Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink : Jewish illuminated manuscripts

skies of parchment | seas of ink

skies of parchment | seas of inkJewish Illuminated Manuscripts

edited by marc michael epstein

With contributions by

Eva Frojmovic, Jenna Siman Jacobs, Hartley Lachter, Shalom Sabar, Raymond P. Scheindlin,

Ágnes Vető, Susan Vick, Barbara Wolff, and Diane Wolfthal

princeton university press princeton and oxford

jacket art: ( front) Barbara Wolff. “You Renew

the Face of the Earth,” illustration from Psalm

104, 2010. New York, Morgan Library &

Museum, MS M.1190, fol. 7; Gift of Joanna S.

Rose, 2014; photography by Rudi Wolff.

(back) The angel Gabriel appears to Joseph to

grant him permission to marry Zulaykha; Joseph

and Zulaykha marry. Yusuf and Zulaykha. Persia,

Mashad, 1853. MS 1534, fols. 105−6. Image cour-

tesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological

Seminary, New York.

half- title: Ilene Winn- Lederer. “Even if

all the heavens were parchment . . . if all the

waters of the sea were ink . . . .” Akdamut from

Between Heaven & Earth: An Illuminated Torah

Commentary (Pomegranate, 2009).

frontispiece: Detail of g. 2. A community

of scholars: the Five Rabbis at B’nai Brak.

Haggadah, German rite with the commentary

of Eleazar of Worms and illustrations by Joel

ben Simeon Feibush (The Ashkenazi Haggadah).

South Germany, prehaps Ulm, ca. 1460. London,

British Library, MS Add. 14762, fol. 7v.

Copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41

William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University

Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire

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press.princeton.edu

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication

Data

Skies of parchment, seas of ink : Jewish illumi-

nated manuscripts / edited by Marc Michael

Epstein ; with contributions by Eva Frojmovic,

Jenna Siman Jacobs, Hartley Lachter, Shalom

Sabar, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Ágnes Vető, Susan

Vick, Barbara Wolff, and Diane Wolfthal.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0- 691-16524-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Jewish illumination of books and manuscripts.

I. Epstein, Marc Michael, 1964- editor. II. Lachter,

Hartley, 1974- People of the Book/Book of the

people.

ND2935.S59 2015

745.6′7089924— dc23

2014028843

British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data

is available

Published with assistance from the David Berg

Foundation, Vassar College, and the Center for

Jewish- Christian Learning, Boston College

This book has been composed in Crimson and

Source Sans Pro

Printed on acid- free paper. ∞

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

contents

acknowledgments vii

1 introduction: for the love of books 1Marc Michael Epstein

2 people of the book/books of the people: illuminating the canon 19Hartley Lachter with Marc Michael Epstein

3 parchments and palimpsests: scribe, illuminator, patron, audience 29Marc Michael Epstein

focus: the illuminated page: materials, methods, and techniques

Barbara Wolff 40

4 mapping the territory: ʾarbʿah kanfot haʾareẓ— the four corners of the medieval jewish world 47

ereẓ yisrael/the land of israel: homeland and center

Marc Michael Epstein 47

italia/italy: the first western diaspora


ashkenaz: franco- germany, england, central and east europe

Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein 63

sepharad and ʿarav: spain and the middle east

Raymond P. Scheindlin with Marc Michael Epstein 72

the problem of “national style”

Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein 77

5 no graven image: permitted depictions, forbidden depictions, and creative solutions 89Eva Frojmovic and Marc Michael Epstein

focus: exploring the mystery of the birds’ head haggadah


6 iconography: telling the story 105Marc Michael Epstein

geographical distinctions 105approaches to the biblical narrative 122

v

7 dialogue and disputation: cultural negotiation 145Marc Michael Epstein

under edom 145under ishmael 153

8 this world: centered on the home— women, marriage, and the family 159Shalom Sabar

focus: “glimpses of jewish life”: reality or illusion?


focus: “incidental details”: margins and meaning


focus: “sacred and profane”: naked ladies in the haggadah?

Ágnes Vető 188

9 other worlds: fantastic horizons and unseen universes 193Hartley Lachter with Marc Michael Epstein

10 zion and jerusalem: “the sum of all beauty, the joy of all the earth” 205Shalom Sabar

11 in the royal court: jewish illumination in an age of printing 215Marc Michael Epstein

focus: a yiddish minhagim manuscript 225

Diane Wolfthal

12 illuminating the present: contemporary jewish illumination 229Susan Vick with Marc Michael Epstein

13 continuing the journey: annotated bibliography and manuscript descriptions 255Jenna Siman Jacobs with Marc Michael Epstein

manuscripts and facsimiles 255surveys 261collection surveys and exhibition catalogues 263studies 265

contributor biographies 267

index 269

photo credits 276

vi contents

acknowledgments

The book you hold in your hands has been long in coming into this world. It manages to

exceed even the gestation period of the elephant of the medieval books of beasts, an ordeal

rumored to have lasted two years. This volume has been brewing for over two decades,

in the course of which time it has gone through the hands of many editors, each hoping

to produce a denitive work on Jewish illuminated manuscripts. When the project came

to me, I realized that the knowledge and energy of a single author could never sustain it.

I therefore gathered together a group of thorough, thoughtful, and innovative scholars to

tell the story of Jewish illuminated manuscripts in the most engaging and colorful manner

possible. The result, I hope, is nothing like an elephant’s child. This book is anything but

gray and ponderous— it is full of all manner of color— a delight for both the eye and the

mind. It is to my colleagues in this enterprise that this book owes its soul and its verve.

It’s not easy to translate one’s academic passion into a vision that can be shared with the

widest possible audience, and I salute them for rising to the challenge.

Since it required the acquisition of hundreds of illustrations and their attendant

permissions, conscientious editing to ensure that its tone remained scholarly without

being daunting to the reader, and relatively stylistically even over the diverse range of

authors while allowing each author to retain her or his distinctive voice, this book would

never have seen the light without the exceptional administrative and editorial skills of

my research assistants over the many years of its germination— in chronological order,

my debt of gratitude extends to Leah Varsano and Samuel Rausnitz, to Gilad Thaler, to

Katherine Durr, and nally to the indefatigable and highly pragmatic Angela Brown, who

saw the book through the elephantine labor with more nesse than the best veterinary

Lamaze coach. My thanks as always to Wendy Post, Amanda Thornton, Betty- Lou Cifone,

Greg Deichler, and Brian Chickery, and at Boston College, Wendy Morita, Nate Butze,

Michael Swanson, Kerry Burke, and MTS Photography, who were able and cheerful in

providing administrative and technical assistance.

I am most grateful to my departmental colleagues in the Religion Department at

Vassar for their support: Rick Jarow, Jonathon Kahn, Max Leeming, Lynn LiDonnici,

Larry Mamiya, Michael Walsh, Tova Weitzman, Chris White, and Ági Vető. Jim Bernauer,

Ruth Langer, and Camille Markey, my colleagues at the Center for Jewish- Christian

Learning at Boston College, where I spent 2013– 14 as a visiting Corcoran Chair, were

extremely encouraging as well.

vii

The friendship and intellectual support, the hospitality and warmth of so many at

Vassar and beyond sustained me and brightened my days as I engaged with this project. I

am indebted to Eli and Muriel Abt, John Ahern, Liz and Drew Alexander, Mark Bernstein

and Sarah Vigneri, Jessie Bonn and Yuval Yavneh, Daniel Boyarin, Stewart J. Brooks and

Eve Grubin, Zsoa Buda, Aleksandra Buncic, J. H. (Yossi) Chajes and Julie Chajes, Adam

Cohen and Linda Safran, Allegra and Yisrael Meir Cohen, Evelyn Cohen, Eiran Davies and

Yael Fried, Joe Dweck, Sapphira and Seth Edgarde, Yaffa Epstein, Larry and Sue Fishman,

Lucy Freeman Sandler, Hanna and Philip Geller Goldsmith, Tony Grafton, Joel Hecker

and Frani Pollack, Tuva Hildebrand- Petersson, Leor and Dana Jacobi, Gabriel Josipovci,

Batya and Menahem Kallus, Bruce Kaplan, Josh Kaplan, David and Rachel Kaplan, Joe

Karten and Becca Rosen, Arie Katz and Amy Robinson, Barbara Kirschenblatt- Gimblett,

Katrin Kogman- Appel, Abby Kornfeld, Hartley Lachter and Jessica Cooperman, Stacy

Leeman and Gary Liebesman, Michael Levin, Abraham and Estelle Levy, Isaac and Cindy

Levy, Terry and Toni McDonald, Mary Ann and Mel Makloff, Richard McBee, Mary

McGee, Judy Meltzer, Molly Nesbit, Jacqueline Nicholls, Emma O’Donnell and Valery

Polyakov, Sara Offenberg, Naomi and Yankel Sarig, Eli Schneider and Ilana Aisen, Jeremy

Schoenfeld, Joshua and Lise Schreier, Sarit Shalev- Eyni, Misha and Howard Sidenberg,

Annie and Elon Spar, Elie and Linda Spitz, Sarah Abrevaya Stein, David Stern, Michal

Sternthal, Gideon Sylvester, Lindsey and Norman Taylor- Guthartz, Yael Unterman,

Elisabeth Watson, Menachem Wecker, Matisse Weinberg, Lee and Laura Weissman, Ilene

Winn- Lederer, Gil and Ayal Willner, Barbara, Rudi and Ben Wolff, and Elaine Kahn Zager

and Jack Zager.

This magnicent book has been produced with the aid of funding from the David

Berg Foundation, the Center for Jewish- Christian Learning at Boston College, and the

Vassar College Research Committee, and the Ofce of the Dean of the Faculty— Dean

Jonathan Chenette having been particularly supportive. Their generosity is a testimony

to their faith in the importance of this project, and I am buoyed by their condence and

support. To Amanda Thornton and Lori Mcelduff, of the Ofce of Grants Administration,

and to Karen Gallagher, at the Purchasing Ofce, Vassar College, my sincere thanks for

making the permissions paperwork go so smoothly.

The librarians who facilitated access to the images used in this book deserve the

highest of praise and appreciation. I list them here in alphabetical order by location of

their libraries and institutions: Emile Schrijver and Rachel Boertjens, of the Bibliotheca

Rosenthaliana, Universiteit van Amsterdam; Anton Kraus, of the Joods Historisch

Museum, Amsterdam; Christoph Rauch, Petra Figeac, and Sophia Charlotte Fock, of

the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Berlin (as well as Liz

Kurtulik Mercuri, of Art Resource, for administering the image requests); Bart De Sitter,

of Lukasweb, representing the Groenige Museum, Bruges; Balazs Tamasi, of the Magyar

Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest, for use of images from the Kaufmann Collection;

viii acknowledgments

acknowledgments ix

Ruth Long, of the University Library, Cambridge; Laurel Wolfson, of Hebrew Union

College Library, Cincinnati; Eva- Maria Jansson, of the Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen,

with the cooperation of Brent Lexner, of the Jødiske Samfund i Danmark, Copenhagen;

Janine Klemm, of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und- Universitätsbibliothek,

Dresden; Evelyn Börner, of the Universitätsbibliothek, Erlangen; Ida Giovanna Rao,

assisted by Dina Giuliani, of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence; Hans- Walter

Stork, of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg; Anna

Nizza, assisted by Rachel Laufer, of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Idan Pérez, assisted

by Jamie Nathan and Zmira Reuveni, of National Library of Israel, Jerusalem; the staff

of the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; Christoph Mackert, assisted by Susanne

Dietel, of the Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig; Maria Inês Cordeiro, assisted by Ana

Sabido and Luísa Vaz, of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon; Ilana Tahan,

assisted by Jackie Brown, of the British Library, London; Elizabeth Gow, assisted by

Anne Anderton, of the John Rylands University Library, Manchester; Paolo Cavagna, of

the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; Sophie Schrader, of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,

Munich; the staff of the Hispanic Society of America, New York; the staff of the Jewish

Museum, New York (as well as Veronique Colaprete, of Art Resource, for administering

the image requests); Sharon Liberman- Mintz and Jerry Schwarzbard, assisted by Warren

Klein, Sarah Diamant, and Yevgenia Dizenko, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New

York; Barbara Boehm and Melanie Holcomb of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and

the Cloisters, New York; and Roger S. Wieck and the staff of The Morgan Library,

New York; César Merchán- Hamann, Zsoa Buda (with special thanks for helping

me set all the shelf- numbers in order), and Rahel Fronda, assisted by James Allan and

Matthew McGrattan, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Jean- Claude Kuperminc, of

the Bibliothèque d’Alliance israélite universelle, Paris; Laurent Héricher and Héléna

Guy l’homme, assisted by Maria Cristina Pirvu, Bibliothèque nationale de France,

Paris; Nicolas Feuillie, of the Musée national du Moyen Âge (Musee d’Art et Histoire

du Judaisme), Paris; Sabina Magrini, of the Biblioteca Palatina, Parma; William Gross,

of the Gross Family Collection, Ramat Aviv; the staff of the Zemaljski Muzej Bosne I

Hercegovine, Sarajevo, with the cooperation of Jakob Finci and the Jewish Community

of Bosnia and Hercegovina; Riccardo Luongo, of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,

Vatican City; Shalimar Abigail Fojas White, of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC;

Mark Dimunation, Eric Frazier, and Sharon Horowitz, assisted by Margaret Kiechefer,

of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and Betsy Kohut, of the Sackler Gallery,

Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC.

They were all— to a person— tremendously helpful and prompt, and most touch-

ingly, often delighted that “their” material would be featured in a book that was intended

to go out into the world and take pride of place on the shelves of people who were not

the usual suspects— scholars and researchers.

x

I do not think, however, that I could possibly have gotten the materials together so

speedily and so smoothly without a virtual army of friends “on the ground,” fellow schol-

ars with connections, who prompted and pestered and found shortcuts to acquiring the

images. They went far above and beyond the call of duty and I salute them with gratitude

and with love: Zsoa Buda, Sonia Fellous, Karoline Henriques, Colum Hourihane, Leor

Jacobi, Ilona Steinman, Susanne Terwey, and Edward Van Voolen.

An extra- special acknowledgment and appreciation must go to Bill Gross, who

provided— in addition to images already secured from his collection (high- quality scans,

as always, and, as always, at no charge)— almost instantaneous substitutions when images

were unavailable elsewhere. His consummate good cheer and delight in doing so is a

testimony to the greatness both of his collection and of his character.

My eternal gratitude to Michelle Komie, my beloved Real Editor in the Old-

Fashioned Sense (if one might grace her with a title betting her), for seeing this book

to press and ensuring that it got the attention it deserved, and to her assistant, Claudia

Acevedo. I am grateful to Jennifer Harris for her close and insightful reading of the man-

uscript, to Sara Lerner for molding it to the exemplary standards of Princeton University

Press, to Leslie Fitch for ensuring that it became a sparkling peacock rather than a gray

elephant of a book, and to Julia Haav for connecting it with the broad audience it is in-

tended to reach.

To my wonderful collaborators and co- conspirators on this project, my deep and

sincere appreciation for your fabulous contributions. I hope that they have taken a form

worthy of your dreams for them. Still, for my own part, as general editor, I take respon-

sibility for any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions that remain.

Finally: If the skies were made of parchment, and the seas were lled with ink, I

could not sufciently express my love and appreciation for my parents, who taught me

to see and to read; to my children, who illuminate my every page; and to Ági, who is sky

and sea and mountain and valley and every near thing and every distant horizon to me.

acknowledgments

skies of parchment | seas of ink

1

Figure 1“How I love Your Torah, it is my dis-

course all the day.” A man, covered

in a prayer shawl, holds a Torah

scroll in its embroidered cover in

his arms. Maimonides, Mishneh

Torah. Italy, perhaps Perugia, ca.

1400. Jerusalem, National Library

of Israel, MS Heb. 4° 1193, fol. 32r.

introduction: for the love of booksMarc Michael Epstein

Habent sua fata libelli. “Books,” remarks the rst- century Latin poet Martial in one of his

Epigrams, “have their own destinies.” Once upon a time in the 1980s, when I was a twenty-

year- old graduate student full of arrogance and attitude, I worked in the Hebrew books

and manuscripts division of the Judaica Department at Sotheby’s New York. My boss was

the “Judaica expert,” the late, great Jay Weinstein, a man truly deserving of his title, which

he bore with immense modesty and humor. My own title was also “expert,” but, by way

of contrast, it only exacerbated my supercilious arrogance when I found myself called to

the front desk to meet a client. At those moments, I always had a vision in my head of a

potential New Yorker cartoon— a white- bearded man in a robe carrying two large tablets

inscribed in archaic Hebrew waits patiently while the receptionist pages me: “Mr. Epstein,

someone with a very old Hebrew book is here to see you.”

Indeed, just as in that imaginary cartoon, the client I was about to meet on the day

I am describing had called a week before to tell me that he was in possession of “a very

old Hebrew book.” I was not looking forward to the encounter, since auction experts

know very well that the hoi polloi consider anything more than ten years old to be an-

cient and hence of untold value. Disabusing clients of this notion as it applies to their

particular treasure is an often painful but necessary task. I steeled myself for what would

be necessary to accomplish this: the sustained and enervating projection of a personal

impressiveness composed of equal measures of authority and disdain. This was to be no

mean feat, considering it was a Monday afternoon and the hour was late.

Mr. X, I was dismayed to nd, embodied all my worst fears. Stooped, elderly, still

in his coat, and eager— very eager. Authoritative and disdainful though I made myself, he

was simply unimpressed by my “impressiveness.” With total focus and trembling hands,

he reached into a plastic shopping bag and produced, wrapped in newspaper older than

1

2 introduction

I was, his “treasure”— a book of Psalms, printed in Warsaw in 1920. I couldn’t believe this

monumental waste of my precious time— a brand new book of Psalms would be worth

more than this one! I was exasperated by this schlepper, and I wanted to tell him so. I

wanted to show him the real treasures— gold, silver, ancient, and precious illuminated

manuscripts— that had been entrusted into my “expert” care. I wanted to show him the

door as I told him with authoritative disdain, “That book is worth whatever you paid

for it!”

But at that moment, like the angel in the legend who moves Moses’s hand toward

the glowing coal rather than the glittering crown, thus saving his life, some kindly spirit

moved my tongue. And instead of that anticipated send- off, I faltered, “Um, what did you

pay for this?” The old man drew himself up to his full 5 feet, 2 inches. “For this, I paid seven

days’ Auschwitz bread,” he replied with a dignity that totally deated my pose. It seems

that the Nazis had caught him with the little Psalm book, and, as a penalty for possessing

it, imprisoned him without food— only water to drink— for an entire week. Like Moses

touching the coal to his lips, I was struck dumb. “This,” I stammered, “is too valuable for

us to sell.” And I stumbled out of the room, a changed young man, with a new appreciation

of what is meant by the words precious, valuable, and treasured.

Moses, perhaps due to the childhood encounter with the coal that the story tells

us literally scarred him, grew up to be “the meekest man on earth.” And I, while far from

meek, bear to this day the scars where my callousness was abraded by this man’s sincerity,

my callowness by his experience, and my cynicism by his faith. I learned then and there,

in the most visceral way, that books indeed have their destinies, and each has a story to

tell— sanguine or sanguinary. And their stories do not merely tell of themselves; they can,

and do, transform readers, collectors, and historians. For involvement with books can be

nothing short of a love affair.

The love of books in the Jewish tradition is nowhere better shown forth than in

this poetic illustration from a fourteenth- century manuscript of Maimonides’ Mishneh

Torah. Here, under the rubric “How I love Your Torah— she is my meditation all the day!”

(Psalms 119:97), a man holds a Torah scroll with tender affection— a tting opening illu-

mination for a folio that enumerates the laws of the reading of the Shm’a, the scriptural

verses emphasizing both the Unity of God and the centrality of Torah (gure 1).

The various fates of the books of the People of the Book are particularly rich and

variegated, and upon them hang many tales. This book is a labor of love, a compendium

of words and images by some of the best and brightest scholars in the eld of Jewish

manuscript illumination and beyond. It is the rst attempt at a comprehensive survey of

this eld in more than thirty years, and I hope you will nd it particularly distinguished

by its mission, its composition, and its quality.

When I was approached to take on this project, it occurred to me that it would be

both somewhat presumptuous and rather boring to attempt to write the book by myself.

introduction 3

Figure 2A community of scholars: the Five

Rabbis at B’nai Brak. Haggadah,

German rite with the commentary

of Eleazar of Worms and illustra-

tions by Joel ben Simeon Feibush

(The Ashkenazi Haggadah). South

Germany, perhaps Ulm, ca. 1460.

London, British Library, MS Add.

14762, fol. 7v.

The eld of Jewish manuscript studies has grown exponentially in the past thirty years,

and there are excellent scholars, many of them young, whose contributions bring unprec-

edented quality, scope, and depth to this work. Moreover, the idea that art is a legitimate

form of historical documentation— not just of events but of the attitudes, mentalities,

and aesthetics of those who commissioned, and in some cases, created it— has taken off

in a dramatic way in that period of years. Just as art is increasingly being applied as a

tool for the study of history and culture, I felt that the voices of scholars of history and

culture should be included in such a way as to illuminate (if I may be forgiven the use of

the word) the places and times in which the works of art we

examine herein were created. So this is a work of dialectic, of a

community of scholars (gure 2). Our opinions belong to each

of us, but as general editor, I accept the burden of any inaccu-

racies or errors.

A word about the title (and contents) of this work: This

book will explore what I have styled Jewish illuminated manu-

scripts, in place of what has tended in the past to be called Hebrew

illuminated manuscripts. There are compelling reasons for this.

The term Hebrew illuminated manuscripts has the advantage of

sounding precise and scientic, a simple categorization on

the basis of linguistic content. But of course, it is much more

ambiguous than it seems: Does it refer to the illumination of

manuscripts whose language is Hebrew? Or does it signify the

process of the illumination of manuscripts as undertaken by

Hebrews, whoever they might be? And what, in the end, do we

gain by avoiding the use of the term Jewish?

Unlike Arabic manuscripts, many of which are written

in the Arabic language without necessarily being Muslim in

content, the vast majority of illuminated manuscripts written

in Hebrew are Jewish in content. And unlike Greek manuscripts, which were commis-

sioned both by Christians and by Greek- reading non- Christians, Hebrew manuscripts

were overwhelmingly commissioned by Jewish patrons for Jewish audiences. With the

exception of the occasional inclusion of translations of medical or philosophical works,

most surveys of “Hebrew illuminated manuscripts” include manuscripts with identiably

Jewish content: scripture, liturgy, law, poetry, and philosophy. They also routinely include

Jewish manuscripts whose language is not Hebrew at all, but Judeo- Arabic, Yiddish, or

Ladino. So when scholars speak of “Hebrew illuminated manuscripts,” they are invariably

referring to Jewish illuminated manuscripts.

If that’s the case, why not say so? The act of “christening” what are essentially Jewish

works of art as Hebrew is the result of something beyond a simple desire for scholarly

4 introduction

clarity. It represents an attempt to erase the inherent Jewishness of

these monuments. As a euphemism for Jewish illuminated manu-

scripts, the expression “Hebrew illuminated manuscripts” rings

hollow and archaic in an era in which only a benighted few are still

afraid to use the J word in polite company. And so, we dare say it:

the manuscripts displayed and discussed on the following pages are

Jewish— made for, and in many cases, by Jews, in Jewish communi-

ties, in the context of the Jewish year, and as part of the tradition of

Jewish learning.

That having been said, they are extraordinarily diverse. As

we shall see, they comprise illustrated texts of the Bible, the prayer

book, the home liturgy, historical works, books of customs, marriage

documents, and household decorations. They are the production of

many people— Jews and non- Jews commissioned by Jews— over many

centuries, and they represent polities and perspectives east and west,

male and female. They represent Jewries from all the world over—

communities that were pietistic and communities that were liberal.

It is important, I feel, to note that what they do not represent

for the most part is a variety of socioeconomic strata. This book is a mirror of sorts: it

displays for you— a by- and- large urbane, educated, and well- to- do audience— the pro-

ductions of medieval Jewish societies that were socioeconomically the equivalent of your

own. And this makes the “world” depicted in these works— that of “Jewish life as depicted

in art,” as it has sometime been known— a world seen from a rather narrow and isolated

perspective. The people who would have viewed the books we will encounter would

have expected those volumes to be somewhat of a mirror of their own world, much like

the mirrored faces in this page from a fourteenth- century Ashkenazic haggadah written

and illuminated by Joel ben Simeon Feibush, which (in spite of accompanying the text

describing maẓah as “this bread of poverty”) primarily reect the countenances of mem-

bers of the well- to- do sphere of the manuscript’s patrons and their dependents (gure

3). Consequently, the recovery, based on the “manuscript evidence” of Jewish life on the

basis of Jewish illuminated books, is tendentious at best, rather as if one had attempted

to reconstruct Jewish life in the twentieth century on the basis of an archeological sur-

vey, some 500 years hence, of the estate area in the Fieldston section of Riverdale, New

York, or of Beverly Hills, California, or of the renewed Jewish Quarter of the Old City of

Jerusalem. But still, we take what was left us, and if we are clever, we can mine what we

have for secretly meaningful images, alternative histories, and all those ne and subversive

elements historians garner from the documents of the elite when they lack material from

the other societal strata with which to work.

Figure 3“This bread of affliction.” Maẓah as

mirror of faces. Haggadah, Italian

rite with illustrations by Joel

ben Simeon Feibush. Italy, 1454.

New York, Library of the Jewish

Theological Seminary, MS 8279, fols.

49v– 50r.

introduction 5

A few words about words: this work is intended for nonspecialists, but it is neces-

sary from time to time to make use of certain terms that are common in the eld. When

we refer to manuscripts, we mean handwritten books on parchment, or more rarely, on

paper. An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript that is illustrated in applied color and

contains gold or silver as part of the decoration. We can refer to individual pictures or

decorations within an illuminated manuscript either as miniatures, as illuminations, or

simply as illustrations. However, an illustrated manuscript (a term often erroneously used

interchangeably with illuminated manuscript) is a manuscript with illustrations in pen

and ink alone, containing no applied color, gold, or silver.

A scribal colophon is the signature of the scribe, the person who wrote the text of the

manuscript, occasionally (though not often enough!) with the date and place of the book’s

completion. If our interest is in the illustrations, knowing the name, date, and location

of a manuscript’s scribe will help us situate it broadly, but will not denitively answer

all of our questions about the artwork. This is because each and every manuscript is the

result of the work of a particular authorship, a collaboration between Jewish patrons, who

sponsored and conceptualized the manuscript (in some cases, it seems, with the aid of

rabbinic advisers), and illustrators (the artists who drew the pictures) and illuminators (the

artisans who colored and gilded the illustrations), Jewish or non- Jewish. These illustra-

tors and illuminators were usually distinct persons from the manuscript’s scribes and

only very rarely let us know their names in colophons. Even when we have the name of a

scribe and of an artist, the two tasks of illustrator and illuminator are never differentiated

entirely clearly.

The authorship of each manuscript engaged in its own, very particular, sometimes

unique way of telling the tale of the relationship of Jews with God, their neighbors, and

each other through their visual translation, commentary, and sometimes even subversion

of Jewish texts and traditions. The authorship worked together on the successive stages

of the project: First, in the planning of each manuscript, the patrons and their advisors

decided upon those aspects of the text that was being illustrated and the ideas that un-

derlay it that highlighted the agenda it wished to convey, working with the designers and

artists to clothe those ideas in visual language. Then, these concepts were transmitted

through the interpretation of their commission by the designers and executors of each

work. Ultimately, the images and their motivating ideas were received and reinterpreted

by the various audiences of each manuscript over time.

What were the various parts of a manuscript when it was received by its patrons

and audiences? A folio is an entire page of a manuscript, front and back. When we talk

about folio 2a, we mean the “front” side of the second folio that faces up, since the book,

if you imagine it in front of you, opens on the left side (Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-

Persian, Judeo- Arabic, and Judeo- Italkit all being written in Hebrew script, from right

6 introduction

above left Figure 4The dove returns to Noah.

Miscellany of biblical and other

texts. France, Amiens, 1277– 86.

London, British Library, MS Add.

11639, fol. 521.

above right Figure 5Binding of Isaac. Miscellany of

biblical and other texts. France,

Amiens, 1277– 86. London, British

Library, MS Add. 11639, fol. 521v.

left Figure 6David and Goliath. Miscellany of

biblical and other texts. France,

Amiens, 1277– 86. London, British

Library, MS Add. 11639, fol. 523v.

introduction 7

Figure 7Creation with the Divine

represented as golden rays of em-

anation. Haggadah (The Sarajevo

Haggadah). Spain, Catalonia, ca.

1350. Bosnia and Hercegovina,

Sarajevo, Zemaljski Museum, MS

1, fol. 1v.

to left). Consequently, folio 2b is the opposite side of the page (the “back” of the folio),

revealed as you turn the page to the right. The a side of a page is also referred to as the

recto (or “correct”— in the sense of upward- facing) side of the page, and the b side as the

verso (or “reverse”) side of the page, and so folio 2a is alternatively known as folio 2r, and

folio 2b, as folio 2v.

Now, if illustration is simply the process of laying down the images, and illumina-

tion is the coloring— particularly the application of gold— to those illustrations to make

them illuminations, what of a third term beginning with the letter i, a term about which

there will be a great deal of talk in the ensuing pages— iconography?

Iconography refers to the manner in which the narrative is expressed by means of its

illustration not only in a particular manuscript but in all manuscripts from a given time,

place, or tradition— or, indeed, over the entire history of art. There are any number of ways

in which a given story might unfold in art— try to visualize the tale of Noah’s ark (gure

4), or the story of the binding of Isaac (gure 5), or the episode of David’s encounter with

Goliath (gure 6), for instance. This is because there are many different points in time in

the narrative that can be depicted, and different details that can be inserted into the scene.

The standard iconography of a scene is the way it is generally presented in a tradition of

iconography particular to a time, place, and social, political, and/or religious context. For

instance, in the West, in the Middle Ages, Jews do not generally depict the creation of the

world, and when they do, they avoid any depiction of the Creator (gure 7). Christians, on

the other hand, show the Creator as God the Father, often an old man with a white beard,

or as God the Son, a younger, bearded personage, who is present within various spheres

8 introduction

indicating the individual days of creation, taking an active part in the process (gure 8).

The standard medieval Christian iconography of saints and prophets, for example, shows

God as appearing to them or hovering above them in a cloud. Jews, it goes without saying,

would not have tolerated such a depiction in their books. Of course, as soon as we begin

to speak of “standard” iconography, we encounter startling exceptions that raise pointed

questions about the identity and motives of artist and patron (gure 9).

We make a determination of the “contents” of the standard iconography of a scene

on the basis of the majority of examples in a given time and place. Iconography becomes

interesting when it changes in a considerable or even a subtle way, and giving an account

of and an explanation for these changes is the task of the art historian. Art historians take

their cues for closer examination or reappraisal of iconography when obvious changes

are in evidence. We may have a scene illustrated “anew”— that is, a scene that does not

customarily appear in the historical and geographical context in which it is now manifest.

Or a given illustration may add or omit details— characters, objects, landscape, or interior

elements— generally found to be present in the time and place of its creation. Or, the style,

relative size, or placement of a detail in a given scene may be altered— radically or subtly.

When we talk about “the iconography of Joseph’s dream,” for instance, we mean the

persons, places, and things that appear in depictions of this biblical narrative in all media,

throughout the history of art. This iconography generally includes the sleeping Joseph,

with his dreams depicted in a realm somewhat “above and beyond” his bed. The actual

depiction may be more detailed, including more elements, or more schematic, including

fewer elements. So, in the case of Joseph’s dream, one could imagine a “standard” ico-

nography in which Joseph lies on the ground with the dreams “projected” above him in

schematic form, as indeed they are in most medieval examples, like the famous mosaics in

Figure 8Creation with God appearing as

the Son in the anthropomorphic

form typical in manuscripts made

for Christians. Note, however, the

otherwise striking parallels with the

Sarajevo Haggadah, particularly in

the way the sphere of the created

world is depicted. Bible with scenes

from the Hebrew Bible and Latin,

Persian, and Judeo- Persian inscrip-

tions (The Morgan Picture Bible).

France, Paris, 1240s. New York,

Morgan Library, MS M.638, fol. 1v.

introduction 9

Figure 9A significant departure from

the “standard iconography”: an

unusual instance of God appear-

ing in human form in a Jewish

manuscript. Opening page from

the Book of Psalms. Italy, 15th

century. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek

Preussischer Kulturbesitz,

Orientabteilung, MS Hamilton 547,

fol. 1r.

10 introduction

San Marco in Venice (gure 10). But what if the stars are missing from the composition,

as they are in this example from the fourteenth- century Golden Haggadah (gure 11)? Is

it just a case of a lack of space in the panel? What if Joseph does not appear at all, only the

dream elements by themselves? What if Joseph were shown in a particularly elaborate

bedroom? What if the brothers appear holding their sheaves or their stars? What if God

or an angel appears, “directing” the dream? And what if Joseph’s face betrays particular

states of mind or emotional clues? Any or all of these “differences” would be cause for

increased interest on the part of investigators.

More and more, art historians are learning that “models” can mean many things—

from actual works of art known to those who “translated” them into their Jewish form, to

model- books and motif- books present in the workshops of artists on the basis of which

artists could offer the patron a sample of treatments of particular scenes, motifs, and

details. And we realize that the transmission of motifs was often on the basis of memory—

either of the whole composition or of small details of it. Though scholars sometimes speak

of a “standard” iconography, there is in fact no uniformity. The designers of manuscripts

borrowed from a wide range of sources and traditions. Pinpointing these sources might

give us a better idea of the general identity of a given manuscript’s authorship. The task

of the interpreter of motifs is be alert to the ways in which they translate their sources

in a manner relevant to particular times, places, communities, families, and individual

patrons. That is what makes the task of interpretation fascinating, rewarding, and fun.

How does this book on Jewish manuscript illumination differ from all other such

books? In the pages to come, we venture beyond the traditional mode of cataloguing

manuscripts chronologically and geographically by means of a sample page from each

manuscript and a description of each manuscript’s origin, form, and contents. This is

something that has been done to good effect in the past by excellent scholars, whose works

Figure 10Joseph’s dreams. Inscribed hic

vidit ioSheP So(M)niu(M) ManiP-

ulor(uM) et Soli(S) (et) lune et

und(e)ci(M) Stelaru(M) (“Here

Joseph dreams the dream of the

sheaves, the sun, the moon and the

eleven stars.”). San Marco, Venice,

Atrium, bay 6, dome. Mosaic. Ital-

ian, 13th century.

Figure 11Joseph’s dreams. Haggadah

(The Golden Haggadah). Spain,

Barcelona, ca. 1320. London, British

Library, MS Add. 27210, fol. 5rb.

introduction 11

Figure 12Moses receiving, then transmitting

the tablets of the Covenant to the

Israelites at Sinai. Pentateuch (The

Regensburg Pentateuch). Germany,

1300. Jerusalem, the Israel

Museum, MS 180/52, fol. 154v.

Figure 13Moses receiving the tablets of the

Covenant. Maḥzor (The Rothschild

Maḥzor). Italy, Florence, 1490.

New York, Library of the Jewish

Theological Seminary, MS 8892,

fol. 139a.

are noted in Jenna Siman Jacobs’s ne and useful bibliography (chapter 13). Here, we will

engage less in a survey of individual manuscripts than in a survey of iconography, East

and West. We’ll look at the way the ow of the narrative is conveyed over sequences of

illuminations in various manuscripts, and at the ways in which themes are transmitted,

comparing and contrasting East and West and the Jewish and non- Jewish use of motifs

throughout various time periods.

The Jewish tradition is often concerned with transmission and interpretation. From

the moment of the revelation at Sinai, as the book of Exodus describes it, to the present age,

the traditions of the Jews have been inexorably bound up with books. And the variety of

ways of interpreting those books, as with the traditions themselves, is myriad. Witness how

even the imagining of the giving of the Torah at Sinai can shift as it is depicted in thirteenth-

century Regensburg (gure 12) or in Renaissance Italy (gure 13)! How do the aesthetic

and the setting differ in each case? What action is occurring in each view of what at rst

appears to be the same scene? What moment is depicted here? What is Moses’s role? What

is the people’s place? What does it mean to be camped “below the mountain” in each case?

Still, in spite of the multiple possibilities for interpretation of texts and for going

beyond texts— which spill over into a gorgeous diversity of depiction— there was no point

in Jewish history (even when Jews had to share a single book among seven or eight pupils,

12 introduction

and thus learn to read Hebrew from all sorts of interesting angles)

in which books were completely absent. A child learning Parashat

Shelakh Lekha for Bar or Bat Miẓvah in modern- day Indianapolis

uses very much the same tools as a boy might have in Old Cairo

in the Middle Ages (gure 14), although teachers today may tend

to spare the rod more than they apparently did in bygone days

(gure 15). Even the form of a single work— let’s say the Megillah,

the scroll of Esther— may vary (again a testimony to the degree to

which the text was loved), from exquisite Gothic codices (gure 16), to beautifully writ-

ten and encased scrolls (gure 17), to miniature volumes bound in silver (gure 18). The

aesthetic may range from Baroque grandeur (gure 19) to charming folksiness (gure 20).

But the goal is always the same— to encourage engagement and to incite interpretation.

above Figure 14Shelakh Lekha. “Send forth for

yourself.” Numbers 3:1– 15:41.

Parasha (Torah Portion) man-

uscript. Probably Persia, 1106.

Jerusalem, National Library of

Israel, MS Heb. 8° 2238, fols. 3v– 4r.

left Figure 15Teacher chastising a pupil.

Pentateuch with the Five Scrolls,

prophetic readings, and grammat-

ical treatises. Central Germany,

possibly Coburg, 1390– 96. London,

British Library, MS Add. 19776, fol.

72v.

oPPoSite Figure 16Queen Esther and Aḥashverosh/

The hanging of Haman and his

sons/The triumph of Mordechai.

Pentateuch (The Regensburg

Pentateuch). Germany, 1300.

Jerusalem, the Israel Museum, MS

180/52, fol. 157v.

introduction 13

14 introduction

Figure 17Megillah cases. From left: Ioannina,

Greece, ca. 1900; Aleppo, Syria,

ca. 1875; Izmir, Turkey, 1873;

Ukraine, ca. 1850; Turkey, ca. 1875.

Tel Aviv, Gross Family Collection,

080.001.043, 080.001.007,

080.021.001, 080.001.034,

080.001.020.

Figure 18Accordion- folded scroll of Esther

in silver book binding. Italy, 18th–

19th century. Jerusalem, the Israel

Museum, Stieglitz Collection.

introduction 15

toP Figure 19Scroll of Esther in Baroque style.

Probably Germany, ca. 1700. Tel

Aviv, Gross Family Collection,

081.012.037.

bottoM Figure 20Miniature scroll of Esther in a folksy

Baroque style. Probably Germany,

ca. 1700. Tel Aviv, Gross Family

Collection, 081.012.038.

16 introduction

oPPoSite Figure 21A man studies Torah below an

image of a squirrel cracking a nut,

which serves as a metaphor for

getting beyond the shell of learning

and extracting the sweet meat of

the interior of the text. Asher ben

Yeḥiel, Commentary on the Talmud.

Germany, 14th century. Paris,

Bibliothèque nationale de France,

MS hèbr. 418, fol. 198.

Witness the lovely opening folio from a fourteenth- century German manuscript

of Rabbenu Asher’s Talmudic commentary (gure 21). Below the charmingly decorated

initial word panel (the left- most arm of the shin contains an enigmatic hooded fool’s

face— the great- grandfather, perhaps, of Maurice Sendak’s Max from Where the Wild

Things Are, replete with wolf- suit), a scholarly gure sits on a plump, tasseled pillow in

a grand chair— a cathedra— backed by a velvet cloth sprinkled with stars. A book is open

before him, as he studies Torah. At the top of the panel, there is another illumination

equal in size and prominence, depicting a squirrel, seated on an identical tasseled pillow,

and cracking a nut! The juxtaposition seems a bit— well, “nutty”— until you realize that

one of the dominant medieval metaphors for Torah itself was the nut: hard to crack, but

rewardingly nutritious on the inside, the very food of life. The squirrel invites us to do

what the scholar has done— to open the book and enter the text and mine it for the riches

it contains. Dear reader, after nearly 700 years, that invitation still stands. Join us . . .

17introduction

Documents

Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink : Jewish illuminated manuscripts