The manuscript presented here, now lost, was kept till the early years of the present century in the church of St. John the Theologian in Smyrna, where it was seen and examined by R. Eisler and G. Lampakis. Both these scholars published, in the years 1906 and 1909 respsctively, a short description of the codex and its miniatures giving at the same time its colophon and the later entries. Since then there has been no further mention of this highly important kimelion. Hence one can assume that it was lost during the disastrous Asia Minor campaign of the years 1921 -1922. Fortunately from the above mentioned descriptions and the old Lampakis' negatives preserved in the Archives of the Christian Archaeological Society, now kept in the Byzantine Museum of Athens, the essential features of this manuscript can be still reconstructed. According to this documentation the codex consisted of 298 vellum leaves, measuring 320 x235 mm approximetely, and it was decorated with four full-page miniatures of the Evangelists, cited at the beginning of each section of lections (pericopes), and in addition elaborated headpieces and initials. From the colophon we learn, that the manuscript was written in the year 1298 on the orders and at the expsnce of the Métropolite of Philippoupolis, Gerasimus, by a monk named David. According to the later entries the manuscript was acquired in the year 1779 for the church of St. Basil the Great in Ephesus and only in the year 1831 was purchased from some «Arabs» for the church of St. John in the Epano Machala of Smyrna. The value of this manuscript lies mainly in its miniatures and their date. Iconographically the portraits of the Evangelists which were illustrating it belong to a closely interrelated group of miniatures isolated by Professor K. Weitzmann, which consists of the Evangelists portraits of the following manuscripts : Athens, National Library, cod. 118, Athos, Iviron 5 and Philotheou 5, Paris, Bibl. Nat. cod. gr. 54 and Princeton, Univ. Lib. cod. Garrett 2 (former Andreas Skiti 753). The date of this group of manuscripts has become the object of great dispute ever since its publication as such. Located in Constantinopel by Professor Weitzmann due to their high quality these manuscripts were dated also by him in the period of the Latin Conquest, mainly on the basis of the presence of Latin inscriptions or a billingual text in some of them and the strong iconographical similarities of certain of their miniatures to those illustrating two German manuscripts dated in the decade 1230-1240 (drawings of the Wolfenbüttel Sketchbook and the derivative miniatures of the Goslar Lectionary). Other scholars departing from the apparent, in their opinion, stylistic differences between the individual members ot the group and disregarding the witness of the afore mentioned German derivatives, have proposed a greater time span between them and assigned the miniatures of Garrett 2 and Philotheou 5 to the end of the 13th- beginning of the 14th century, to mention only the latest proposed date. To this controversy the miniatures of Smyrna codex contribute through their fixed date, which comes as a definitive support to the attempt made till now only on the basis of stylistic comparisons, to discern between typological dependence and chronological correspondence of the different members of the group. A further evidence supporting that conlusion is furnished by two of the miniatures with the Evangelists portraits illustrating an other manuscript, the codex Sinai gr. 2123. These miniatures, dated in the year 1242, belong iconographically to the group and are also for the first time presented here in this connection. With these two manuscripts we now have more reason to assume a current use of the types of the Evangelists portraits in question throughout the 13th century (in order to remain within the limits of the period concerned). The dates offered by the German (1230-1240), the Sinai (1242) and the Smyrna (1298) miniatures cover this period almost from its beginning to its very end. Consequently that group which was formed on the basis of an iconographical identity does not need to be regarded as possessing a stylistic homogeneity and representing a chronological unity as well. In the light of this new evidence an attempt is made, in the second part of this study, to define the character of the Smyrna miniatures and their stylistic relation to the other members of the Weitzmann group. With regard to the first of these two questions the comparative analysis of the Smyrna miniatures has shown a conscious effort towards iconographical as well as aesthetical uniformity of all four compositions. Thus all Evangelists are depicted seating on heavy benches turned toward the right (except Mark) and holding an open codex. In addition, the figures of Matthew and Luke appear to be composed of motives borrowed from the genuine iconographical types of the group. Finally, an architectural background of common general form and function and with very similar decorative motives in all four miniatures contributes further to the aesthetical uniformity of the different pictures. These modifications of the model gain more importance since they appear to be rooted in the intention to adapt the picture as a whole to classical prototypes. This tendency is expressed in the role and the decorative details of the architectural background as well as in the treatment of the figures and their relation to space. The figure style in particular, besides its palaeologan traits, is distinguished by the articulation, of the garments in large surfaces which indicate by gradual shadowing the relief of the body and are juxtaposed with broad, sharply indented folds, grouped richly in the free parts of the drapery. This system which combines a strongly pronouncing relief with garments draped in rich, zig-zag folds, as can be recognised especially in the figures of John and Luke of the Smyrna manuscript, is identified as having its roots in a well-known style of the 10th century, represented here by the miniatures of the manuscript nr. 56 of the National Library in Athens. With these major characteristics the Smyrna miniatures appear to differ stylistically as much from the more or less painterly style of the manuscripts Athens 118 and Iviron 5, which have consequently to be regarded as belonging to an earlier date, as also from the miniatures of Garrett 2 and Philotheou 5. In these latter ones a certain decrease of the volume of the body combined with a progressive linearisation of the drapery and a different conception of space in the picture are already apparent and justify a later date (around after 1300) already proposed for these miniatures. Thus the Smyrna miniatures contribute through their fixed date to the chronological and stylistic classification of a distinctive group of manuscripts and further more they offer one more example of the retrospective trends in palaeologan art around the year 1300.APPENDIX The text on the Smyrna manuscript had already been completed when two more miniatures iconographically related to the group were discovered in the private Collection of Th. Tsatsos in Athens. These two miniatures on single parchment leaves once belonging to the same manuscript represent the Evangelists John and Luke and repeat iconographically to the smallest detail the portraits of the same authors in the manuscript Iviron 5. This absolute iconographical correspondence which extends to a stylistic imitation as well allows us to regard the Athens miniatures as copies of those of the Athos manuscript. At the same time their inferior artistic quality which could suggest a provincial origin leads to the assumption that they were executed in some small workshop of Athos — at the end of 13th - beginning of 14th century—with the miniatures of Iviron 5 as a model.