The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor: The Life of Christ Illuminated, Thomas F. Mathews and Alice Taylor (hardcover)

The magnificent book known as the Gladzor Gospels is a masterpiece of fourteenth-century Armenian art. Now at the Charles E. Young Research Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, it is one of the great Armenian manuscripts in an Armenian collection.

Written and decorated in about 1300 by learned monks in Siunik, the Gospel book offers significant insight into Armenian religious beliefs and practice of the time. The text is embellished by a remarkable program of brilliantly colored illumination that includes dozens of scenes from the life of Christ, as well as portraits of the text’s saintly authors. The text’s elaborate illumination also brings to life a vibrant artistic center, the Monastery of Gladzor, which long ago disappeared.

The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor includes sixty color reproductions of the manuscript’’s illuminated pages, ten black-and-white illustrations, and two maps along with an essay that explores the book’s artistic richness and theological complexity.