Joshua scroll

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Joshua scroll: Joshua and the two informers, 10th century

The Joshua Scroll is a scroll from Constantinople , probably made in the 10th century under the reign of Emperor Constantine VII . In a horizontal, ten-meter-long frieze-like picture cycle in grisaille painting, it depicts 27 scenes from the book of Joshua , together with short accompanying texts from this book. The presentation focuses on Joshua as a military leader, beginning with chapter 2 of this Old Testament text.

The manuscript is now in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana with the signature Codex Vaticanus Palatinus Graecus 431 (Cod. Vat. Palat. Gr. 431). After the cataloging of Greek Bible manuscripts according to A. Rahlfs, the manuscript received the Siglum 661.

The grisailles of the Joshua scroll were created by several hands in several phases. The artists not known by name are assigned to the imperial-Byzantine court school . In a final phase, the grisallia contained on 15 sheets of parchment stuck together and created in the predominant Greco-Roman painting style were partially colored. The form of the work, a recourse to the ancient form of the book in the form of the scroll, is very unusual for Byzantine art.

literature

  • Pio Franchi de'Cavalieri: Il Rotulo di Giosuè. Codice Vaticano Palatino Greco 431; riprodotto in fototipia e fotocromografia. Hoepli, Milan 1905.
  • Kurt Weitzmann : The Joshua Roll: a Work of the Macedonian Renaissance . Princeton, Princeton University Press 1948.
  • Ingo F. Walther, Norbert Wolf : Codices illustres. The most beautiful illuminated manuscripts in the world, 400 to 1600 . Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 978-3822860236 , pp. 104-107.
  • Otto Kresten : Il rotolo di Giosuè (BAV, Pal.gr. 431) e gli ottateuchi miniati bizantini. Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, Città del Vaticano 2010. ISBN 978-88-85054-21-9 .
  • Steven H. Wander: The Joshua Roll. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2012. ISBN 978-3-89500-854-2 .

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