Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters: Iconophile Imagery in Three Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters

Among the first works of art produced after Iconoclasm was defeated in 843, the Byzantine Marginal Psalters provide a rare glimpse into the world of scholarship and religious and poltical debate that occupied some of the leading intellectuals in Constantinople. The manuscripts are best known for their depictions of the heroes and villains of the Iconoclastic controversy, but these psalters contain hundreds of marginal images - most of which have no apparent relationship to Iconoclasm. Kathleen Corrigan shows that the marginal psalters are polemical, but their stance is not simply anti-Iconoclastic: image after image seems directed towards defining and defending the Orthodox position.Kathleen Corrigan is the author of 'Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters: Iconophile Imagery in Three Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters', published 1992 under ISBN 9780521400503 and ISBN 0521400503.