Medieval Art Research reports of a forthcoming conference on June 19 at the British Library. The Cotton Genesis is a fascinating example of a beautifully illuminated Septuagint manuscript that is of immense importance for art history, Greek paleography, and the history of the Greek text of the Bible.
From the conference website:
The Cotton Genesis (British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is one of the greatest works of manuscript art to survive from late Antiquity and one of the most tragic casualties of the Cotton Library fire of 1731. New multispectral imaging completed at the British Library and sponsored by the Gina Goldhammer Foundation, has opened exciting opportunities for major breakthroughs in the study of this late-fifth-century artwork. Parts of the texts and illuminations of the Cotton Genesis, damaged in the fire and barely visible to the naked eye, can now be seen through a set of ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light images.
The interdisciplinary conference Multispectral Gaze: New Approaches to the Cotton Genesis aims to celebrate the completion of the digitisation campaign and the discoveries it can generate. By drawing on the manuscript’s multispectral images, leading specialists on late antique book production, art, palaeography, and collection history will provide new insights on the Cotton Genesis.
Program
9.30 – 10.00: Registration
10.00 – 10.10: Introduction
Elena Lichmanova and Emanuel Zingg
10.10 – 11.40: The Cotton Genesis in the Early Modern Period
Chair: Andrea Clarke, British Library
Tom Roebuck, University of East Anglia
The Cotton Genesis in Early Modern English Scholarship
Julian Harrison, British Library
Picture This: Early Reproductions of the Cotton Genesis
Raphaëlle Goyeau, British Library / University of East Anglia
The Lost Cottonian Binding of the Cotton Genesis
11.40 – 12.00 Coffee break
12.00 – 13.00 Text and Palaeography
Chair: Peter Tóth, Bodleian Library
Emanuel Zingg, CNRS, Sorbonne University
The Cotton Genesis’ Place in the History of Greek Palaeography
Reinhart Ceulemans, KU Leuven
The Biblical Text of the Cotton Genesis
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break
14.00 – 15.30 Art of the Cotton Genesis
Chair: Scot McKendrick, British Library (retired)
Jaś Elsner, University of Oxford
The Cotton Genesis and Early Christian Art
Anne-Orange Poilpré, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Visualizing Genesis: Image, Narrativity and Sacrality in the Early Middle Ages
Nancy Thebaut, University of Oxford
Looking Back at Lot in the Cotton Genesis
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break
16.00 – 16.45 Key-note Lecture – Coactive Scrutiny: What the Cotton Genesis’ Vulgata Tituli Divulge about the San Marco Mosaics
Herbert Kessler, Johns Hopkins University
16.45 – 17.30 Drinks reception
Organisers:
Andrea Clarke (British Library), Elena Lichmanova (British Library), Emanuel Zingg (CNRS, Sorbonne University)
