The Cloisters Hebrew Bible is a

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

made in the

Kingdom of Castile The Kingdom of Castile (; es, Reino de Castilla, la, Regnum Castellae) was a large and powerful state on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It began in the 9th centu ...

from the early to mid-14th century, with an approximate date prior to 1366. The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

acquired this manuscript from the collection of

Jacqui Safra Jacqui (Jacob) Eli Safra (born c. 1940) is a billionaire investor from Geneva. He is a descendant of the Syrian Lebanese-Swiss Jewish Safra banking family. Biography Jacqui Eli Safra is the son of Elie Safra (1922–1993) and Yvette Dabbah (192 ...

from

Sothebys Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

Judaica auction on December 20, 2017.

History

Hebrew Bibles were produced in Castile during the 1230s, during the reign of Ferdinand III. The era of manuscript making came to an end due to the

Black Plague The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

and the Massacre of 1391, followed by the

Alhambra Decree The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ( Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Arag ...

and the expulsion of the Jewish communities in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. After the expulsion of Jews, the manuscript remained in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

for centuries, followed by

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

before coming into the hands of Jacqui Safra. The manuscript was placed on auction by Safra through Sotheby's Judaica Auction on December 20, 2017, with an estimate of $3.5-5 million but it was purchased by the MET pre-auction for an undisclosed amount. It is now part of the

Cloisters A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

collection, under accession number 2018.59.

Manuscript

The manuscript consist of 476 folios. The first part of the manuscript is heavily gilded 70 folios are decorated with

micrography Micrography (from Greek, literally small-writing – "Μικρογραφία"), also called microcalligraphy, is a Jewish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam,Mudéjar Mudéjar ( , also , , ca, mudèjar , ; from ar, مدجن, mudajjan, subjugated; tamed; domesticated) refers to the group of Muslims who remained in Iberia in the late medieval period despite the Christian reconquest. It is also a term for ...

and Gothic Design, which was prominent within the

Iberian peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

. The combination of Judaic, Islamic, and Christian art styles has come to be known as ''

convivencia ''Convivencia'' (, "living together") is an academic term, proposed by the Spanish philologist Américo Castro, regarding the period of Spanish history from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early eighth century until the expulsio ...

''. It is one of only three surviving illuminated Hebrew Bibles from fourteenth-century Castile.

Provenance

The earliest known date on the codex is dated to 1366, with the owner's signature: David ha-Kohen Coutinh Other owners of the book include: * Moses Abulafia (late 1400s-early 1500s) * Donna Jamila of

Salonika Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

(1526) * Aaron di Boton of Salonika (1526) * The

Zaradel Synagogue Zaradel Synagogue is a synagogue in Alexandria, Egypt. See also

*History of the Jews in Egypt *List of synagogues in Egypt Synagogues in Alexandria {{Egypt-synagogue-stub ...

(by 1905) * Central European Private Collector (circa 1950s/60s to 1996) * Jacqui E. Safra (sold to MET in 2018)

References

{{Reflist

External links

* https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/metcollects/spanish-hebrew-bible * https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/773026 1366 books 14th-century illuminated manuscripts Illuminated biblical manuscripts Hebrew Bible manuscripts Jewish illuminated manuscripts Judaism in Spain Manuscripts of the Metropolitan Museum of Art