BIBLE MORALISÉE

The most complete and systematic commentary of the Bible, both visual and literary; it appeared in the 13th century. The original consists of 5,000 scenes, inscribed in roundels and featuring some 30,000 characters. It is believed to have been dedicated to King Louis IX (1226–70). The manuscript is scattered among the Bodleian Library, Oxford (270b), the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (lat. 11560), and the British Museum (Harl. 1526–27). A copy, kept in the library of Vienna, was presented to King Louis IX, and another one is exhibited in the treasure room of the cathedral of Toledo, Spain. There exist various French translations of the Latin original. The scenes are disposed in medallions assembled by pairs in two columns of four, with grounds of alternating color. The chromatic pattern of the ground also alternates between two consecutive folios. The disposition, which is reminiscent of certain stained-glass windows in the Ste-Chapelle of Paris (1248), was used also in the Psalter of Saint Louis (The Pierpont Morgan Library). The arrangement was adopted in the 12th century for illustrating the Souvigny Bible, and it was repeated toward the end of the 13th century in the Albenga Psalter. The formal connection of the layout of the illustrations in the Bible Moralisée with that used in a Psalter from Artois (Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 10425) suggests that the main artist responsible for planning the decoration of the Bible Moralisée may have come from northern France. The illustrations are accompanied by iconographical comments, stressing the parallelism between the "figures," or events, of the Old Testament and the "mysteries" of the New Testament: the life of Christ and the Sacraments. According to an allegorizing exegesis, four meanings are distinguished in the Holy Scripture: sensus litteralis, sensus allegoricus, sensus tropologicus, sensus anagogicus (see exegesis, biblical). The scenes illustrate, in preference to the three other meanings, the sensus tropologicus ; that is, the symbolic imagery of the Old Testament (type) is explained verbatim, word for word and image for image, by the revelations of the New Dispensation (antitype). The method is in line with typological art of the 12th century, which originated in the Meuse Valley and was adopted in the abbey church of Saint-Denis by Abbot Suger. On the other hand, the Bible Moralisée follows strictly the Concordantiae of the Bible by hugh of saint-cher and the Dominicans (second quarter of the 13th century). Like Hugh's Postilla, the written comments of the medallions in the Bible Moralisée expatiate particularly on the moral and disciplinary implications to be derived from the verses of the Bible.

See Also: manuscript illumination.

Bibliography: a. de laborde, La Bible Moralisée, 4 v. (Paris 1911–21).

[p. verdier]