Review: “The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity” and The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity, by Georgios Boudalis

Abstract

“The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity,” Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York, New York (February 23 – July 8, 2018). Georgios Boudalis, The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2018), 200 pages, color illustrations, ISBN 9781941792124, $30 paperback. Small university exhibition spaces, and even small galleries in large museums, can accommodate focused explorations of complex, specialized topics that larger spaces cannot. Without the need to charm broad swaths of the infotainment audience, a scholarly show can delve deep into questions and, as here, open avenues of inquiry. At the heart of this exhibition was the assembling and especially the binding of the codex as it developed during Late Antiquity into the predominant book format that is still in use today. Although a great deal of attention has been devoted to the historical circumstances in which the codex came to supplant the scroll, little attention has been paid to the development of its manufacture.1 This exhibition and its catalogue, based on original research by the curator Georgios Boudalis, Head of the Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory of the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, reflect current attention to the production of material culture and the burgeoning study of craft.2 The catalogue offers more detailed and fully documented considerations of the categories of evidence presented in the exhibition, an illustrated checklist, a rich bibliography, and an index. In two display areas (an introduction and the main exhibition space), the exhibition charted the adaptation of traditional techniques primarily from textile- and leather-working (Fig. 1).3 Upon entering the second-floor hallway, the visitor encountered a bright display on the ancient development of the codex through such visually striking artifacts as a Classical red figure kylix depicting a schoolboy with a simple codex of tablets encircled by a strap with another strap for a handle (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund acquisition 17.230.10).4 Overall, the introduction presented variations in formats from paired and …