Byzantine
The fifteen Byzantine manuscripts include gospels, commentaries on the Scriptures, homilies, liturgical works and books of devotion which range in date from the tenth to the fifteenth century. Many are illuminated with fine miniatures and richly decorated initials.
Beatty acquired most of his Byzantine manuscripts in the 1920s from dealers in Paris. His correspondence contains letters from dealers in Istanbul offering Byzantine objects or textiles for sale, but in general Beatty declined.
Among the earliest manuscripts are three that date from the tenth to the eleventh century (Mss 131-3), which were originally from the Russian monastery of Panteleïmon on Mount Athos. The earliest manuscripts, however, are folios excised from a lectionary, which date to c. AD 950. A recent find in the Library is a single folio (bound in an Armenian manuscript) which may date to the ninth century.
The Library also holds a small collection of icons, mostly late eighteenth or nineteenth century from Greece, Russia and the Balkans.
Publications
Aubineau, Michel (1968) Codices Chrysostomici Graeci, Vol. I: Codices Britanniae et Hiberniae Documents, Études et Répertoires XIII, Paris:
Horton, Charles (1995) 'Byzantine and Related Collections in the Chester Beatty Library', Bulletin of British Byzantine Studies, 21: 88-90.
Nelson, Robert L. (1980) The Iconography of Preface and Miniature in the Byzantine Gospel Book, New York: