Beatus manuscripts under the microscope: the Alcobaça Beatus and the Iberian Cistercian tradition revisited

Abstract

The Alcobaça Beatus (Lisbon, National Library, Alc. 247) is one of the few extant unillustrated copies of the eighth-century Commentary on the Apocalypse attributed to the Iberian monk Beatus of Liébana. It has traditionally been considered that this Beatus was produced at the Cistercian Portuguese abbey of Santa Maria de Alcobaça and that its model was the Lorvão Beatus (Lisbon, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Lorvão, Liv. 44). This article provides the first indepth examination of the Alcobaça Beatus, carried out by a multidisciplinary team using combined methods from the natural and human sciences. The technical data provided by the analysis of the decoration, molecular palette and bookbinding support the theory of its production at the scriptorium of the Portuguese monastery of Alcobaça, whereas the analysis of the textual structure and content reveals that the Alcobaça Beatus and the Lorvão Beatus show a different sequence of texts and that the Alcobaça copy contains later notes that evidence its use in the monastic reading practice, especially the liturgical readings of the Divine Office. This set of results turns this manuscript, which had received minimal scholarly attention to date, into a significant case study since it reveals itself as the basis to further investigate the corpus of extant Beatus copies and question the importance of such a work within the Cistercian order, thus provoking new questions within the debate on Cistercians and their identity around the year 1200.

The Colors in Medieval Illuminations through the Magnificent Scriptorium of Alfonso X, the Learned

“…The only medieval technical treatise in which we may find relevant information on the art of constructing an illumination is the mid-fifteenth-century Göttingen Model Book (hereafter, GMB). In a previous study of the Alcobaça Beatus [15], we verified that the GMB painting process was applied in its initials. This is because some decorated initials The only medieval technical treatise in which we may find relevant information on the art of constructing an illumination is the mid-fifteenth-century Göttingen Model Book (hereafter, GMB).…”

“…This is because some decorated initials The only medieval technical treatise in which we may find relevant information on the art of constructing an illumination is the mid-fifteenth-century Göttingen Model Book (hereafter, GMB). In a previous study of the Alcobaça Beatus [15], we verified that the GMB painting process was applied in its initials. This is because some decorated initials were left unfinished, allowing the reader to learn more about the precise sequence of steps used and compare them with the steps proposed in the GMB.…”

“…The GMB outlines the fundamental steps involved in the creation of ornamental illuminations, which may be summarised as follows: (1) drawing with a thin line and applying the main colors, (2) outlining, (3) shadowing, and (4) highlighting. For more details, see Figure 16 in the article of Miguélez Cavero and coworkers, "Beatus manuscripts under the microscope" [15]. A further comparison was made with the information provided by the GMB with that in the Liber diversarum arcium, which Mark Clarke suggests was largely written around 1300 and which offers unique and precise instructions on how to prepare color paints for illumination, describing which colors can be used to shadow or highlight [54].…”

“…Medieval pigments identified in Iberian medieval manuscripts are presented in Tables S1 and S2 in Supplementary material S1 [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. In this Appendix, a brief introduction is also provided, and additional information can also be found in Supplementary materials S2-S4.…”

Underneath the Purple Stain

“…Founded in 1153 by the mother abbey of Clairvaux, the Alcobaça Monastery likely began producing its own illuminated manuscripts after 1175 and kept its activity until the sixteenth century [1,2]. The Alcobaça Monastery library offers one of the most important collections of illuminated manuscripts from medieval Portugal and shows a strong intertwining between French and Iberian artistic and textual traditions [1]. These were the most important manuscripts monasteries produced, indispensable to the celebration of the Daily Office, around which the lives of the monks were structured.…”