Artwork Page for Text, folio 427 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Details / Information for Text, folio 427 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Text, folio 427 (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 1942.152.427.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 vertical vellum page features extensive damage in ink and tempera. The warm tan parchment is marked horizontally near the center by a thick dark purple stain. To our right, a vertical patch and clusters of small purple spots spread toward the edge. Ragged perforations line the binding side on our right. Frayed edges frame the heavily wrinkled substrate, thinning to grayed remnants of deterioration at the borders.

Text, folio 427 (verso), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

c. 1000–1100

Byzantium, Constantinople

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