Manufacturing and Manipulating Light in Byzantium: Objects, Diagrams, Architecture (Session 5)

Organized by Divna Manolova, PSL-Observatoire de Paris, SYRTE

This session is organised around the themes of vision, seeing, and light as central to questions of aesthetics, science and technology, as well as optics and philosophy in Byzantium. The three papers address the treatment and employment of light (natural and artificial, present or absent, manipulated or not) within the medieval disciplinary contexts of metallurgy and alchemy, astronomy, and architecture. By analyzing the practical and symbolic use of light in all four contexts, collectively we enquire into the ways, in which theories of vision, light and colour effectively informed the craft of the practitioners producing precious metals and stones, drafting diagrammatic renderings of the universe, and designing both the exterior and the interior of ecclesiastical architecture.