Byzantium and the Art of Binding - STUDITE

2. The STUDITE Project
The STUDITE project aims to highlight the technical and artistic contributions of Greek and
Byzantine manuscripts to the history of the book. Byzantine binding influenced the culture of
the book in both the Orient and the West, and these connections are the subject of considerable
cultural and scientific interest.
STUDITE aims to preserve and enhance this shared heritage to foster better historical understanding
and intercultural dialogue.
To achieve its objectives, the STUDITE project has conducted various activities:
Workshops on contemporary book binding
The workshops (held in Arles, Athens, Bucharest, Budapest and Campobasso) provided places for
the creation of both contemporary bindings inspired by Byzantine techniques and the production
of facsimiles of bindings, representative of various production types (Constantinopolitan, Cretan,
Athonite, etc.). These workshops have been followed by several exhibitions showing a selection of
the bindings created in the workshops. Videos and e-learning tools will be made available online.
This catalogue presents the results of these workshops and images of the bindings selected and
exhibited in several partners’ countries.
Interdisciplinary missions to observe Greek and Byzantine bindings
These missions aimed to develop exchanges between specialists in historical Greek manuscripts
(researchers, curators, conservators, students, etc.), to promote the study of collections of manuscripts
and bindings in Europe and to disseminate information collected from these manuscripts. A digital
resource centre is available at: www.studite.org.
Development of a common European protocol for the study and description of
Byzantine bindings
The objective of this activity is to bring together specialists in Greek manuscripts and to stimulate
cooperation between them and their institutions in order to develop common methods of
observing, describing and recording the characteristics of bindings and to suggest methodologies
for e.g. photography, documentation etc.. The final result of this activity is the production of a
reference document standardizing the descriptions of Byzantine bindings.
International seminars on the characteristics of Byzantine bindings and their conservation
These seminars have been places at which knowledge and expertise on the study of Byzantine
bindings is exchanged and at which the activities carried out in the project are presented. Their
goal is to raise public awareness of heritage preservation.
The STUDITE project is under the patronage of a scientific committee of world-famous historians
and philologists.
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