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166 Reviews Parergon 20.2 (2003) power. Bachrach sees the Carolingian dynasty as consistently pursuing, over the course of several generations, a policy of restoring Frankish rule to the extent it enjoyed in the sixth century. His vision requires the early Carolingians, before their usurpation and replacement of the Merovingian dynasty, to have undertaken long-range strategic planning in order to build up the logistical resources later used to support the Frankish conquests. Bachrach knows that the evidence for this premeditation is thin. Apart from the fact of Carolingian military success itself, it rests on analogy with Charlemagne’s ability, after the period of Bachrach’s study, to issue programmatic legislation with long-term aims and effects; and on a hypothetical lost source for a comment in the Annals of Metz (ca. 805) that the intent of the Carolingian dynasty a century earlier was the reconstruction of the regnum Francorum. An earlier attempt to ascribe a ‘grand strategy’ to a pre-modern empire, Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (1976), has not fared well, and it is hard to imagine that Bachrach’s arguments will prove convincing in an academic climate which spurns positivistic constructs of history. Even if Bachrach’s ‘grand strategy’ is rejected, however, medievalists should note his subsidiary argument: that the practicalities of pre-modern warfare suggest that Carolingian power was the result of the building up of considerable military and logistical resources, rather than of a ‘law of unintended effect’. Bachrach’s stress on the continuities from Roman to early medieval military administration is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this work for those not directly involved in military history. Andrew Gillett Department of Ancient History Macquarie University Burin, Elizabeth, Manuscript Illumination in Lyons 1473-1530, Turnhout, Brepols, 2001; cloth; pp. ix, 469; 187 b/w illustrations, 25 colour plates; RRP EUR125.00; ISBN 2503512321. The manuscripts under discussion here come from the last and most productive period of manuscript production in Lyon. The city of Lyon was, after Paris, the most prominent in France, a major centre of printing and the book trade, as well as a major trading centre. This was a time that saw the introduction and growth of the printing trade and the shift from individually crafted manuscripts to Reviews 167 Parergon 20.2 (2003) multiple reproductions; it marks a significant moment in western intellectual history. The types of material covered, the shifting of patronage patterns and the range of media in which some of these artists worked, all reflect this significant shift and provide insights into how the illuminators and scribes responded to this changing market. Burin, in this work, has focused on providing a catalogue of manuscripts made at this time. These are a collection of works that have received little attention from art historians, late French manuscripts having been described as an ‘art in decline’. Apart from an exhibition held in Paris in 1993, which was the first attempt at an overview of this material, there has been little sustained research on these works. Burin has identified the hands of several masters, outlining their stylistic influences and including a comprehensive catalogue of their work. She traces the impact of the printing press on the changing literary and religious genres undertaken by illuminators of the period, as they moved away from missals and books of hours, gradually focusing more consistently on secular themes. There is a parallel decrease in the number of cheaper and middle-range books produced, with an increasing emphasis on the luxurious volumes. Stylistically, while medieval influences continued to be found within the manuscripts produced at Lyon, the illuminators’ knowledge of contemporary ideas can also be seen. There are, for example, indications of the impact of Jean Colombe, the last artist who worked on the programme of the Les Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry, on manuscripts produced in the city, suggesting that they became familiar with his work while he was based in Lyon when with the Court of Savoy. By the sixteenth century, it would seem that it was not uncommon for artists not to specialise as manuscript illuminators any longer. For example, the artist that Burin identifies as...

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