MILAN, BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA MS D.23.SUP (OROSIUS, CHRONICON)
EARLY 7^TH CENTURY
VELLUM OR PARCHMENT
210 X 150 MM

Like the Jerome commentary on Isaiah, this manuscript was executed in Bobbio, North Italy. It includes the earliest carpet page of any Insular manuscript, on fol. 1v. It does not, however, include a cross shape. The decoration is crude by the standards of later designs, but contains qualities that will be developed further. Alternating colors fill shapes in an enamel-like design.

Fol.2 includes a large initial P of the opening word "praeceptis", the subsequent letters of which are slightly smaller, although they do not shrink into diminuendo. However, each letter is written with open outlines which are filled in with pink and orange. The P, whose stem stretches the entire length of the page, is decorated with a cable pattern and with rows of dots.

Bibliography:

• C.L.A., 328
• Micheli, 104
• Collura, 90, 94, pl. 30
• F. Henry, "Les débuts de la miniature Irlandaise," 5-34, figs. 4,8,9,10
• Natale, 21 ff., pl. II
• Codex Lindisfarnensis, 113, 115, pl. 20 a,b,d
• Henry, Irish Art, I, 62, 64, 163, 165, 168-9, pl. 58
• D.H. Wright, 36 ff.; Werkmeister 31, pl. 10a
• Cipriani, 23; Gengaro, 3-4, pls. 1,2
• Nordenfalk, Die spätantiken 131 n. I, 141
• Henry, Kells, 160, 182, 213, 225, fig. 29
• Alexander, 28

back to main page