Manuscripta

This article compares patron imagery in two illuminated books produced for Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria in the mid-fourteenth century. Both manuscripts, a Slavonic gospel book and a world history (the Chronicle of Constantine Manassès), were personalized for Ivan Alexander through repetitive and creative interweaving of his images into the very fabric of his books. In both cases the ruler was aggrandized through intimate visual associations with divine luminaries and both manuscripts marked key transitions in his life. The stark contrast in quality between the two manuscripts, however, has been tactfully avoided by scholars and not subjected to rigorous analysis. The physical evidence in the luxurious London Tetraevangelion and the modest Vatican Manasses reveals an enormous difference in expenditure and divergence in quality of execution. Even in the celebrated London manuscript the patron images, including the famous frontispiece miniature, demonstrate evidence of hurried production.

This paper focuses on the codicological, paleographical and textual features of Latin Bible manuscripts produced in Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the way in which they were read. The relation between the physical appearance and contents of these codices and those of the so-called Paris Bible is also examined in order to understand the mechanisms underlying the diffusion of the latter in Italy. The analysis is limited to a group of little less than one hundred Bibles of northern, central and southern Italian origin, whose commissioners or first owners/users (mendicant and monastic orders, clergy and laymen alike) can be determined with reasonable certainty. Thus, it is possible to connect each manuscript to a specific context, purpose, and, often, way of reading. The research shows that to different degrees and with extremely few exceptions, all Bibles examined bear the features of a commercial, relatively standardized, and up-to-date book production. Differences, especially in format, are normally connected to the purpose the book was supposed to fulfill; while textual variety is most common in Bibles that were not produced in contexts influenced by university models, either Parisian or Bolognese. Indeed, Bibles that were mostly influenced by the so-called Paris Bible are not surprisingly those copied in the university town of Bologna after the mid-thirteenth century. True differentiation in the manuscripts occurred only after use. It was then that their text was revised, if necessary, digested, and transformed into something instrumental for the life, mission, or work of their owners and readers.