Overview

"The ""Bibles Moralisees"" are by far the richest and most complex attempt at biblical illustration ever undertaken. Seven of them survive today, made primarily for the kings and queens of France between the early 13th and late 15th centuries. John Lowden's two-volume study brings new material to light and offers a wholly new approach to understanding the Bibles, which contain literally thousands of figures. Volume I, based on exhaustive codicological analysis, considers the making and the later history of use of the manuscripts. Volume II investigates the treatment of one portion of the Bible, the Book of Ruth, and discusses broad questions of the relation of biblical art and biblical knowledge. Together the two volumes challenge conventional wisdom about both the ""Bibles Moralisees"" and the relationship of word and image in medieval culture."

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9780271019192

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Reviews

<p> Lowden has provided us with an excellent introduction to the Moralized Bibles. <p>--Laura Light, Manuscripta

John Lowden's impressive powers of analysis and interpretation have been fully engaged with remarkably fruitful results in this important study. His research sheds important new light on virtually every major aspect of each codex individually and on the Bibles MoralisEes as a genre of medieval manuscript illumination overall. This brilliant scholarly work will become the benchmark by which all subsequent studies on the Moralized Bibles will be measured. --Jaroslav Folda, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Author Information

John Lowden is Reader in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He is the author of Illuminated Prophet Books: A Study of Byzantine Manuscripts of the Major and Minor Prophets (1988) and The Octateuchs: A Study in Byzantine Manuscript Illustration (1992), both from Penn State Press.

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