Posts tagged manuscripts

The Codex Gigas ~ http://georgesarris.blogspot.com/2011/10/resisting-that-old-deluder.html

innerbohemienne:

The Codex Gigas

The Codex Gigas (or ‘Giant Book") is also known as “The Devil’s Bible.” A curious illustration of Lucifer gives the tome its nickname.

The 13th-century manuscript is thought to have been created solely by a Herman the Recluse, a monk of the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice near Chrudim in Czech Republic. The calligraphy style is amazingly uniform throughout, believed to have taken 25 to 30 years  of work. There are no notable mistakes or omissions.  Pigment analysis revealed the ink to be consistent throughout. The book is enormous - it  measures 36.2" tall, 19.3" wide, and 8.6" thick; it weighs approximately 165 pounds. There are 310 vellum  leaves (620 pages).  The leaves are bound in a wooden folder covered with leather and ornate metal.

The manuscript is elaborately illuminated in red, blue, yellow, green and gold.  The entire document is written in Latin, and also contains Hebrew, Greek, and Slavic Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. The first part of the text includes the Vulgate version of the Bible.  Between the Old and New Testaments are Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and De bello iudaico, as well as Isidore of Seville’s encyclopedia Etymologiae and medical works of Hippocrates, Theophilus, Philaretus, and Constantinus.  Following a blank page, the New Testament commences.

Beginning the second part is a depiction of the devil.  Directly opposite is a full picture of the kingdom of heaven, juxtaposing the “good versus evil.“  The second half, following the picture of the devil, is Cosmas of Prague’s Chronicle of Bohemia.  A list of brothers in the Podlažice monastery and a calendar with necrologium, magic formulae and other local records round out the codex.  Record entries end in the year 1229CE.

In 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedish army invaded Prague and the Codex was stolen as plunder.  It is now held at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.  For more information, check out this short National Geographic documentary and/or flip through this digital copy.

( Wikipedia entry, et. al)

Several short National Geographic videos ~

One Helluva Book

Who Wrote The Devil’s Bible?

Super-human Scribe

The Devil’s Bible - Part 1.flv  (9:59) (derived from full video bleow)

The Devil’s Bible - Part 2.flv  (9:59) (derived from full video below)

** If you have the least amount of intellectual curiosity or interest in history, the short vids above will only whet your appetite: might as well grab a cold drink & some popcorn, then settle in to watch the whole thing ~

NatGeo : The Devil’s Bible - Full video  (44:58)

7 years ago
maedhrys: “ “ God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black; creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render it transparent. ” Victor Hugo’s draft of Les Miserables. ”
maedhrys: “ “ God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black; creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render it transparent. ” Victor Hugo’s draft of Les Miserables. ”
maedhrys: “ “ God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black; creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render it transparent. ” Victor Hugo’s draft of Les Miserables. ”

maedhrys:

God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black; creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render it transparent.

Victor Hugo’s draft of Les Miserables.

9 years ago
erikkwakkel: “ Medieval book made of fish skin Here’s something special. You are looking at a handsome 15th-century Arabic manuscript - a Kuran - with a most peculiar shape: the pages are round and have a pointy tip on the right-hand side. It looks...
erikkwakkel: “ Medieval book made of fish skin Here’s something special. You are looking at a handsome 15th-century Arabic manuscript - a Kuran - with a most peculiar shape: the pages are round and have a pointy tip on the right-hand side. It looks...
erikkwakkel: “ Medieval book made of fish skin Here’s something special. You are looking at a handsome 15th-century Arabic manuscript - a Kuran - with a most peculiar shape: the pages are round and have a pointy tip on the right-hand side. It looks...

erikkwakkel:

Medieval book made of fish skin

Here’s something special. You are looking at a handsome 15th-century Arabic manuscript - a Kuran - with a most peculiar shape: the pages are round and have a pointy tip on the right-hand side. It looks kind of fishy. Literally, it turns out, because the leaves are made out of fish skin. Before today I never heard of medieval manuscripts made from fish. In fact, when I encountered the Kuran in the Flickr account of the Mama Haldara Library in Timbuktu, where it is kept, I first thought it was a ruse - a whopper. Some digging around revealed, however, that fish skin is a most suitable material for parchment, as well as for the “leather” covers of bookbindings. It made total sense, of course, for book producers in the coastal regions of Western African to turn to fish, which are up for grabs there. Still, very few fish-made books appear to have been identified as such. When you cut the skins into rectangular sheets (and remove the pointy tail bits!) you can’t really tell that the animal was a swimmer rather than a walker. This splashy book is therefore quite the thing.

Pic: Timbuktu, Mama Haldara Library, MS 9167 (Kuran, 15th century). This is the source of the image and here it is confirmed that the pages are made from fish skin. Here are some examples of bookbindings made from fish skin and in this piece you find a scholarly study showing the skin’s suitability for bindings and parchment.

9 years ago