Search for books, articles, and more
Lavishly Illuminated Hebrew Bible from Medieval Spain
Kennicott Bible. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Kennicott 1. Full-size color facsimile. London: Facsimile Editions Ltd., 1985.
Submitted for adoption by Mack Zalin, PhD
The Kennicott Bible counts among the most significant medieval manuscripts from Spain. It is a noble, exceptional work containing a Hebrew Bible, which contains the text Sefer Michlol by Rabbi David Kihmhi alongside the Tanakh.
The colophon at the end of the manuscript, in which the scribe has immortalized himself by name, is a special feature that is extremely useful to scholarship: in 1476, the famous Moses Ibn Zaraba completed the work with the help of the illuminator Joseph Ibn Hayyim in La Coruna in northwestern Spain.
The 922 pages of this Hebrew Bible, which is amazingly preserved in its original gorgeous binding, combines an exuberant and golden splendor of ornaments, carpet pages, and figurative representations, often of a humorous character. The manuscript received its name from the Hebraist and Christian cleric Benjamin Kennicott, who researched the manuscript in the 18th century.