Codex Amiatinus

The Codex Amiatinus, is one of the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Bible and includes the nearly complete text of the Vulgate. It was Done was founded around 700 in Northumbria in the St. Paul Monastery in Jarrow near Newcastle upon Tyne under Benedict Biscop. She is now in Florence in the Bibliotheca Laurentian ( Signed by MS Amiatinus 1).

Description

The approximately 35 kg in the Codex format 50cm x 34cm x 20cm consists of 1040 sheets of parchment, which described or illustrated 1029. He is a major testimony to the Elias Avery Lowe precisely researched English variant of uncial.

He is illuminated beautifully and is considered one of the most important manuscripts of the Bible. The two figurative illuminations are made ​​to late antique models and do not remember so much of the Insular style. Despite the advanced age the pages look fresh. Originally three copies of the Bible from Ceolfrid were taken in the year 692 in the works. Involved in the creation was probably the Venerable Bede. Coelfried brought the book to Rome as a gift for Pope Gregory II, the manuscript appeared in the 9th century in San Salvatore di Monte Amiata monastery in Tuscany, where the dedicatory inscription was fashioned. This is where the book was kept until 1786, before it came to Florence - hence the name Codex Amiatinus. It was long assumed that it herstamme by Benedict of Nursia in the Monte Cassino monastery. After this thesis, however, was doubted more and more, presented in 1888 Giovanni Battista de Rossi, the similarity to a fragment in the library of the British Museum fixed and was able to explain the context.