The Biblia Pauperum, neither a bible nor a book for the poor as its title suggests, is a medieval picture book that pairs Old and New Testament scenes as a way of showing that events in the past were divinely intended to foreshadow the future. It is a blockbook, printed in its entirety - text and pictures - from woodblocks. This version of the Biblia Pauperum, commonly regarded as the most beautiful, dates from around 1460 and was widely distributed throughout German and French speaking Europe.Avril Henry's edited transcription of the original Latin, and her extensive introduction, commentary, and bibliography, make this central medieval work accessible for the first time to the English speaking non-specialist; the facsimile edition will enable the modern reader to recapture the fifteenth-century reader's experience in using the blockbook.It contains forty central New Testament scenes, or Antitypes, that tell a highly selective version of the story of God's relationship with man. Each scene is flanked by two prefigurations, usually from the Old Testament, and an accompanying Latin text.Revealing a wealth of complex verbal and visual design, this edition will enhance our understanding of medieval culture, Christian iconography, and the history of Western art and literature. Only by understanding the system of thought which the Biblia Pauperum typifies can we grasp the full meaning of much Christian art, including the west fronts of our cathedral, the great scheme of stained glass in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and even the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is also fundamental to an understinging of literary forms such as medieval drama. Readers interested in medieval history, art history, religion, and manuscript studies will welcome this volume.

A calming coloring experience, rich with the spirituality of the ages

Dieser Band setzt das große internationale Standardwerk zur Rezeption der Hebräischen Bibel/des Alten Testaments, das christliche und jüdische Fachleute aus der ganzen Welt vereint, fort. Es stellt die alttestamentliche Exegese von den Anfängen innerbiblischer Schriftdeutung bis zur gegenwärtigen Forschung umfassend dar. Dieser Band widmet sich der Zeitspanne zwischen Renaissance und Aufklärung (1300–1800).

This book is the first detailed investigation to focus on the late medieval use of Tree of Jesse imagery, traditionally a representation of the genealogical tree of Christ. In northern Europe, from the mid-fifteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, it could be found across a wide range of media. Yet, as this book vividly illustrates, it had evolved beyond a simple genealogy into something more complex, which could be modified to satisfy specific religious requirements. It was also able to function on a more temporal level, reflecting not only a clerical preoccupation with a sense of communal identity, but a more general interest in displaying a family’s heritage, continuity and/or social status. It is this dynamic and polyvalent element that makes the subject so fascinating.

An interdisciplinary study touching not only upon medieval art, but also upon such disciplines as medieval history, history of the Church, Latin and vernacular literature both religious and secular, medieval drama, mythology, and folklore. Mellinkoff's goal is to provide an iconographical interpretation of horned Moses in as deep a sense as possible.

Medieval manuscripts resisted obsolescence. Made by highly specialised craftspeople (scribes, illuminators, book binders) with labour-intensive processes using exclusive and sometimes exotic materials (parchment made from dozens or hundreds of skins, inks and paints made from prized minerals, animals and plants), books were expensive and built to last. They usually outlived their owners. Rather than discard them when they were superseded, book owners found ways to update, amend and upcycle books or book parts. These activities accelerated in the fifteenth century. Most manuscripts made before 1390 were bespoke and made for a particular client, but those made after 1390 (especially books of hours) were increasingly made for an open market, in which the producer was not in direct contact with the buyer. Increased efficiency led to more generic products, which owners were motivated to personalise. It also led to more blank parchment in the book, for example, the backs of inserted miniatures and the blanks ends of textual components. Book buyers of the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century still held onto the old connotations of manuscripts—that they were custom-made luxury items—even when the production had become impersonal. Owners consequently purchased books made for an open market and then personalised them, filling in the blank spaces, and even adding more components later. This would give them an affordable product, but one that still smacked of luxury and met their individual needs. They kept older books in circulation by amending them, attached items to generic books to make them more relevant and valuable, and added new prayers with escalating indulgences as the culture of salvation shifted. Rudy considers ways in which book owners adjusted the contents of their books from the simplest (add a marginal note, sew in a curtain) to the most complex (take the book apart, embellish the components with painted decoration, add more quires of parchment). By making sometimes extreme adjustments, book owners kept their books fashionable and emotionally relevant. This study explores the intersection of codicology and human desire. Rudy shows how increased modularisation of book making led to more standardisation but also to more opportunities for personalisation. She asks: What properties did parchment manuscripts have that printed books lacked? What are the interrelationships among technology, efficiency, skill loss and standardisation?

This unique volume, nearly 2000 pages in length and handsomely printed on Bible paper, is perhaps the most comprehensive scholarly work of our time on the translation and interpretation of the Bible. At its core are papers presented to an international symposium in Ljubljana in September 1996 to mark the publication of the new Slovenian version of the Bible, a landmark in Slovene identity and cultural life. In addition, its distinguished editor, Joze Krasovec, has commissioned a wide range of contributions devoted to translations of the Bible in many languages, including the Slavonic languages, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and the Scandinavian languages. The 82 chapters in this work, mostly in English, are divided into three parts. Part I, on ancient translations and hermeneutics of the Bible, contains contributions by M.-E. Boismard, S.P. Brock, K.J. Cathcart, R.P. Gordon, L.J. Grech, M. Hengel, O. Keel, J. Lust, E. Tov and others, with a notable comprehensive bibliographic survey of oriental Bible translations from the first millennium by M. van Esbroeck. Part II, on Slavonic and other translations of the Bible, includes the first detailed study of the history of the Slavonic Bible, by Francis J. Thomson (over 300 pp.). Part III, with essays by such scholars as J.H. Charlesworth, D.J.A. Clines, J. Gnilka, M. G÷rg, N. Lohfink and A.C. Thiselton, concerns the interpretation of the Bible in translation, philosophy, theology, art and music. In an appendix, a complete list of printed Bibles in languages throughout the world is presented for the first time.