the invention of the Armenian alphabet, the importance of the divine letters in the Armenian manuscript tradition, particularly in the Gospels, and the use of the unique bird-letter initials, situated within the context of the larger tradition of the Medieval Armenian Manuscript Culture.

AudiencesGraduates, Scholars

Access TermsDrawing, Medieval, Painting, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--History, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval

Tagsbirds in books, Book history in Asia