Bible

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Accession number:

MS M.833

Title:

Bible

Created:

Bohemia, Prague or Raudnitz, 1391.

Binding:

Original white pigskin over wooden boards, nail marks for former bosses in center of covers, originally 4 straps, inscribed on back in 18th-century hand: Biblia - 1391, in 1/2 pigskin slipcase by Marguerite Duprez Lahey.

Description:

424 leaves (2 columns, 44-64 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 490 x 367 mm

Provenance:

Owned by the Grand Ducal Library at Gotha in 1714; purchased through M. Sinelnikoff from the Grand Ducal Library on the Belle da Costa Greene Fund in 1950.

Notes:

Ms. Bible, written and illuminated in Bohemia, Prague or Raudnitz, in 1391 (signed and dated in colophon on fol. 418: Anno domini MCCCXCI finitus est presens liber feria II infra octavam S. Wenceslai martyris gloriosi per manum Andree de australi plaga sive de austria. Tunc temporis plebani ecclesiae in Libochauicz Regnante Wenceslao rege Romanorum et Boemie).
Decoration: 1 full-length historiated initial, 86 smaller historiated initials, foliage border decoration.
Artist: Meta Harrsen identified four artists, two of whom participated in the Bible of King Wenceslaus (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek MS Cod. 2759-2764): Simsonmeister and Barlaammeister, one who worked in the Raudnitz Psalter (Prague, St. Vitus Chapter Library, MS Cim.7) and another she named Master of the Morgan Bible; Josef Krása disagreed with her identification of the second and third artists and suggested that their part represented early work by the first illuminator of the Codex Johanns von Jenstein (BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 1122).
Scribe: Andreas of Austria, parish priest of Libochauicz, north of Prague.
Textiles: protective curtains over some of the initials.

Script:

textura, bastarda

Language:

Latin

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Century:

14th century

Genres:

Dated manuscripts

Illuminated manuscripts

Historiated initials