Cleveland Museum of Art
Fol. 62v, Deuteronomy, historiated initial H, Moses with horns and scroll preaching to two men
- Date
- c. 1275–1300
- Medium
- ink, tempera and gold on vellum
- Culture
- Southern France, Toulouse(?), 13th century
- Department
- Medieval Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 166437
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Biblical manuscripts were highly prized and important possessions of churches, monasteries, cathedral schools, and universities throughout medieval Europe. The biblical texts were known as the vulgate, the translations made by Saint Jerome in the fourth century from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, which became the definitive and official Latin version of the Roman Church. In the 13th century, the bible was, for the first time, produced as a single volume with an officially sanctioned sequence to its books and chapters as illustrated by this example. The very extensive decoration of this bible is arranged hierarchically to indicate the relative importance of the various texts so that full or almost full-page initials mark the openings of the first prologue, Genesis, and the first Gospel; historiated initials mark the beginning of each book and illuminated initials mark the Prologues.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.
Fol. 46v, Numbers, historiated initial L, Moses with horns, kneeling before God
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166430
Fol. 230r, Psalm 97, historiated initial C, two clerics singing at a lectern.
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166385
Fol. 214v, Psalm 1, historiated initial 8, David harping
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166379
Fol. 238r, Proverbs, historiated initial P, Solomon instructing Rehoboam
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166387
Fol. 148v, Chronicles I, historiated initial A, three descendants of Adam
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166369
Fol. 224v, Psalm 68, historiated initial S, David in the water appealing to God above
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166383
Fol. 76v, Joshua, historiated initial E, Joshua with a scroll kneeling before God
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166438
Fol. 404r, Mark, historiated initial I, Mark standing with a scroll
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166414
Fol. 227v, Psalm 80, historiated initial E, David hitting a carillon of hells
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166384
Fol. 233r, Psalm 109, historiated initial D, God the Father and Son, the Holy Ghost between them
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166386
Fol. 350r, Hosea, historiated initial V, Hosea preaching to three men.
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166398
Fol. 482v, Revelations, historiated initial A, John seated at a desk writing to the Seven Churches of Asia
Cleveland Museum of Art
#166436