A leaf from the 'Josephinum' or 'Ste-Genevieve' Bible, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1250]

A leaf from the so-called 'Ste-Genevieve' Bible, of which a substantial fragment survives in Columbus, OH.

c.290 x 190mm. Two columns of 50 lines, ruled space: 192 x 125mm, later foliation '397', rubrics in red, headlines in alternate blue and red capitals, chapter initials alternately in red or blue with penwork flourishing extending into margins, initials in top line elaborated in black penwork and wash, the historiated initial depicting a Jew sending a letter to Egypt, opening the second book Book of Maccabees, the text from I Maccabees 16:14 - II Maccabees 2:23, beginning: '[descendit] in Jericho ipse, et Mathathias filius eius'. Mounted and framed.

Provenance:
(1) This leaf is f.397 from a largely intact Bible sold at Christie's on 26 June 1996, lot 14, described then as having 552 leaves (lacking 24), of which a substantial 73-leaf fragment is now at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, OH (Josephinum MS1). The 1996 Christie's description stated that a document was pasted inside the front cover of the Bible, addressed to the abbot and prior of the abbey of St Geneviève in Paris by the 'presbyter de corborosa', dated 1224, referring to a dispute or agreement between the chapter of Notre Dame in Paris and Gui de Montfort, brother of Simon IV de Montfort and fellow-participant in the Albigensian Crusade. Ohio State University have recently acquired the binding and flyleaves of this manuscript, and it has been confirmed that the documented date 1224 is a modern printed facsimile on paper. This document had led to a suggestion that the manuscript had been produced for the Abbey of St Geneviève, which is certainly plausible. A manuscript fragment was pasted to the contents leaf, with the word 'volumine' and the date 1247 legible: this date was written on the upper cover, probably in the 19th century. Further 19th-century provenance included an illegible library stamp and collation notes in Italian inside the back cover.

(2) The manuscript was broken up shortly after the Christie's sale, most likely by Bruce Ferrini. Leaves are now in institutions and private collections worldwide. The largest fragment (mentioned above) survives at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, OH. A comprehensive thesis by R. McCandless, Seeing the Exceptional in the Unexceptional: Reconstructing the Josephinum Bible, OSU, 2021, discusses the history and fate of the Bible and lists some 50 known leaves (most recently, in May 2023, two leaves with historiated initials appeared at auction in Paris). Four leaves are in the McCarthy Collection - see P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III, no 36.

Illumination:
The illumination is characteristic of Parisian workshop production of the mid-13th century. Stylistically it is closest to some of the work of Branner's 'Johannes Grusch atelier' (see R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis, 1977, pp 82-86, illustrations 212-243).