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Reviews 223 architectural setting of imperial power are discussed in IV and V while some aspects on Komnenian government are examined in XI and X U . These papers on twelfth-century themes may be taken as prolegomena to the major study on Manuel that MagdaUno has been preparing for some years and which it is safely anticipated wiU give Byzantium's twetfth-century an encyclopedic reappraisal that is long overdue. The last paper in this collection (XIV), on Hellenism and nationalism, (a lecture given in Canberra in 1985 and not previously published), ventures on to potentially dangerous ground that has generated over much heat and not enough illumination in the past. Magdalino brings a cool head to his analysis of Byzantium's national myths which have lingered on to the present where the complex relationships between the Roman and Greek political and literary heritages have been regularly overlaid and obscured by rhetorical conventions. The ideas presented here are also developed further and usefuUy in a more recent paper, "The Fourth Kingdom and rhetoric of Hellenism' (in The perception of the past in twelfth-century Europe, ed. P. Magdalino, London, 1992,117-56), which repays attention. There are bibliographical updatings and an index. Elizabeth Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Meehan, Aidan, Celtic design: a beginner's manual, London, Thames & Hudson, 1991; paper; pp. 160, 258 figures; Idem, Celtic design: knotwork: the secret methods of the scribes, London, Thames & Hudson, 1991; paper; pp. 159,114figures;Idem, Celtic design: animal patterns, London, Thames & Hudson, 1992; paper; pp. 160, 258 figures; R.R.P. AUS$19.95 per volume. Best-selling trilogies are perhaps not Parergon's usual fare, but Meehan's work is definitely in that category. His books are on sale in every museum and craft bookshop in the Anglophone world;rightiyso, since they are attractive, beautifully-produced and an ideal gift for the enthusiastic teenager or amateur calligrapher. They are not works of scholarship and do not really claim to be, though it is obvious they are based upon scholarly work without any acknowledgement. It is difficult to understand why the author should not admit to having used the standard texts on the early medieval manuscripts and metalwork of the British Isles, most evidently the facsimiles of the Book of Durrow and the Book of Lindisfarne and the British Museum's Sutton Hoo publications. A short bibliography would surely enhance the usefulness of this series. 224 Reviews In each of the three volumes the prose text is brief and serves essentiaUy as an introduction to the illustrations which demonstrate how to copy 'Celtic' decorative patterns. The first volume introduces an eclectic mix of early medieval insular step patterns (seventh totenthcenturies A.D.), La Tene spirals (third century B.C. to first century A.D.) and insular script (seventh to nineteenth centuries A.D.). Readers wiU end up thoroughly confused about what constitutes 'Celtic' art, but will have mastered several ingenious ways of entertaining themselves and impressing their friends. They will not have learnt anything about Celtic culture and aesthetics. Volume 2, Knotwork, is more ambitious and purports to publish fully, once and for all, the secret methods of the scribes, by showing how to construct interlace patterns, with particularreferencetothe seventh-century D u n o w gospelbook . Meehan has not discovered any secret methods and adds nothing to a formal analysis of manuscript illustration or calligraphy. Since there are no references, it is difficult to know what research has been done, but there is no obvious awareness of, for instance, Robert Stevick's work on the geometrical layout of the display pages of the Dunow, Echternach, Lindisfarne and Kells gospel-books. Although Meehan is obviously a highly competent calligrapher and his 'how-to' sections are clear and easy to follow, Ian Bain's Celtic Knotwork (Constable, 1986) seems to m e more full, more scholarly and generally more interesting than Meehan's. The text of the third volume, Animal Patterns, is in severe danger of becoming pretentious, since it attempts to summarize in a couple of paragraphs a very considerable and problematic body of information. Inevitably it becomes a compilation of atittlefact some commonsense...

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