Ripoll Bible

Ripoll Bible – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – Vat.lat. 5729 – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City, State of the Vatican City)

Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, Ripoll (Spain) β€” 1015–1020

Created in the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, housed today in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: with 300 miniatures, it is one of the most richly illustrated Spanish Bibles of the 11th century

  1. This is one of two complete codices produced by the monks of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll

  2. The Bibles were completed sometime ca. 1020 and contain 300+ miniatures by a team of artists

  3. GuifrΓ© de Ripoll may have been the β€œteam leader” and imparted his scenes with a sense of movement and dynamism

Ripoll Bible

Facsimile Copy Available!
Price Category: €€
(1,000€ - 3,000€)
  1. Description
  2. Detail Picture
  3. Single Page
  4. Facsimile Editions (1)
Description
Ripoll Bible

This manuscript represents one half of a two-volume Bible created ca. 1202 in the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. It is a fantastic artifact of Catalonian illumination containing 300+ miniatures altogether created by a team of talented artists lead by the monk GuifrΓ© de Ripoll. Some scenes are depicted in primary colors, while others are uncolored and reveal the hand of a skilled yet anonymous master.

Ripoll Bible

Stored under the shelf mark ms. lat. 5729 in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the so-called Ripoll Bible is one of two complete codices, in addition to a fragment, produced by the monks of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. This was an important center of Catalonian culture under the direction of the Bishop of Oliba. The Bibles were completed sometime ca. 1020 and contain 300+ miniatures. A groups of artists created these works, considered the most splendidly decorated European Bibles of the 10th and 11th centuries and important artifacts of Catalan miniature. The monk GuifrΓ© de Ripoll may have been the β€œteam leader”, and used primary colors and imparted the scenes he illustrated with a sense of movement and dynamism. There is another anonymous artist associated with the work, who can be distinguished by his perfectionism, proportions, parallelism, and symmetry. His realistic schematization of figures both animal and human is surprisingly regular, as is his depiction of musical instruments and domestic objects. None of his scenes are colored, exposing his pen strokes for a glimpse into his creative process.

Codicology

Alternative Titles
Les Bíblies de Ripoll
Bibbia di Ripoll
Ripoll Bibel
Farfa Bible
Size / Format
930 pages / 55.0 Γ— 37.0 cm
Origin
Spain
Date
1015–1020
Style
Language
Script
Carolingian minuscule
Illustrations
32 full-page narrative cycles in the Old and New Testament; 24 minor miniatures; 12 historiated and zoomorphic initials; numerous smaller decorated initials and display script at the beginning of each chapter
Content
Old and New Testaments and more than 200 additional texts, such as those of Jerome and Isidore
Patron
Abbot Oliba
Artist / School

Available facsimile editions:
Ripoll Bible – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – Vat.lat. 5729 – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City, State of the Vatican City)
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vaticanstadt, Vaticanstadt) – Vatican City, 2002
Limited Edition: 850 copies
Detail Picture

Ripoll Bible

The Fall of Man

Divided into three registers, Adam and Eve, having been deceived by the serpent, eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; they are then confronted by God, who clothes and expels them from Paradise. Finally, God places a cherub with a red halo and sword at the east of the Garden of Eden to guard the tree of life. For reasons unknown, the artist depicted God wearing different colored robes in each register and Eve is alternatively portrayed with and without a red headband.

Ripoll Bible – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – Vat.lat. 5729 – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City, State of the Vatican City)
Single Page

Ripoll Bible

Jacob’s Ladder

The dream of Jacob, patriarch of the Israelites, is generally interpreted as symbolizing the obligations and inheritance of God’s chosen people, although this is debated. In Christian theology, it symbolizes the perpetual intercourse between Heaven and Earth, which is visually represented by three angels climbing up and down the ladder.

On this page, the ladder leads directly to a Byzantine-style image of Christ Pantocrator, a half-length depiction of Christ holding the New Testament and making the sign of benediction as a mild but stern, all-powerful judge of humanity. This is unusual in Western Christian art, where the equivalent image of Christ in Majesty is a full-length depiction of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world.

Ripoll Bible – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – Vat.lat. 5729 – Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City, State of the Vatican City)
Facsimile Editions

#1 Les Bíblies de Ripoll

Limited Edition: 850 copies
Commentary: 1 volume by Anscario M. Mundó
Languages: Catalan, abstracts in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish

The commentary volume discusses not only the Ripoll Bible but also the Rodes Bible, since both manuscripts were produced in the same scriptorium.
Facsimile Copy Available!
Price Category: €€
(1,000€ - 3,000€)
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