Skip to Main Content

Miniature from a Latin Bible: St. Luke

c. 1100
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
Sheet: 17.3 x 16.1 cm (6 13/16 x 6 5/16 in.); Framed: 44.5 x 34.3 cm (17 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1968.190
Location: not on view
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Download, Print and Share

Description

Inspired by Byzantine painting, this rare miniature represents the last surviving fragment of a once magnificent bible. The fundamental text of every medieval monastery was the Latin Bible. Monastic bibles at this time were usually large, cumbersome books (commonly in two or three volumes) designed to be recited from a lectern-rather than for private study. This exquisite miniature was excised from such a bible and introduces the beginning of the Gospel of St. Luke. Undoubtedly copied and painted in the scriptorium at Cluny, the bible may have been influenced by a manuscript carried to Cluny from Byzantium, or else may represent the work of an Italian artist working at Cluny but acquainted with Byzantine modes of painting. A large monastery such as Cluny probably had up to a dozen copyists continuously producing such manuscripts. A surviving 12th-century booklist records that Cluny possessed some 570 volumes, a large number for the time.
Miniature from a Latin Bible: St. Luke

Miniature from a Latin Bible: St. Luke

c. 1100

France, Burgundy, Abbey of Cluny, early 12th Century

See Also

Visually Similar by AI

    Contact us

    The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

    To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

    All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.