The Akathistos Hymnos and Intermedial Compositional Processes in Later Byzantium: Sung, Written, Painted

by Jon C. Cubas Díaz (Editor)

Overview

This book explores intermedial compositional processes in later Byzantium, building on the Akathistos Hymnos. The relationship between the hymn’s text, music, and illustrations has yet to be explored in detail. The contributions here argue that these painted cycles should be studied as a result of interaction between hymnography, psalmody, and visual art, not just as mere illustration of text. Highlighting illuminated and notated manuscript copies of the hymn as evidence for varied liturgical and devotional practices, they examine how icons and murals based on the Akathistos functioned as constituent elements of sacred space. Focusing on intermediality, this book helps bridge methodological gaps between scholarly approaches to medieval culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031627873
Publisher:	Springer Nature Switzerland
Publication date:	03/29/2025
Series:	New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture
Edition description:	2024
Pages:	391
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jon C. Cubas Díaz is Lecturer at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He previously held teaching and research positions at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rosk.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Sung, Written, Painted: New Approaches to the Akathistos Hymn.- Chapter 2. The Manuscript Tradition of the Akathistos Hymn.- Chapter 3. Hail, Bride Without Bridegroom! Alleluia!: The Akathistos Refrains in Simple Chant and Artful Composition.- Chapter 4. When Iconography and Typika Meet: Performing the Ἀκάθιστος ὕμνος in Time and Space.- Chapter 5. The Ἀκάθιστος ὕμνος as Musical Staging: Between Phantasmagoria and Reality.- Chapter 6. The Cycle of the Akathistos Hymn in the ‘Latin Chapel’ of the Monastery of St. John Lampadistis in Kalopanagiotis, Cyprus.- Chapter 7. A Song of Victory on the Eve of the Fall: Re-framing the Akathistos Escurialensis.- Chapter 8. The Visual Rendering of the Akathistos Hymn in Venetian Crete: Unfolding Its Compositional Processes.- Chapter 9. Iconographical, Liturgical, and Dogmatic Aspects of the Akathistos Hymn in Cyprus.- Chapter 10. From Liturgy to Private Devotion: The Akathistos Hymn in Late Sixteenth-Century Moldavia.- Chapter 11. The Akathistos Aniconically: Meditations on Unsettled Seeing.- Chapter 12. Composition, Mediality, and the Akathistos Narratives.