Leaf from a colossal Atlantic Bible, with Colossians and Thessalonians, in Latin, from a decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy (perhaps central Italy), late eleventh century or very early twelfth century]

single vast leaf, 560mm. by 325mm., double column, 60 lines in two sizes of an elegant early gothic bookhand with a strong st-ligature, a squat ‘et’ abbreviation with a tail that often rises straight up and without biting curves, written space 430mm. by 285mm., explicits in ornamental capitals, incipits in same in red (some twice the height of normal letters), versal numbers and running titles in red, 22 initials in red, one very large initial ‘P’ (250mm. high) opening Thessalonians, "Paulus et Silvanus et Timotheus …" in panels of coloured interlace and scalloping leaves enclosing an elaborate spray of white-vine ornament, all on blue, red and green grounds heightened in places with white penwork, recovered from a binding with folds, scuffs, small holes and later scribbles in places, slight damage to upper part of initial, but overall in presentable condition

This is a fine leaf from a large and exceptionally early Atlantic Bible, which "as a group stand in the vanguard of Romanesque Bible production and antedate by many decades the great flowering of Romanesque Bible illustration in the monastic scriptoria" (The Early Medieval Bible, 2009, p.127). The style of the initial here, as well as the use of ornamental capitals, draws inspiration from Carolingian models such as the initials in the Second Bible of Charles the Bald (BnF., lat.2: Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination, 1982, pl.34), and extremely close parallels can be found in three late eleventh- or very early twelfth-century manuscripts of the works of St. Augustine (BnF., lat.1980-81, 8832 and 1989: Avril and Zaluska, Manuscrits Enluminés d’Origine Italienne, I, 1980, nos.60-62, pls. xviii-xxi) and Gregory the Great (BnF., lat.8833: ibid. no.63, pl.xxiii).

The text here is the end of Colossians, and the argumentum and opening text of I Thessalonians, both letters written by St. Paul to Christian communities. The latter was probably the first of Paul's letters, written c.52 AD., and thus the first written book in the New Testament.