An Illustrated Aristotelian Manuscript from the Crusader States. Some Preliminary Remarks

ECA 3 (2006), p. 25-36; doi: 10.2143 / ECA.3.0.2018700 An Illustrated Aristotelian Manuscript from the Crusader States. Some Preliminary Remarks Krijnie CIGGAAR Anno Domini MoCCoLXXXmoquarto, die Veneris ante Nativitatem Domini1 Information on the production and circulation of were imported from the West or locally produced western manuscripts in the Latin states in Outremer for local patrons or even for passing patrons. In is scarce. The many secular and religious institu- spite of the eventful history of the Latin states, a tions, however, needed scriptoria for their chanceries number of manuscripts, sometimes illustrated, have and libraries, for religious books, for letter writing been preserved. During the last few decades studies and for other purposes. Education of the clergy and of these manuscripts have been published5. They of lay students were another reason for the produc- formed the starting point for further research on tion of liturgical books, texts of a more profane specific texts and manuscripts, and have drawn character and of text books. Hundreds of manu- attention to the cultural climate in Outremer. scripts must have circulated in Latin Outremer and Attention has been paid to the cultural effects which have been available to the clergy and to interested these manuscripts may have had on their eastern and educated lay people2. Undoubtedly, many surroundings6. These studies have certainly con- manuscripts, complete libraries even, must have dis- tributed to the discovery of more ‘crusader manu- appeared by warfare and by the carrying off scripts’. of books as war booty. Manuscripts which have In 1976, J. Folda ascribed a number of illus- survived have more than once escaped attention trated manuscripts to an anonymous artist whom from those who are interested in their existence. he called the ‘Hospitaller Master’, because the This ‘neglect’ is due to various reasons. Sometimes patron of the only manuscript mentioning a spon- descriptions in catalogues are rather superficial, sor was a Hospitaller knight. The painter appar- sometimes the manuscripts found their way into ently came from Paris to work in Acre. Recently private collections in the West. Some found their he has been baptized the Paris-Acre Master and as way into Muslim and Christian communities in the such we shall refer to him in this article. His Middle East where they may still be treasured or patron in Outremer, commonly known as William kept without being recognized as such. Others were of San Stephano, had asked a certain Jean d’Anti- sold on market places in foreign countries. Ricoldo oche to make a French translation of two Latin de Monte Croce, when travelling through Muslim texts, the De inventione of Cicero and the Rheto- lands in the late thirteenth century, saw spolia from rica ad Herennium which were at the time both the war booty taken at Acre. On the market place attributed to Cicero. The illumination of the text of Bagdad he saw Latin breviaries3. was to be carried out by the Paris-Acre Master. The situation is worse where illustrated manu- Jean d’Antioche translated the texts in 1282, as we scripts are concerned, regardless if they were pro- read in the manuscript Musée Condé, Chantilly, duced in Outremer or were imported from the West. Illustrations may have escaped destruction. Although mention is made of miniatures that have disappeared 1 from manuscripts produced in Outremer, examples From the colophon in Vaticanus Latinus 2083, fol. 224v, see Leonardi 1987, 103. of such ‘cuttings’ have not yet come to light (see also 2 Beddie 1933, 241; Laurent/Richard 1951, 451-454; Maier below). 1967, passim. Some manuscripts were only temporarily in Out- 3 Röhricht 1884, 277, 289, 295. 4 remer, brought to the East in the baggage of visit- Ciggaar 1996, 147-150, for Edward I of England who took with him an Arthurian manuscript. ing scholars, pilgrims or others. Sometimes there 5 E.g. Buchthal 1957; Folda 1976. was a possibility to copy them4. Other manuscripts 6 E.g. Burnett 2000; Folda 1969/1970; Jacoby 1984. 25 MS 590. In the French prologue to his translation the pigments used by the illuminators is another Jean d’Antioche calls his patron Guillaume de necessity. When mineral pigments are used, like Saint-Etienne, as if the latter were a Frenchman malachite, lapis lazuli (such pigments may have (here I shall use the French name), although one been cheaper in the East than in western parts), cannot exclude that he was an Italian coming from their presence may be established by inspection with San Stefano, the geographical name of a number a special microscope, without doing damage to the of villages and towns in Italy. It is not clear if the paintings. With regard to the ductus of a scribe and manuscript as we know it was produced and illu- the work of miniature painters, one should keep in minated in 1282. The year 1282 is at least a ter- mind that a handwriting changes during a life’s minus post quem since we may expect that the final time, and that artists equally develop their style by text was soon to be properly copied and illus- being influenced by others or by creating their own trated7. Guillaume de Saint-Etienne left for Lom- style and, last but not least, by becoming more bardy in 1287. He is an example of a patron who experienced in their craft9. The greater part of did not permanently live in Outremer and who western manuscripts produced during the twelfth employed an indigenous scholar and an immigrant and thirteenth centuries do not offer a colophon. painter. The passages in which Jean d’Antioche None of the manuscripts which were decorated by refers to his own work, are not found in a the so-called Paris-Acre Master has a colophon in colophon in the usual sense of the word. The the proper sense of the word10. Paris-Acre Master is thought to have arrived from A corpus of manuscripts in Outremer will prove Paris in Acre in the early 1280s8. As a newcomer valuable for the study of educational and cultural life in Outremer, he illustrated two secular philoso- in the various centres in Latin Outremer. The west- phical texts which may have introduced him into erners lived in a multicultural entourage, amidst Jews a milieu of learned ecclesiastics. and Muslims, and various eastern Christians (Greek The Latin manuscripts written and illustrated in Orthodox, Arabic speaking Greek Orthodox (the so- Outremer have so far never been made accessible in called Melkites), Syrian Orthodox, Armenians, their entirety, i.e. their handwriting(s) and their Georgians etc.) and other peoples. Cross-fertilization illustrations. A corpus of these manuscripts, in could easily take place. Translations of texts in the printed or digitalized form, containing illustrations various languages of the eastern communities were with a good specimen of the handwriting and other made into Latin and French, and sometimes vice codicological details such as the use of a specific versa. Iconographical features could be borrowed. If parchment, the format etc., would be very welcome. minor details were adopted they are not always dis- Only then shall it be possible to compare the duc- tinguishable in black and white reproductions. tus of the various scribes and see what kind of texts Colour reproductions may better reveal silent wit- a specific copyist was responsible for, and compare nesses of cultural interaction. The identification of the illustration programmes, the iconography of the more manuscripts and their contents which were various illuminations and the colour palette. A cor- produced in Outremer will become easier with the pus shall be useful to distinguish between the style help of such a corpus. They may shed more light on of the various painters involved in the decoration of the intellectual, cultural and artistic life in the Latin manuscripts. Sometimes painters cooperated in the states. This may be of interest for contemporary and production of a manuscript. A good description of later developments in Western Europe and in Out- the ink (the colour, the quality), the parchment, and remer, and give information about relations between Christians and Muslims. It is always a pleasant surprise to find a manuscript produced and/or illustrated in the Latin 7 Folda 1976, 42-45, 181-182; for the new name of the illus- trator, now called the Paris-Acre Master, see Folda 2004 and states in Outremer. On a circular which was issued 2005. by Brepols Publishers for the publication pro- 8 Folda 1976, 42-76. gramme of the Aristoteles Latinus project, a minia- 9 Such a corpus is under consideration. ture was published which reminds one of the style 10 Kohler 1913, vii, n. 2, xv-xix, where reference is made to a manuscript made in Kyrenia, Cyprus (now ‘lost’), which is of the Paris-Acre Master. The illustration comes an exception. The manuscript was finished April 9, 1343. from an Aristotelian manuscript, but its prove- The colophon may give more details. nance was not mentioned. Working through the 26 Pl. 1. Vaticanus Latinus 2083, fol. 134r 9 (courtesy of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) 27 specialized catalogues of Aristotelian manuscripts, sort of vellum which was used14. My hypothesis and looking for a manuscript which should have that the Vaticanus Latinus 2083 is a manuscript been produced in Outremer, I found the Vaticanus copied in the East by a certain Ivo (also spelled Latinus 2083 which has a colophon that suggests Yvo) who came from Sidon, is based on the text of that the manuscript comes from Outremer. At the the colophon (see below)15. beginning of the text De caelo (fol. 134r), translated into Latin by the Dominican friar Guillaume THE MANUSCRIPT VATICANUS LATINUS 2083 de Moerbeke (this translation is called Translatio nova and is dated to the late 1260s), the philoso- The manuscript consists of 224 folios and offers a pher is depicted in a teaching scene, pointing at corpus of Aristotelian manuscripts, the so-called the sun and the moon11.

Load more