At the beginning of the 18th century, the Royal Library of Madrid received a manuscript bearing the title "History of the Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople from 811 to 1057, Written by the Kurapalat John Skilitsa." Its dating is controversial among the Byzantine paleographers. Some attribute it to the middle - the second half of the XIII century, others (such as the Bulgarian researcher A. Bozhkov) to the turn of the XII and XIII centuries.
In the late 1970s, N. Wilson dated the manuscript to the middle of the 12th century on the basis of handwriting identification and showed its southern Italian origin. In this case, it is most likely that the Madrid copy of the History was made in the palace scriptorium of Palermo on the basis of a copy of the original presented to the emperor by Skilitzia himself, made in 1158 for Henry Aristippus, ambassador of the Kingdom of Sicily, the most prominent intellectual of Palermo.
There are 574 miniatures in the manuscript, and therefore the Madrid manuscript is considered one of the most significant monuments of Byzantine historical miniatures.