Hamilton Bible

The Bible is a Hamiltonian resulting in Naples illuminated Bible manuscript of the 14th century. It is stored under the signature ms 78 E 3 ( Ham. 85) in the Berlin Print Room.

Description

The Bible is one-volume and contains the complete Latin text of the Old and New Testament, only Ezra 3 and 4 are missing. In the colophon Master John de Ravenna appears as a writer.

The dimensions of the Hamilton Bible amount to 375 x 265 mm, it has 497 sheets of parchment, there are a total of 40 collecting miniatures, 4 full-page miniatures and 26 panels on the Apocalypse, and 92 illuminated initials. The manuscript is complete and is in a very good state of preservation. The red velvet cover of the book is provided in the corners with four suns, but their rays are only obtained in the middle of a circular medallion should have been.

The two-column Bible text is written in black ink, the image initials are almost square. The background of the initials is usually gilded and decorated in blue with white ornaments. In the letter itself is a hive of life, either the initial inhabited by someone, for example, the writing Evangelist John the fol. 400r or the initial is a scene that is in the Bible text, illustrated, for example, the plaintiff Jeremiah from the burning city of Jerusalem, fol. 60v. The letters themselves are either in pink, fol. 60v, pink with green border, fol. 400r, pink with blue border, fol. 297v or executed fol.128v blue with different colored borders. The collection miniatures are rectangular, with either red, blue, orange or green edged pink, as on fol. 106v and fol. 74v apparent.

Notable sides of the Hamilton Bible

Fol 1: Letter of Jerome to Paulinus of Nola and Jerome Prolog

Fol 4: Genesis - representation of the creation story in 16 rectangular fields

Fol 455-464: Apocalypse - very comprehensive and narrative

Dating

The Hamilton Bible or Berlin Bible is dated by Andreas Bräm with 1355, Schmitt assumes a rise around 1350, From 1343 to 1345, the Bible is dated from stain. Due to political difficulties Johanna I. between the death of her father Robert in 1343 and the Peace of 1352 is to be assumed that they hardly gave in this time artists with orders. The dated with 1340-1343 and 1350 Anjou Bible is not so magnificent and monumental as the Hamilton Bible, it will be shifted in time before the Hamilton Bible. The years 1340 and 1360 are for the Vienna Bible dating in space, but in summary it should be noted that the significant group of Neapolitan Bibles ( Hamilton Bible, Anjou Bible and Wiener Bible ) come from an artist's studio and in the years between 1340 should be created and 1360.

Provenance of the Bible

Contracting Authority was probably Queen Joanna of Anjou for Guillaume II Roger de Beaufort, or for his brother, Pope Clement VI. (reigned 1342-1352 ), as repeatedly found on the pages of the Bible, the coat of arms of Guillaume II Roger de Beaufort, was the Joan of Anjou in contact. On Raphael's Portrait of Pope Leo X (1475-1521) with the Cardinals Giulio de ' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi, the Hamilton Bible is displayed. As the Bible into the hands of Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521 ) came and her way of Pope Clement VI. to Pope Leo X, is not known. The future Pope Julius II (r. 1503-1513 ) has in Avignon rearranged ( during the stay of his uncle Pope Sixtus IV, reg. 1471-1484 ), the Gothic book collection. Proven it came to book transport of the Popes from the book inventory from Avignon to Rome, it is possible that the Hamilton Bible so came to Rome.

The way the Bible can not be reconstructed. It is known that the Hamilton Bible came into the collection of the Dukes Hamilton, who collected many centuries manuscripts. It is not known where and when the Hamilton Bible purchased and incorporated into the collection. The most important collectors of the Hamilton family was the bibliophile Alexander Douglas (1767-1852), who became the 10th Duke of Hamilton, the collection expanded significantly through acquisitions in Italy, France and Russia. The grandson of the tenth Duke, however, had so much debt that the collection had to be sold, 1884 of a total of 692 manuscripts were from the Prussian Prints and Drawings 663 purchased. Since then, the Bible is the signature ms 78 E 3 in the Prussian Prints and Drawings in Berlin.

Assignment of the Bible to the book Neapolitan painting of the 14th century

The leading illuminator in Naples in the 14th century was Cristophoro Orimina, the Anjou Bible or Bible Alfie created 1340-1343. The style Oriminas stands out with finely painted, monumental figures with soft modeling. Landscapes play a subordinate role, rugged rock formations, delicate and detailed architectures dominate, cities are reproduced formulaic. The coloring of the manuscripts from the hand of Orimina resembles almost. Blue, green, orange, salmon red, yellow, gray and blue gray for the earth dominate the works. An orange cornice surrounds some miniatures ( f. 6r/fol. 367).

Cristophoro Oriminas style takes from the Anjou Bible ( 1340 ) on the Hamilton Bible through to Planisio Bible ( beginning of 60s ) a remarkable development, from the initials painters towards a cycle of paintings painter. This individual images can be brought together, the painter several miniatures must summarize, this has Orimina made ​​in the Hamilton and the Planisio Bible, which the frames are placed in a narrative context. This is achieved through a vertical or horizontal structure of the miniatures and their scenes. Thus, the collecting miniatures appear in the Hamilton Bible as an independent, complete and scenic successive frames, which are in a formal and thematic context to each other. An increase in the Summary and clamping of the narrative units is achieved in the Planisio Bible.