The Endpapers of Byzantium
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE has gone to the printers
Coins are a very important way of learning about historical societies. Being made of metal, they tend to survive the ravages of time, and being made by the government, they tend to reflect the political realities of the age in which they were produced. In an empire as powerful and long-lived as the Eastern Roman Empire, there is an entire history that can be derived from them, as was noted in two-volume set of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY of the BYZANTINE EMPIRE that we hope to ship in December as the fifth and sixth books in the Castalia History series.
Given the importance and sheer number of the coins stamped over the centuries, we thought that instead of going with our customary practice of printing endpapers that display the locations where the events took place, we would take advantage of the many Byzantine coins available to produce a pseudo-geometric design that would be attractive as well as historically relevant.
This approach produced a unique and rather spectacular result. However, one thing we neglected to factor in was how long it would take to clean up 60 numismatic designs per endpaper. So, this turned out to be a very laborious and time-intensive task for the production team, but then, who are we to complain when we work in the honorable tradition of medieval monks painstakingly illuminating manuscripts in unheated scriptoriums by candlelight? Which is why we did not take any shortcuts or repeat ourselves, so each of the four endpapers in the set are entirely distinct.
We’re now working on the cover stamps, and we’ll unveil the two endpapers for Volume Two once the stamp designs are ready for display. However, now that we’ve determined the size of the print run, it is possible for those who aren’t subscribers and the subscribers who missed out on the books during their subscription months to purchase them as a stand-alone set. Collectors may be interested to note that the two Byzantine histories will mark the first use of the high-quality Spanish cowhide that we’ve been testing at the bindery.
The two-volume set can be purchased here:
We’re pleased to inform everyone that WAR IN PEACE has just reached the warehouse and will be shipping out next week. While the Libraria editions are sold out, we have 66 of both Library editions from the print run left:
