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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Vienna Genesis | |
|---|---|
| Austrian National Library, Vienna | |
 The illustration on folio 12v from the Vienna Genesis shows the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel | |
| Type | Illuminated manuscript, codex |
| Date | Early 6th century |
| Place of origin | Byzantine Syria |
| Language | Greek |
| Scribe | Unrecorded |
| Compiled by | Unrecorded |
| Illuminated by | Unrecorded artist(s) |
| Patron | Likely wealthy Christian or imperial patron |
| Material | Parchment, tempera, gold, and silver |
| Size | 31.75 × 23.5 cm (folio) |
| Condition | Partially preserved |
| Script | Byzantine minuscule |
| Contents | Book of Genesis; narrative illustrations of Biblical stories |
| Illumination(s) | Classical heritage with personifications, modeling, and continuous narration |
| Exemplar | Ancient Roman pictorial models |
The Vienna Genesis (Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. theol. gr. 31), designated by siglum L (Ralphs), is an illuminated manuscript, probably produced in Syria in the first half of the 6th century. It is one of the oldest well-preserved, surviving, illustrated biblical codices; only the Garima Gospels of Ethiopia, dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, are as old or older.
The surviving text is part of the Book of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint translation. The text is frequently abbreviated. There are twenty-four surviving folios, each with miniatures at the bottom of both sides. It is thought that there were originally about ninety-six folios and 192 illustrations. The book is written in uncials with silver ink on calfskin dyed a rich purple, placing it very firmly in the category of luxury manuscripts.
The Vienna Genesis relates to the Rossano Gospels and the Sinope Gospels, from roughly the same period.[1]
The illustrations are done in a naturalistic style typical of Late Antique painting. The manuscript's illustrations are, in format, transitional between those found in scrolls and later images found in codices. Each illustration is painted at the bottom of a single page. However, within a single illustration, two or more episodes from a story may be included, so that the same person may be represented multiple times within a single illustration. There are both framed and unframed illustrations. The illustrations contain incidents and people not mentioned in the text of Genesis. These incidents are thought to have been derived from popular elaborations of the story or from Jewish commentaries on the text.
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well shows the story of Genesis 24, in which Abraham's servant, Eliezer, goes to look for a wife for Abraham's son, Isaac. As he travels with ten of Abraham's camels, he stops to give them water, prays that Isaac's future wife will assist him with watering his camels, and Rebecca shows up to help Eliezer.[2] Rebecca is depicted twice to illustrate the continued narrative. She wears a pink dress and is depicted walking from a city in the background, holding a water jug on her shoulder, towards a body of water, next to which lounges a classically inspired female personification. Rebecca is illustrated a second time at the well with Eliezer.
The illustration of Jacob Wrestling The Angel depicts a scene from Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with an angel all night. In the illustration, Jacob is shown holding onto the angel's cloak while the angel reaches out to touch him. Similar to Rebecca at the Well, the figures are painted in profile, with elongated bodies and exaggerated facial features. The use of gold and silver paint, as well as intricate detailing in the clothing and hair, adds to the richness of the image. The story follows Jacob, in the brown and reddish tunic, who wakes up and leads his family across the river. In his trail following him are his wives on donkeys and many servants.[3] After crossing the river Jacob is then seen meeting an angel, seen wrestling the angel, and then the angel blesses him. There are multiple depictions of Jacob shown here to show multiple points of the story. From this story, as read in Genesis the book, Jacob is therefore blessed as Israel, and is blessed by God for the rest of his life.[3] The bridge's architectural forms include a colonnade with Roman columns which references classical architecture as it adapts to the scroll perspective.
The initial iota and upsilon have the diaeresis.[4]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Vienna Genesis (Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. theol. gr. 31), designated by siglum L (Ralphs), is an illuminated manuscript, probably produced in Syria in the first half of the 6th century. It is one of the oldest well-preserved, surviving, illustrated biblical codices; only the Garima Gospels of Ethiopia, dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, are as old or older. The surviving text is part of the Book of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint translation. The text is frequently abbreviated. There are twenty-four surviving folios, each with miniatures at the bottom of both sides. It is thought that there were originally about ninety-six folios and 192 illustrations. The book is written in uncials with silver ink on calfskin dyed a rich purple, placing it very firmly in the category of luxury manuscripts. The Vienna Genesis relates to the Rossano Gospels and the Sinope Gospels, from roughly the same period.
The Sinope Gospels, designated by O or 023 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 21 (Soden), also known as the Codex Sinopensis, is a fragment of a 6th-century illuminated Greek Gospel Book. Along with the Rossano Gospels, the Sinope Gospels has been dated, on the basis of the style of the miniatures, to the mid 6th-century. The Rossano Gospels, however, are considered to be earlier. Like Rossanensis and the Vienna Genesis, the Sinope Gospels are written on purple dyed vellum.
The London Canon Tables (British Library, Add MS 5111) is a Byzantine illuminated Gospel Book fragment on vellum from the sixth or seventh century. It was possibly made in Constantinople. The fragment consists of two folios of two illuminated canon tables – of unusual construction – set beneath an ornamental arcade and the Letter by Eusebius of Caesarea which usually prefaces canon tables. The fragment is bound together with a twelfth-century Gospel Book (British Library, Add. MS 5111 and 5112) which is thought to have belonged to one of the monasteries on Mount Athos. The folios are 220 by 150 mm. They were originally larger, but were trimmed to their current size when they were bound with the twelfth century Gospel Book. The two folios are stained gold, an attribute even rarer than purple-stained folios such as are in the Vienna Genesis. The arches and the columns of the arcades are filled by brightly coloured abstract ornamentation. This ornamentation causes the arcade to lose much of its structural sense. Below each of the arches, there is a medallion with a portrait painted in classical style. As there would have been twelve of these arches it is likely these portraits represent the Apostles, although there is no direct connection between the Canon Tables or the letter of Eusebius and the twelve Apostles. The numbers of corresponding Gospel sections, as listed in the London Canon Tables, differ strikingly from any other surviving manuscript of the Eusebian canons. Eberhard Nestle, who was among the first biblical scholars to call attention to the value of the Eusebian canons for the New Testament textual criticism, dismissed the London Canon Tables as an example of de luxe manuscripts whose "text-critical value stands in reverse proportion to their artistic". The art historian Carl Nordenfalk, however, suggested that the London Canon Tables, "instead of being an example of careless copying, presuppose another section division than that of Eusebius himself".
The Ambrosian Iliad or Ilias Picta (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. F. 205 Inf.) is a 5th-century illuminated manuscript on vellum, which depicts the entirety of Homer's Iliad, including battle scenes and noble scenes. It is considered unique due to being the only set of ancient illustrations that depict scenes from the Iliad. The Ambrosian Iliad consists of 52 miniatures, each labeled numerically. It is thought to have been created in Alexandria, given the flattened and angular Hellenistic figures, which are considered typical of Alexandrian late antique art and of late antique literature, in approximately 500 AD, possibly by multiple artists. The author(s) first drew the figures nude and then painted the clothes on, much like in Greek vase painting. In the 11th century, the miniatures were cut out of the original manuscript and pasted into a Siculo-Calabrian codex of Homeric texts. Comparisons of texts per page to other late antique manuscripts (Vatican Vergil, Vienna Genesis) has led some to speculate these miniatures were originally part of a large manuscript. This manuscript was unlike other illuminated manuscripts in its lack of gilding. Instead, the author(s) chose yellow ochre to represent gold within the individual images, i.e. the gold cuirasses of noble figures, and the halo of Zeus (folios XXXIV). Cardinal Angelo Mai, librarian of the Ambrosiana in the early 1800s, became convinced that the manuscript was from the 3rd century, and therefore philologically extremely important. He labelled the miniatures, and applied harsh chemicals to the manuscript in an attempt to improve the legibility of the text. His actions caused the miniatures' colors to bleed through the pages and left them in the damaged state they are in today. Today the Ambrosian Iliad is held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, Lombardy, Italy, which is also the manuscript's namesake. It was purchased from Genoese collector Gian Vincenzo Pinelli's library and added, by the famed Cardinal Federico Borromeo, to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana on June 14, 1608. The manuscript's images can be viewed on the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
