Page 203 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

via Roman maps and possibly through Byzantine example, MS Monte Cassino cod. 132, f. i6b, Ita- tions. The "Golden Haggadah" (British Library,
painting to the East. In the West, curiously lian, c. 1063) and Catalan manuscripts of the com- MS Add. 27210, compare Narkiss 1971) made,
enough, they were identified as giants, hence the mentary of Beatus of Liebana on the Apocalypse probably, in Barcelona c. 1320-1325, is not parti-
common representation of Saint Christopher as a (for example, that executed for Ferdinand i of Cas- cularly similar in detail to our composition, but
dog-head. As Wittkower has shown, the popular- tile and Leon in 1047, Biblioteca Nacional, both it and a "Hispano-Moresque" Haggadah of
ity of these monstrous races in Western art arose Madrid, MS Vit. 14-2, with a double page show- c. 1310-1320 (British Library, MS Or. 27-37) are
from their use as types of the pagan nations to ing the Adoration of the Lamb) (Bologna 1988, remarkably archaizing in style and hark back to
whom the Church must preach the Gospel and, 27); and still earlier medieval English or French Catalan manuscript painting of the tenth-eleventh
via the universally popular bestiaries, as types of manuscripts (for example, a copy of Saint Augus- centuries and the style of the Beatus Apocalypses.
virtues or vices. There is not the slightest evi- tine's De civitate Dei, probably Canterbury and c. Directly comparable, however, are a historical
dence in the Suleymanname frontispieces of 1120, where the City of God is shown as an edifice manuscript of the fourteenth century from Cas-
any indebtedness to Armenian demonology or with Christ in a mandorla and rows of angel- tile, Cronica de los reyes de Judea e de los gentiles
magical texts. musicians, saints, and martyrs below, Biblioteca (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, MS. 7415) (Bologna
Compositions showing figures arranged in suc- Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MS Plut. 12.17, f. 1988, 27), with kings shown enthroned in Gothic
cessive tiers are practically unknown in Islam and 2b) (Bologna 1988, 94), and a drawing by Ingelard, aedicules; and the Bible of the House of Alba (Pa-
many of the figures certainly presuppose Western c. 1030-1060, showing the celestial hierarchies lacio de Liria, Madrid, vit. i), a translation from
sources; nevertheless, the tiered composition (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS Lat. 11751, f. Hebrew into Spanish by Rabbi Moses de Arragel
is also uncommon in medieval European manu- 59b) (Miner 1967, 87-108). of Guadalajara, made for Luis de Guzman, 25th
scripts. The known examples fall into three The third group of Western manuscripts is, Master of the Order of Calatrava, Toledo, 1422-
groups. Two of these are too early on to have fig- however, much more promising as a source; most 1430 (Bologna 1988,140). This manuscript shows
ured as direct sources for our Suleymanname: of the works in this group are Southern Spanish a knightly figure enthroned in an elaborate Gothic
the early encyclopaedia of Hrabanus Maurus (for and mostly with strong Sephardic Jewish connec- aedicule with a hemispherical ribbed dome, and

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