Dating back to the early 12th Century and probably realized in Italy, this codex is one of the lesser-known testimonies of this type.
The Berlin Beatus is part of a group of twenty-seven illustrated commentaries on the Book of Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana, a monk who lived in the Kingdom of Asturias, Spain, until ca. 800. For more information on the Beatus model, read our blog article by Amy R. Miller (PhD, Medieval Art History, University of Toronto).
Originally, the manuscript belonged to the collection of Carlo Morbio of Milan.
It consists of 98 folios with 55 feather-pen drawings enriched with pigments in red, ochre and yellow hues.
The illustrations are one of the major attractions of this work since they include an archaic and unusual version of the iconography mostly found in other testimonies of the series, making this manuscript a rare and precious object for bibliophiles.
Written in Caroline and Beneventan script.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Beatus of Liébana - Berlin Codex": Beato de Berlin facsimile edition, published by Millennium Liber, 2010
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