The Treatise on Hunting and Fishing, containing the didactic poem Cynegetica written in the third century by Oppian of Apamea for Emperor Caracalla, bears witness to the finest achievements of the art of Constantinople in the first half of the eleventh century. Featuring one of the most extraordinary illustrative sequences of the Late Macedonian era, this exquisite and refined manuscript reflects the cultured and elegant society during one of the most significant periods of the glorious history of the Eastern Empire, and human civilization, in the capital on the Bosphorus.
Among the many manuscripts that have preserved Oppian's text, the codex in the Marciana library in Venice is the only ancient specimen to be illustrated. The codex features 157 splendid miniatures in Byzantine style, crafted by an unknown artist.
The text was originally copied by a single hand at the beginning of the eleventh century. When in entered the collection of Cardinal Bessarion in the fifteenth century, the codex was already missing some folios, so its illustrious possessor appointed the Cretan scribe Georgios Tribizias to integrate the missing parts of the text.
The codex belonged to a figure of the utmost importance in the political and religious life of the fifteenth century: Cardinal Bessarion, born in Trebisond, on the shores of the Black Sea at the beginning of the fifteenth century. A theologian, a humanist, and a statesman, Bessarion created a magnificent Greek library, which he bequeathed in 1468 to the Republic of Venice.
The Cardinal's collection is still preserved and housed in Venice, in the Library of St. Mark, or Marciana Library.
Binding Description
Leather over wooden boards.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Treatise on Hunting and Fishing": Cynegetica: tratado de caza y pesca facsimile edition, published by Patrimonio Ediciones, 1999
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