Displacing Byzantium, Disgracing Convention: The Manuscript Patronage of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria

This article compares patron imagery in two illuminated books produced for Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria in the mid-fourteenth century. Both manuscripts, a Slavonic gospel book and a world history (the Chronicle of Constantine Manassès), were personalized for Ivan Alexander through repetitive and creative interweaving of his images into the very fabric of his books. In both cases the ruler was aggrandized through intimate visual associations with divine luminaries and both manuscripts marked key transitions in his life. The stark contrast in quality between the two manuscripts, however, has been tactfully avoided by scholars and not subjected to rigorous analysis. The physical evidence in the luxurious London Tetraevangelion and the modest Vatican Manasses reveals an enormous difference in expenditure and divergence in quality of execution. Even in the celebrated London manuscript the patron images, including the famous frontispiece miniature, demonstrate evidence of hurried production.