Several Hebrew Bibles were produced almost simultaneously around the year 1300 in Tudela and Perpignan. By and large all these manuscripts display similar schemes of non-figural, mostly ornamental decoration. And yet, similar as they seem to be, these works diverge in style and the nature of the decoration displays features typical of Islamicate art alongside those that are associated with the Gothic style and techniques, testimony to different cultural encounters that took place in the vicinities of their makers and readers. This paper offers a synchronic look at these dynamics of entanglement and examines how the urban spatial constellations in Tudela and Perpignan determined them and shaped these decoration schemes.
Katrin Kogman-Appel, University of Münster, has published work on Hebrew manuscript painting, Jewish book culture, and the relationship of Jewish visual cultures to Christian and Islamicate arts. Among her books are A Mahzor from Worms. Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community, (Harvard University Press 2012) and Catalan Maps and Jewish Books (Brepols 2020).
Organised by Dr Tom Nickson (The Courtauld) as part of the Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series.