Illuminated initial: constructing the Temple of Jerusalem

[King Cyrus and the Temple of Jerusalem]. Biblia latina - VT - Esdras. [Illuminated manuscript leaf].

€ 18,000.00

Overflowing with gold, King Cyrus directs the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem in this elaborately illuminated initial from the leaf of a Latin Bible, ca. 1507. The leaf comprises Ezra 1:1-2:62, Chapter Two being preceded by a four-line rubric from Bede's commentary on Nehemiah and Ezra (Migne, PL , XCI, 1850, col. 817). It is dominated by this flamboyant and unusual scene of Cyrus flanked by councillors, and features four more roundels of gilt in the margins (a little inked heron perches upon one) with distinctive inked marginal decorations of the late 15th and early 16th century. The product of skilled craftspeople, both the illuminated scene and the gothic bookhand are very fine, on high quality vellum.

Variously attributed to Austria or Germany (Augsburg in particular), this leaf is generally accepted to be the product of a Cistercian or Carthusian house, based on the scribal use of the punctus flexus. Remarkably, this leaf can also be narrowly dated: originally part of a multi-volume Latin Bible, the first volume, containing Genesis-Ruth, survives intact (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W.805), and includes a scribal date of 1507. When catalogued in the Schøyen Collection, it was tentatively suggested that this Bible, and thus this leaf, could be sourced to Augsburg, and specifically to St. Ulrich's and St. Afra's Abbey. This corresponds to the 1987 Ferrini catalogue's attribution of this leaf to Augsburg; Ferrini also drew comparisons to the work of the illuminator Leonhard Beck and scribe Leonhard Wagner. Stylistically, its palette of pinks, greens, blues, and stocky but animated figures does suggest an origin in the German-speaking principalities at the dawn of the 16th century.