Menologion of Basil II

[1] It contains a synaxarion, a short collection of saints' lives, compiled at Constantinople for liturgical use and around 430 miniature paintings by eight different artists.

Text and images cover only half of the religious calendar of the Byzantine liturgical year (September to February), so it is assumed that there was a second volume to the work, but this was probably never produced, since some pages within the manuscript were left unfinished.

At the beginning of the 17th century the cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati gave it to Pope Paul V and the manuscript now resides in the Vatican library.

[6] The artists who produced the images for the Menologion employed perspective and moved away from the flat depictions common up to that time.

The work thus demonstrates the painting style of the period which is often referred to as the Macedonian Renaissance in which painters returned to ancient models with gusto.

Unusual for a Byzantine manuscript, the name of the painter of each illustration is recorded by a scribe at the edge of each image.