Thehandbook illustrates 94 Greek literary papyrus texts from Egypt and Herculaneum anddocuments the different types of scripts used in copying works of Greek literature, from the earliest surviving bookrolls written in the 4th century BC up to the first century AD. The aim is twofold: (1) to establish their relative (and, wherever possible, absolute) chronological sequence, and (2) to distinguish and characterize their stylistic features. Specimens of different types of scripts ( hands ) that appear stylistically related have been grouped together. In their joint introduction, the authors summarize the main results of their investigation and attempt to identify the social and cultural factors that have determined the development of different types of Greek literary scripts during the Hellenistic and Augustan era. The book also contains a comprehensive bibliography and indices.Hellenistic Bookhands isa tool for scholars and students of Classics, Greek papyrology, palaeography, and the transmission of Classical Greek literature."

For more than a thousand years, Byzantium flourished at the crossroads of the Eastern and Western worlds. But who were the people of the first modern civilized state? What features distinguished them from earlier civilizations, and what cultural characteristics, despite their multi-ethnic origins, made them uniquely Byzantine?
Through a series of remarkably detailed composite portraits, an international collection of distinguished scholars has created a startlingly clear vision of the Byzantines and their social world. Paupers, peasants, soldiers, teachers, bureaucrats, clerics, emperors, and saints--all are vividly and authentically presented in the context of ordinary Byzantine life. No comparable volume exists that so fascinatingly recovers from the past the men and women of Byzantium, their culture and their lifeways, and their strikingly modern worldview.

Hans Belting und Guglielmo Cavallo dokumentieren erstmals eine aus mehreren Banden (heute in Turin, Florenz, Kopenhagen) bestehende Bibel-Edition des 10. Jahrhunderts, die der Hofmann Niketas in Konstantinopel herstellen liess. Jedes der erhaltenen Bucher des Alten Testaments wird von einem prachtvollen Titelbild eingeleitet, das im vorliegenden Band originalgross und in Farbe reproduziert ist. Darunter befinden sich einige der hochsten Leistungen der Buchmalerei aus der klassizistischen Phase der sogenannten aByzantinischen Renaissanceo. Die aBibel des Niketaso ist aber nicht nur ein Hauptwerk byzantinischer Buchkunst, sie hat auch eine Schlusselstellung fur die Erschliessung antiker Buchkunst inne: basiert sie doch auf der Neuausgabe einer ahnlich monumentalen Bibel des 6. Jahrhunderts, die auch schon die Bilder enthielt. .