of the Gospels.
The book which M. Didron found there is the copy of an older MS. which,
it is said, was copied by Dionysius, one of the monks, from the works of
the once celebrated master, Manuel Panselines of Thessalonica, who was
the Giotto of the Byzantine school and flourished in the twelfth
century. If by works the monk meant literary, it is most likely that it
was the transcript of a still older document. If by works Dionysius
meant paintings, it is a manual of his practice. One of his pupils, in
order to propagate the art of painting which he had learnt at
Thessalonica, writes down the series of subjects to be taken from the
Bible, so as to epitomise the divine scheme of salvation, and describes
the manner in which the events of the Old Testament, and the miracles
and parables of the New, ought to be represented. He mentions the
scrolls and inscriptions (such as we noticed in the Gospels of Luxeuil)
belonging to each of the prophets and evangelists, with the names and
characteristics of the principal saints in the order of the menologium
or martyrology, and then goes on to direct how the subjects should be
arranged on the walls and cupolas of the churches.
The Manual of Dionysius is an abstract of this wide scheme, but is still
very comprehensive.
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