Medieval Bible Leaf - John 14-16 - c 1240-50

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A lovely original leaf from a medieval manuscript pocket Bible, written in Paris c. 1240-50. In Latin gothic micro-minuscule script, ruled in red and written in brown ink in two columns of 44 lines on animal vellum. (150 x 100 mm - 6 x 4"). 

Rubricated chapter numbers, two multi-lined illuminated Lombard style initials &elegant marginalia red & blue. The gothic text is written in extremely tiny & very well formed letters, so small that there are twelve lines of text to the inch!

Both sides contain scribal omissions added in the marginsthe omissions are surrounded by a red box indicating that the “transcription had been systematically checked for accuracy” (De Hamel, Scribes and Illuminators, p. 43). Additionally, the chapter numeral "XV" was mis-scribed at verse 5 but corrected in brown ink to it's proper place before verse 1.

This leaf begins John 14:7 - 16:27:  “Si cognovissetis…” (If you had known me, you would without doubt have known my Father also...Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do: that the Father may be glorified in the Son...If you love me, keep my commandments...The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things...Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends...).

The book from which this leaf came was a very high-quality production, scribed in the Johannes Grusch Workshop in Paris. Calligraphy is excellent, & the vellum is of the finest style, extremely thin & very white. Other leaves from this same book were exhibited in the Jeanne Blackburn Collection, Cleveland Art Museum (pl. 7 & 8). This leaf is from a “portable” Bible of the Crusades period & would have been used in abstract study of theology or preaching of the Gospel around medieval countryside.

Presented in an archival 14x11'' mat

  • Inventory# IM-11132
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