Glenn Peers. Orthodox Magic in Trebizond and Beyond: A Fourteenth-Century Greco-Arabic Amulet Roll. La Pomme d'or, 2018.

From La Pomme d'or

This book examines a unique, previously understudied object from the Byzantine and Islamic world of the Later Middle Ages.

It is a long strip of parchment combining images, prayers and the Abgar legend in Greek from Trebizond, with designs and prayers in Arabic from the Middle East. Together these facets evoke a whole world of magic, pious devotion and intercultural dialogue.

Now divided between two US collections in Chicago and New York, this amulet roll is here fully situated in the long tradition of such powerful objects.