The Illustrated Life of Apollonius and Tarsia. A “Papyrus-style” Narrative in Ottonian Art
Anna Boreczky
Made around the turn of first millennium Apollonius pictus manuscript Hungarian National Library preserves oldest known illustration cycle a Late Antique adventure story, Historia Apollonii regis Tyri. Until very recently only art historian who recognized importance was Kurt Weitzmann, believed that style thirty-eight red line-drawings revealed classical ancestors, which, within theoretical framework Weitzmann constructed, meant images were derived from lost original. Leaving aside problems speculative archetype my paper is an attempt to unfold textual and visual associations, both Ottonian, evoked in circle its medieval readers. To this end I investigate possible messages “papyrus-style” layout-structure manuscript, characteristic motifs single images.
Convivium