Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Compositiones Variae: A Late 8th Century Artists' Technical Treatise

by Thea Burns
Save 17% Save 17%
Current price ₹4,030.00
Original price ₹4,875.00
Original price ₹4,875.00
Original price ₹4,875.00
(-17%)
₹4,030.00
Current price ₹4,030.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9781909492486
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Archetype Publications
  • Publisher Imprint: Archetype Publications
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 204
  • Original Price: GBP 37.5
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 522 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Books

The 'Compositiones variae' is the earliest extant medieval collection of artisanal recipes. Translated into Latin from a Hellenistic source and copied at Lucca, it is said to preserve technical knowledge surviving in Tuscany around 800 CE and to have offered practical assistance to the Lucca scriptorium. The recipes are today bound together with numerous early medieval historical and liturgical texts in a massive compendium, Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare 'Feliniana', Cod. 490. The scripts and textual contents of the compendium have been intensively studied but the volume's physical and material features have been largely ignored. This publication demonstrates that as much meaningful data is embedded in the manuscript's materials and structure as in the words on the page. The significance of the 'Compositiones variae' appears when its context is reconstructed, using evidence supplied by the early medieval Lucchese setting and numerous texts. An investigation of functional relationships - production, uses, practices and preservation - what the object's materiality represents, reveals the 'Compositiones variae' as a social product placed within the cultural and social history of medieval knowledge and power. Thea Burns is an independent scholar living in Canada and is Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us