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The Quedlinburg Itala fragment (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Cod. theol. lat. fol. 485) is a fragment of five folios and a fragment of a sixth from a large 5th century illuminated manuscript of an Old Latin translation of the Bible. It is the oldest surviving illustrated biblical manuscript.
According to paleographic and art historical evidence, the manuscript was produced in the first half of the fifth century. The illustrations on folio 1 have some fifteenth century Latin (?) labels added. There are were Latin and German mottoes added to the lower margin of folio 3 recto in the late 16th century. Nothing is known about the location of the manuscript between it creation and the late 16th century.
In 1618 the manuscript was used for scrap in the binding of several volumes of church and city records in Quedlinburg. In 1865 folios 3 and 4 were discovered to have been used as end papers in the Quedlinburg Parish accounts for 1617 and 1618. In 1869, folios 1 and 2 were discovered as end papers in the Quedlinburg police edicts. In 1888 folio 5 and the fragments of the sixth folio were discovered in the cover of the Quedlinburg parish Registry of Communicants from 1619 to 1626. The volume in which folios 3 and 4 were discovered was signed by its binder, Asmus Reitel. Herman Degering, who discovered the fragments of the sixth folio, examined the dated contents of the three volumes of records and concluded that the Reitel had made the bindings in 1618 using the manuscript as scrap material. The other folios of the manuscript were probably used in a similar manner, but no trace of them has been found.
The illustrations are grouped in framed miniatures occupying an entire page. There are between two and five miniatures per page, with the corresponding text being on separate pages. The illustrations, although much damaged, are done in the illusionistic style of late antiquity. The fragment includes a full page illumination of episodes from Vulgata: 1 Kings 10:2-3 (see illustration at right)
Much of the paint surface lost revealing the underlying writing that gives instructions to the artist who should execute the pictures. Translation of the text: "You make the tomb [by which] Saul and his servant stand and two men, jumping over pits, speak to him and [announce that the asses have been found]. You make Saul by a tree and [his] servant [and three men who talk] to him, one carrying three goats, one [three loaves of bread, one] a wine-skin."
References[edit]
- Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.
- Levin, Inabelle. The Quedlinburg Itala: The oldest Illustrated Biblical Manuscript. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985.
- Lowden, John: Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Phaidon, 57-59 pp.
manuscript-art-stub
Category:Illuminated biblical manuscripts