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micrography, which is also used in the ornamentation of carpet
pages from the 13th to the 15th centuries.
Hebrew illustrated Bibles must have been so common in
Spain that Castilian translations of the Bible may have used
their illustrations as early as the 13th century. Jewish iconography
is also predominant in the Castilian *Alba Bible.
The 15th-century Yemenite school of illumination, like
the Spanish, follows the Oriental school. Many Yemenite
Bibles contain carpet pages ornamented with floral and animal
motifs in micrography of colors (e.g., Brit. Mus., Or. Ms.
2348 of Sana’a, 1469, and Or. Ms. 2211 of 1475). The micrography
in these manuscripts is of biblical verses and Psalms,
not the masorah.
ASHKENAZI. Hebrew Bibles of the Ashkenazi school fall
into two categories: one consists of complete Bibles, mostly in
large, even giant, format, such as the Ambrosian Bible (Ulm,
1236–38), written in large script with Aramaic translation incorporated
into the text after each verse; the other contains
the Pentateuch with its Aramaic translation, the five scrolls,
*haftarot, parts of Job, and sometimes the “passages of doom”
in Jeremiah (2:29–3:12; 9:24–10:16). Ashkenazi Bibles are illuminated
in a different fashion from the Oriental and Spanish
ones. Most are decorated by the punctuator-masorete in micrography
and pen drawing, either in large initial-word panels
or in the margins of the text area. Illuminated Bibles of the
Ashkenazi tradition do not contain carpet pages and only occasionally
have expositions of the Temple implements. What
sometimes appears like a carpet page is in fact an excess of
masoretic material copied in decorative shapes, either at the
beginning or the end of books of the Bible. Implements of the
Temple are very rare. One example occurs in the Regensburg
Pentateuch of about 1300, now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem,
which has an exposition of the tabernacle implements,
including Aaron in his robes extending his arm to light a very
large menorah, which is depicted on the facing page.
The most common illuminations of French and German
Bibles are initial-word panels, which sometimes include text
illustrations. The Rashi commentary on the Pentateuch from
Wuerzburg, 1233 (Munich, Cod. Heb. 5) has initial-word panels
to each parashah which includes a text illustration. The
Ambrosian Bible (Mss. B. 30–32 inf.) has illustrated panels to
most of the books. At the end of the third volume, this manuscript
has full-page eschatological illustrations, which depict
the Feast of the Righteous in Paradise, and a cosmological
picture. The British Museum Miscellany (Ms. Add. 11.639) of
c. 1280 contains three cycles of full-page miniatures of biblical
episodes, which were probably intended to illustrate a
northern French Bible. Painted initial-word panels also exist
and sometimes extend to a full page, as in the Duke of Sussex
Pentateuch in the British Museum. Sometimes these painted
panels illustrate the text, but a few are merely decorative. The
46 medallions of the frontispiece to Genesis in the Schocken
Bible in Jerusalem depict episodes from the entire Pentateuch,
beginning with Adam and Eve by the Tree of Knowledge and
ending with Balaam being stopped by an angel while riding
his ass.
The other most prominent type of decoration in the
Ashkenazi Bible is the elaborate marginal micrography. The
masoretic micrography sometimes contains text illustrations.
Some opening panels and colophons are also decorated by
micrography, and the micrography within the text sometimes
forms an illustration of the text. The Duke of Sussex Pentateuch
(fol. 28) shows the ram caught in a thicket alongside the text
of the sacrifice of Isaac. A Bible in the British Museum (Ms.
Add. 21160, c. 1300), has some interesting examples of such
illustrated micrography; e.g., Joseph riding a horse (fol. 192),
Pharaoh’s baker carrying a triple basket on his head (fol. 43),
the four beasts of Ezekiel’s vision (fol. 285), and Jonah being
spewed from the mouth of the whale and seated under a tree
(fol. 292–292v). However, most of the masoretic variations surrounding
the text form grotesques. Ashkenazi Pentateuchs of
the second half of the 14th century are smaller and illustrated in
a manner differing from that of the earlier period – the Coburg
Pentateuch of 1369, is an example of this later type.
ITALIAN. Very few illuminated Italian Bibles of the 13th century
survive, and most of them are of Roman origin. The
Bishop Bedell Bible of 1284 (Cambridge, Emmanuel College) is
a typical example. It contains two full-page decorated panels,
which include some inscriptions. Decorated arches surround
the opening pages or text columns of the different books, and
the initial word is written in a larger script. Parashot signs
in the margin follow the Oriental type. A two-volume Bible
in the British Museum (Ms. Harl. 5710–11), from about 1300
preserves the two typical techniques of decoration – watercolor
pen drawings and painted illuminations. The openings
of each book of the Bible are headed by painted initial-word
panels and surrounded by foliage scrolls – either around the
whole page or one text column. The foliage scrolls are wiry
and incorporate animals, birds, fish, and grotesques in a style
which was common in the province of Emilia and influenced
mainly by the Bolognese school. This Bible contains a few
text illustrations. Under the initial-word panel of Genesis
(fol. 1), there is a painted panel containing seven medallions,
five of which represent the creation of heaven and earth, the
sun, moon, and stars, water, trees, and beasts. Each medallion
shows the hand of God emerging from segments of the
sky. At the end of the Pentateuch (fol. 136), there is a full-page
drawing of a delicately formed menorah painted in red, green,
ocher, and brown. The entire page is framed and filled with
painted foliage scrolls combined with grotesques and dragons.
Another delicately painted manuscript of Emilian style,
from the end of the 13th century, is a psalter in the Biblioteca
Palatina in Parma (Ms. 1870). Many of the chapter openings
have small initial-word panels with grotesques and animals
in the margins. Some illustrate the text: weeping people, with
their violins hung upon a willow, illustrate Psalm 137, “By the
waters of Babylon there we sat down… We hung our harps
upon the willows in the midst thereof”; a man conducting a
678 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3