ORTHPOL Workshop Ink Worlds: Illuminated Liturgical Manuscripts from the Ottoman World (Late Sixteenth – Early Eighteenth Century)

In the last quarter of the 16th century and the first decades of the 17th, two major centers for the production of Greek manuscripts emerged in Wallachia. The first and more influential was established by Loukas, a Cyprus-born calligrapher who served as bishop of Buzău and later as metropolitan of Wallachia (d. 1628/9). The second was founded by Matthaios, originally from Epirus, who became abbot of Dealu Monastery and subsequently metropolitan of Myra while residing in Wallachia. Together with their disciples, Loukas and Matthaios spearheaded a revival in the production of deluxe Greek liturgical manuscripts—a tradition that had largely ceased following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Was this phenomenon confined to Greek manuscripts? The workshop seeks to explore this question by examining the activities of several early modern Armenian and Romanian centers of manuscript production.