Race against Time: Safekeeping and Restoration of Books in the Byzantine Libraries of the Monasteries of Mount Athos

Abstract

The paper deals with the problem of organisation of the libraries of the monasteries of Mount Athos in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine eras. The available data allow us to identify the locations of the monasteries of Mount Athos where books were kept and trace their movements between them. Unique information on the movements of codices between monasteries is also analysed. Certain rhythms of time for the storage, cataloguing, reading and restoration of books and documents are explored. The main cultural and archival function of the Greek libraries of Mount Athos — the accumulation and preservation of books and documents — is shown through specific examples. Athonite librarians were actively engaged in the “production of eternity”, i.e., either preventing the physical aging of books or transferring texts from old media to new ones. It was book culture and the tradition of material support for intellectual pursuits (the creation, preservation and restoration of books), including on Mount Athos, that played a crucial role in the preservation and transmission of the Byzantine book heritage after the destruction of the Byzantine Roman Empire.