Artwork Page for Text, folio 394 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Details / Information for Text, folio 394 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Text, folio 394 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

c. 1000–1100
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Byzantium, Constantinople

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Medium
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum; leather binding
Measurements
Sheet: 28 x 23 cm (11 x 9 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1942.152.394.b
Public Domain
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Location
105 Byzantine(not visible)
Print
?

Did You Know?

Gospel books were carried in procession through Byzantine churches.

Description

Each of the four gospels in this book opens on a page with brilliantly illuminated borders depicting the author of the text as well as birds—principally peacocks, symbols of the immortality of the soul—and fountains, representing the fountain of life and the salvation of the soul. This volume consists of 428 leaves with texts in Greek. Its level of sophistication suggests that it was probably written and decorated in a monastery in Constantinople.
A vertically oriented vellum page within a thick book features handwritten Greek script in dark brown ink and tempera. Large, widely spaced characters at the top and bottom frame a dense middle section of loopy, tightly packed script. Decorative reddish-brown initials mark several paragraph breaks. The cream parchment shows age through yellowed edges and scattered dark spots. A translucent vertical strip crosses the left side, pinning the page against the book's many layered edges.

Text, folio 394 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

c. 1000–1100

Byzantium, Constantinople

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