The photographic reproduction of Ottateuco di Smirne from the collection of Antonio Muñoz at the Federico Zeri Foundation

Abstract

The object of this paper is the photographic reproduction of the Ottateuco di Smirne, a manuscript of the Twelfth century from the school of Constantinople, which was destroyed by fire in 1922 during the Greco-Turkish War. Until then the old codex was preserved in the library of the Evangelical School in Smyrna, the current Izmir. At the Federico Zeri Foundation in Bologna is possible to find the only complete photographic reproduction of the codex’s miniatures so far known. The 329 photographs became part of the photo archive thanks to Antonio Muñoz (1884-1960) who donated them to his cousin Federico Zeri (1921-1998) around the end of the 50s of the twentieth century.

Muñoz, who was a well known roman Art Historian, studied for many years the byzantine and early medieval miniature, both in Italy and in the Mediterranean countries. During his stay in Istanbul, he had the opportunity to see the ancient manuscripts preserved at the library of the Seraglio. Since his knowledge on the subject, in 1905 he collaborated with his master Adolfo Venturi to the realization of the Italo-Byzantine exhibition in Grottaferrata, the first European exhibition dedicated to Byzantine artworks and artifacts.

Muñoz has collected over the years a large number of images (approx. 2500), which are held in his private photo archive. His studies also focus on the Ottateuco photographs, as documented by the numerous handwritten notes on the back of the images and on the paper cards that contain them. My purpose through this paper is to compare the Ottateuco photographs published in 1909 by Dirk Christiaan Hesseling, highlighting similarities and differences.