Vivarium in context

Samuel J. Barnish ('Roman Responses to an Unstable World: Cassiodorus' Variae in Context') examines the official corr espondence of Cassiodorus in its connexions with contemporary Eastern production, situating the Variae in their proper Byzantine context. Lellia Cracco Ruggini ('Cassiodorus and the Practical Sciences') traces a vivid picture of the development of science in Late Antiquity, analyzing both Greek and Roman models of scientific knowledge and their interpretation and application to practical purposes by Boethius and Cassiodorus. Luciana Cuppo ('The Other Book of Pontiffs: A View from Lombard Italy') publishes a catalogue of Roman bishops annotated in Lombard Italy during the controversy of the Three Chapters. Quite unlike the Roman Liber Pontificalis in inspiration, the Chronica Pontificum of the MS Vat. lat. 1348 was transmitted in northern Italy with the chronicle of Mellitus (a work strongly influenced by Vivarian culture) and theological works copied at Vivarium. The richly embroidered Armenian textiles analyzed by Ronald Marchese and Marlene Breu remain faithful to themes found East and West from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The motifs found as late as the nineteenth century on Armenian liturgical vestments are the same as those at Saint Clement's, the Roman basilica renovated by Mercurius, one of Cassiodorus' friends and better known as pope John II.