196 Part Two: Epigrams in Context
Words and images are two entirely separate forms of language, which both
have a semiotic relationship to reality, but communicate through different
media. Of course, this does by no means exclude the possibility that visual and
verbal forms of imagination may correspond to a certain degree and may
influence each other. But whatever mutual influence the two may have on one
another, it is never a straightforward one-on-one relation. The poet of the
epigrams in the Leo Bible provides tools to decode and to read the visual
message of the miniatures in a symbolic manner. His interpretation does not
necessarily agree with the intentions of the painter – but the painter’s inten-
tions are totally irrelevant to the hermeneutic problems posed by the epigrams.
We should not confuse painter and poet, art and poetry. The epigrams of the
Leo Bible merely tell us how an individual in the 940s looked at the miniatures
and what he read, or thought he read, in their visual signs and pictorial
language. They also tell us how the poet wanted others to look at the images,
for the frequent use of the imperative (“see!”, “marvel at ... !”) naturally
presupposes that he assumes that future users of the Leo Bible will follow his
lead. Therefore, the great significance of these epigrams is not so much a
question of what they have to say about the miniatures themselves, but what
they reveal about Byzantine attitudes in the tenth century toward the visual
world of the arts. The epigrams provide a unique opportunity to view tenth-
century miniatures through a Byzantine looking-glass and to understand how
Byzantine viewers responded to contemporary forms of art.