library
Constantinople: imperial library and scriptoria
330–1204
attested. The Bible order and library are attested; links of surviving codices to the fifty Bibles are speculation.
Constantine asked Eusebius for fifty Bibles for his new capital, and Constantius II set up an imperial library with copyists moving texts onto parchment. Fires destroyed much of it. Constantinople stayed the main Greek book centre until the Crusader sack of 1204.
Place: Constantinople · On the map
People
- Constantine I (ordered 50 Bibles from Eusebius)
- Constantius II (founded the imperial library, 357)
- Theodosius II
- Anicia Juliana (patron of the Vienna Dioscurides)
Manuscripts made here
Fifty parchment Bibles for the churches of Constantinople (c. 331)
Kept now: lost; links to surviving great codices are unproven
Vienna Dioscurides (c. 512, for Anicia Juliana)
Kept now: Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. med. gr. 1