Original leaf from a medieval manuscript pocket Bible. Latin gothic minuscule script, ruled in red & written in brown ink on extremely thin animal vellum. (175x118mm – 6 7/8 x 4 5/8’’)
Rubricated chapter numbers in red & blue. Three illuminated multi-line initials in red & blue with delicate red & blue penwork extending along the margins. 49 lines of text in double columns (10 lines per inch!).
France, c. 1250.
The illuminated “I” begins IV Kings (King James II Kings) 24:1 – 25:30: “In diebus eius…” (In his days Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon came up, and Joakim became his servant three years: then again he rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him the rovers of the Chaldees, and the rovers of Syria, and the rovers of Moab, and the rovers of the children of Ammon: and he sent them against Judah, to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by his servants the prophets…).
The illuminated “S” begins the Prologue to I Paralipomenon (KJ I Chronicles).
This leaf, from a “portable” Bible during the period of the Crusades, would have been used in the abstract study of theology or the preaching of the Gospel around the medieval countryside.
Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat
