Artwork Page for Text, folio 81 (recto), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Details / Information for Text, folio 81 (recto), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

Text, folio 81 (recto), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

c. 1000–1100

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 1942.152.81.a
Public Domain
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Location
105 Byzantine(not visible)
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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 features dense columns of handwritten Greek script in brown ink. Dark stains mar the cream surface near the top and along the sides. Larger, bold characters frame a middle section of smaller, tightly packed text, with several initial letters glinting in gold. On the right, a ragged outer edge reveals the layered pages of a bound volume. Faint numbers mark the weathered upper margins of the manuscript.

Text, folio 81 (recto), from a Gospel Book with Commentaries

c. 1000–1100

Byzantium, Constantinople

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