One of the most significant innovations in the history of Byzantine book culture is the adoption of the minuscule for the transcription of literary texts, which took place between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century: this script, which resulted from the process of normalization of a cursive that was already being used in bureaucratic milieus (Figure 2.2.1), superseded the traditional book scripts known as majuscule. This phenomenon shortly preceded a wide cultural revival by which the empire emerged from a long period of decline. This study makes suggestions concerning the interconnection between these phenomena and investigates their causes, focusing on the relationship between such mutations in Byzantine (book) culture and the deep socio-political changes that took place in the empire from the end of the eighth century, the precursors of which can be traced back to the seventh century. It is structured into three main sections: the first section below briefly presents the innovative character of ninth-century book culture, with special attention paid to the manuscript tradition and to the circulation of classical texts. The following section then focuses on the socio-cultural and political conditions in which the adoption of the minuscule for the copying of books took place.