Украсата на унциалния кодекс Вегаtinus 3 от Тирана
The Ornamentation of the Uncial Codex Beratinus 3 from Tirana

(Preliminary notes)

Summary/Abstract: For over 140 years the collection of Greek manuscripts in Albania has been subject of scientific interest but nevertheless, due to its continuous additions and periods of restricted access, it remains among the least explored and respectively most appealing collections in the Balkans. The interest was provoked back in the 1860s when the Berat Bishop Antim Alexoudis in his book A Brief note on the Bishopric of Berat speaks about some of the earliest codices kept in the churches and the monasteries in Albania. Among them are the Codex Purpureus Beratinus, known as Beratinus 1 and the golden codex of Antim, called Beratinus 2 or Codex Antimius. The manuscript which ornamentation we will discuss in the present article is the Aprakos of fund 488, Beratinus 3. At first look the illumination shows a lack of strict ornamentation models, which is visible in the use of different types of ornaments and their asymmetrical arrangement in the composition of the vignettes, the frame vignettes characteristic of the second half of the 10th century are still unformed, there is a lapidary treatment of the used motifs, the ornithomorphic, ichtiomorphic and zoomorphic motifs are treated independently instead of being organically included in the construction of the initial, color is used for the articulation of the text and there is no unified approach in the forming of the beginnings of the different readings from the Gospel (there is a big vignette for the Gospel readings from John, while those from Matthew and Mark are marked by small vignettes made of interlaced cord (f. 44 and 85) and from Luke – only with initial (f. 65v)). If we add the colors – the unusual combination of yellow and cinnabar and brown (sometimes purple) – to the above-listed particulars the place of the creation of the manuscript should be sought – in broadest terms – in the peripheral zones of Byzantium (probably the Eastern Byzantine provinces). I.e. this is the time of the end of the 9th с. and the beginning of the 10th c. when the elements of the Byzantine Laubsägestil and Blütenblattstil hadn't yet penetrated into these peripheral zones. As early as in the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th c. these elements would start – though shyly – to appear in the manuscript production of Constantinople, initially within the same manuscript and later, especially after the second half of the 10th c., on their own. Therefore the main part (ff. 2–145) of the Tirana Aprakos Berat. 3 could be dated – based on the type of the writing and the ornamentation – to the end of the 9th – the early 10th c., which is also supported by the transitional type of the ornamentation characteristic of the time of the first Slavonic translations and lacking the codified models established after the mid 10th с. In this sense a future research of the textological contents of Beratinus 3, which goes beyond the scope of the present preliminary information, will hopefully yield interesting and more precise results.

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