This volume constitutes a feast for most senses. The reader's eye is delighted by the beautiful book with the high quality printing and colour illustrations. The online accessed companion audio file is a pleasure for the ears. While turning the pages, one feels the touch of and smells the expensive paper. Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls is the amplified outcome of the homonymous symposium organized at Dumbarton Oaks in 2014 by the editors.

The volume is timely and relevant, responding to the early twenty-first century “sensory turn” in the social sciences and humanities, heralded by David Howes (“Charting the Sensorial Revolution”, Senses and Society 1.1 [2006]: 113–128). Surprisingly, neither Howes’ works on the senses or those of Constance Classen, who examines the sensorium across history and cultures, are well represented in the volume's bibliography. Nevertheless, the volume is an extremely important addition to Byzantine studies in which, apart from sight, the senses have attracted little attention.

Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls has six thematic parts framed by an introduction and a general index. The first five parts are organized around the five senses (“Sight”, “Hearing”, “Smell”, “Taste” and “Touch”) while the last part entitled “The Sensorium” includes contributions that are not devoted to a particular sense. All together, this is a substantive volume, with sixteen chapters on topics including literary studies, history, art history, architecture, archaeology, musicology and theology. The volume's scholarship is in general of high quality. I only have a few quibbles here and there.

In the introduction, the editors point out the importance of the senses in Byzantine culture, remarking also that “Byzantinists have been slow to look at […] the senses” (p.1).Footnote ¹ While explaining the volume's structure, the editors state that “given the study of visuality in Byzantium is far in advance of the study of any of the other senses, we chose to start […] with a pair of papers on sight in the context of display” (p.5). Yet, this statement seems to contradict a previous one that critiques earlier scholarship on the sight for not “embrac[ing] phenomenological approaches” (p.1). Furthermore, the first two chapters (Peers and Bagnoli), which are grouped under “Sight”, concentrate on other senses rather than sight while the second chapter does not concern Byzantine senses, but sensation in the Late Middle Ages.

Peers argues that a better understanding of Byzantine objects cannot be achieved unless scholars accept that objects have their own “special feelings” (p.30). Bagnoli shows convincingly that for medieval people touch, hearing and smell were more significant than sight. The first chapter of the second part (“Hearing”) focuses on sonic environments in architectural contexts: the monastery and the church (Papalexandrou). The next chapter (Antonopoulos) examines kalophonia in relation to non-kalophonic forms. Finally, Haines-Eitzen investigates the presence of desert silence in early monastic literature.

There are some misconceptions regarding the sources used by the last author to formulate her argument. For example, according to Haines-Eitzen “the most cacophonous late ancient monastic text […] is The Life of Antony” (p.113). This conclusion is based on a single episode, which does not take place in the desert, as Haines-Eitzen seems to believe, but in the cemetery situated at some distance from Antony's village where he lives during the first stage of his ascetic life. Haines-Eitzen claims also that “there is very little hesychia” in Antony's Life. Again, this is not accurate. When Antony reaches high levels of spirituality, having completely defeated the devil's attacks, he spends twenty years enclosed in his cell, practicing hesychia.

However interesting and informative, the first two chapters of the third part (“Smell”) are beyond the scope of a volume that is dedicated to sense perceptions in Byzantium (Ruggles, “Scent, Sound, and the Senses in Islamic Gardens of Al-Andalus” and Rojas and Sergueenkova “The Smell of Time: Olfactory Associations with the Past in Premodern Greece”). Harvey's chapter investigates the importance of fragrant oil in Byzantine culture.

In the next part (“Taste”), Arentzen shows how Romanos’ hymns teach the faithful to experience the Bible through taste. Hedstrom offers the first archaeology of early monastic taste. In what follows, Caseau, Tirnanic and Nilsson explore the sense of touch. Caseau examines the touch of the pious Christian, Tirnanic focuses on that of violence and Nilsson discusses erotic tactility. Here my criticism concerns the contribution of Tirnanic, which has some weaknesses.

First, the author draws conclusions that are not supported by Byzantine evidence. For example, it is stated that fire was “one of the four elements that the Byzantines believed their world consisted of” (p.213). Instead of giving a reference to a Byzantine text in support of this statement, the author talks about Plato's approach to the elements. Second, there are a number of instances where Tirnanic talks about an ancient author's theory without giving any reference to the source. She states, for instance, that “for Aristotle touch is the most ‘imperfect’ of senses”. Yet the validity of this statement cannot be substantiated, since there is no reference to the Aristotelian work(s) where this is written. Third, Tirnanic's analysis is based exclusively on English translations of sources, which are not always based on the editions she mentions. Furthermore, there are cases in which the names of the modern translators are not given. Finally, the author draws parallels that are not always relevant. For instance, she concludes her article by likening the healing saint to the Byzantine emperor “who causes corporal pain in the condemned in order to heal the […] empire” (p.237).

In the last part of the volume, Webb explores the use of rhetoric to arouse the senses. Lieber is also interested in the interrelationship between rhetoric and senses, but her sources are Jewish. Plested investigates the spiritual senses in theological literature. All in all, one would have liked to see more interaction between the chapters, either in the same part or in different ones. There is also a certain amount of inconsistency in, for example, references to primary sources.

Despite some weaknesses, which are to be expected in a large interdisciplinary volume, the editors should be congratulated for their excellent work and for introducing Byzantinists to sensory studies.