The twelve studies contained in this second collection by Henry Maguire are linked together by a common theme, namely the relationship of Byzantine art to the imaginary. They show how art enabled the Byzantines not only to imagine the sacred events of the past, but also to visualize the invisible present by manifesting the spiritual world that they

Henry Maguire is Professor in the Art History Department at The Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Contents: Preface; The Nile and the rivers of Paradise; The medieval floors of the Great Palace; Paradise withdrawn; Epigrams, art, and the 'Macedonian Renaissance'; Magic and money in the early Middle Ages; The depiction of sorrow in Middle Byzantine art; Byzantine rhetoric, Latin drama and the portrayal of the New Testament; Medieval art in southern Italy: Latin drama and the Greek literary imagination; From the evil eye to the eye of justice: the saints, art, and justice in Byzantium; Abaton and oikonomia: St Neophytos and the iconography of the presentation of the Virgin; The heavenly court; Davidic virtue: the crown of Constantine Monomachos and its images; Index.