Quedlinburg Itala fragment
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The Quedlinburg ''Itala'' fragment (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Cod. theol. lat. fol. 485) is a fragment of six folios from a large 5th-century
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
of an Old Latin ''Itala'' translation of parts of
1 Samuel The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...
of the Old Testament. It was probably produced in Rome in the 420s or 430s. It is the oldest surviving illustrated biblical manuscript and has been in the Berlin State Library since 1875-76. The pages are approximately 305 x 205 mm large. The fragments were found from 1865 onwards (two in 1865, two in 1867, one in 1887) re-used in the bindings of different books that had been bound in the 17th century in the town of Quedlinburg, home of
Quedlinburg Abbey Quedlinburg Abbey (german: Stift Quedlinburg or ) was a house of secular canonesses ''( Frauenstift)'' in Quedlinburg in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 936 on the initiative of Saint Mathilda, the widow of the East Frankis ...
, a large Imperial monastery, where the manuscript may well have spent much of its life. The illustrations are grouped in framed miniatures occupying an entire page, with between two and five miniatures per page, with the corresponding text being on the other side of the pages; there are fourteen miniatures in total. One folio contains only text. The illustrations, although much damaged, are done in the illusionistic style of
late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
.


Style and context

Much of the paint surface is lost revealing the underlying writing that gives instructions to the artist who would execute the pictures, such as: "Make the tomb
y which Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...
Saul and his servant stand and two men, jumping over pits, speak to him and nnounce that the asses have been found Make Saul by a tree and isservant nd three men who talkto him, one carrying three goats, one hree loaves of bread, onea wine-skin." This suggests that the programme of images was newly devised for this volume, rather than merely copying an earlier work. This, the usual conclusion, was disputed by
Ernst Kitzinger Ernst Kitzinger (December 27, 1912 – January 22, 2003) was a German- American historian of late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine art. Biography Kitzinger was born into a well-educated Jewish family in Munich; his father, Wilhelm Nathan ...
, who argued that they were to aid the artist who was copying images from the different format of a
scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus ...
. However Walter Cahn sees the instructions as far more detailed than would be needed for that. Whether original or not, the images are "the fruit of what we must imagine to have been a thoroughly rationalized and quasi-industrial method of production", in "a stable craft with settled routines".Cahn, 22 They are painted in "an illusionistic style with an emphasis on imperial imagery" (Saul and David are dressed as emperors in military costume), and gold is used for highlights and the ''tituli'' or captions to the images. The text is in a "superior uncial script", while the instructions to the artist are in "an eccentric Roman cursive". The full extent of the original manuscript is not known. Some of the episodes illustrated are very minor, suggesting that the whole manuscript may have been illustrated at this density, which is greater than any later Biblical manuscript; according to
Kurt Weitzmann Kurt Weitzmann (March 7, 1904, Kleinalmerode (Witzenhausen Witzenhausen is a small town in the Werra-Meißner-Kreis in northeastern Hesse, Germany. It was granted town rights in 1225, and until 1974, it was a district seat. The University of ...
"It staggers the imagination to picture what a fully illustrated manuscript of the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings must have looked like". The style suggests it may have been made by the same workshop responsible for the
Vergilius Vaticanus The Vergilius Vaticanus, also known as Vatican Virgil (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Vat. lat. 3225), is a Late Antique illuminated manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's ''Aeneid'' and ''Georgics''. It was made in Rome in around 400 ...
, and has links with the mosaics of
Santa Maria Maggiore The Basilica of Saint Mary Major ( it, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, ; la, Basilica Sanctae Mariae Maioris), or church of Santa Maria Maggiore, is a Major papal basilica as well as one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome and the larges ...
. According to Kitzinger: "Evidently this book was commissioned by a patron who belonged to the same social stratum as the sponsors of ''de luxe'' editions of the classics and who shared many of the same cultural values". The other very early illustrated biblical manuscripts that have survived are similar densely illustrated texts of specific books from the
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, mostly the
Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
(
Vienna Genesis The Vienna Genesis (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. theol. gr. 31), designated by siglum L (Ralphs), is an illuminated manuscript, probably produced in Syria in the first half of the 6th century. It is the oldest well-preserved, ...
,
Cotton Genesis The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is a 4th- or 5th-century Greek Illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis. It was a luxury manuscript with many miniatures. It is one of the oldest illustrated biblical co ...
), which, with some specific details of the illustrations, leads scholars to postulate an earlier tradition of Jewish luxury manuscripts, perhaps in scroll format, in the Hellenized Jewish world. The Books of Kings feature strongly in the uniquely extensive wall-paintings of the Dura-Europos Synagogue from the 3rd century. The figures have landscape backgrounds, "atmospheric, autumnal settings, with softly shaded skies of pink and light blue", that are "very close" to those of the Vergilius Vaticanus, whereas the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaics see the beginning of the use of a plain
gold background Gold ground (both a noun and adjective) or gold-ground (adjective) is a term in art history for a style of images with all or most of the background in a solid gold colour. Historically, real gold leaf has normally been used, giving a luxuriou ...
in some scenes, the start of what was to become a very common feature in religious art for the next thousand years. But in many respects, the mosaics look (at the expense of visibility, given their high placement) like enlarged miniatures, just as the miniatures of both manuscripts draw on the styles of larger paintings.Kitzinger, 68-69


Saul and Samuel

The fragment includes a full page with four miniatures illustrating the episode at
1 Samuel The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...
15:13-33:


Notes


References

* Cahn, Walter, ''Romanesque Bible Illumination'', Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982, * Calkins, Robert G. ''Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983. * Kitzinger, Ernst, ''Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, 3rd-7th century'', 1977, Faber & Faber, (US: Cambridge UP, 1977), * Weitzmann, Kurt. ''Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination''. Chatto & Windus, London (New York: George Braziller) 1977. * Williams, John (ed), ''Imaging the Early Medieval Bible'', 2002, Penn State University Press, 2002, , 9780271021690
google books


Further reading

* Beck, C. H., ''Quedlinburger Itala-miniaturen der Königlichen bibliothek in Berlin'', 1898, Munich
Open Library Online text (in German)
* H. Degering - A Boeckler, ''Die Quedlinburger Italafragmente'', Berlin, 1932. * 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. * Weitzmann, Kurt, ed.,
Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century
' (online as PDF), no. 424, 1979,
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 ...
, New York,


External links

{{commonscat, Quedlinburg Itala
SSB
Illuminated biblical manuscripts 5th-century illuminated manuscripts Late Roman Empire art Early Christian art Vetus Latina manuscripts