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Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain
Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday
464 pages | 16 color/174 b&w illustrations | 7 x 10 | 2007
ISBN 978-0-271-02740-1 | cloth: $113.95 sh
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
Winner of the 2008 Premio del Rey Prize sponsored by the American Historical Association Winner of a 2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
“Taken as a whole, this well-written, scholarly and highly thought-provoking book constitutes a distinguished contribution to our understanding of late medieval Jewish culture and society. The work is lavishly illustrated with 16 full colour plates and a further 168 black-and-white plates.” —Simon Barton, History
“All in all, Kogman-Appel is to be commended for offering such a comprehensive and meticulously researched view of the sophisticated images in the Sephardic Haggadot, and for illuminating the complex Jewish-Christian relationships in medieval Spain from a little known point of view.” —Shalom Sabar, Shofar
“Scholars of medieval culture, and art historians in particular, owe a debt of gratitude to Katrin Kogman-Appel for her fundamental study of this material, which surely sets the benchmark for future explorations of the intersection of Jews, Christians, and art in the Middle Ages.” —Adam Cohen, The Medieval Review (TMR)
“Katrin Kogman-Appel of Ben-Gurion University, in her splendid new book examining the sources of five rare early 14th-century Haggadot from Aragon and Catalonia, revives the distinct possibility that the Jews were originally the pioneers of the images of the biblical narrative.” —Meir Ronnen, Jerusalem Post
“The scholarship is impeccable throughout, and the close analysis of the manuscripts’ imagery and sources is deeply impressive. The discussion of visual motifs in the illustrations; the articulation of the concept of visual congruence; the conclusions about the interrelationship of the manuscripts; and the identification of the Midrashic works reflected in the images, are all learned, thorough, and convincing. Together they constitute a major contribution to the field of medieval Jewish manuscript illumination.
” —Sara Lipton, SUNY, Stoney Brook
“The book breaks new ground in its close examination of the seven earliest and most significant illuminated Sephardic haggadot as representatives of a new phenomenon-the embellishment of haggadot with extensive cycles of Biblical imagery. Recognizing the diversity of relationships among these works, it grounds the emergence and content of their imagery within the unique cultural-intellectual context of late medieval Iberian Jewry.” —Pamela A. Patton, Southern Methodist University
Emerging in Spain after 1250, Jewish narrative figurative paintingbecame a central feature in a group of illuminated Passover Haggadotin the early decades of the fourteenth century. Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain describes how the Sephardic Haggadotreflect different visualizations of scripture under various conditionsand aimed at a variety of audiences. Though the specifics of thecreation of these works remain a mystery, this book delves intothe cultural struggles that existed during this period in historyand shows how those conflicts influenced the work.The culture surrounding the creators of the Sephardic Haggadot wassaturated in conflict revolving around acculturation, polemics withChristianity, and struggles within Sephardic Jewry itself. Kogman-Appelpresents the Sephardic Haggadot as visual manifestations of a minoritystruggling for cultural identity both in relation to the dominant culture and within its own realm.
KatrinKogman-Appel is Lecturer in the Department of Arts at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva. Kogman-Appel’s credentials include publishing Jewish Art Between Islam and Christianity: The Decoration of Hebrew Bibles in Spain (2001) as well as contributing to Imaging the Early Medieval Bible, edited by John Williams and published by Penn State Press in 1999.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Part One: Acculturation and Borrowings from Christian Art
1 The Manuscripts
2 Motif Books and Images from Memory: Image Making in the Golden Haggadah and British Library, Or. 2884
3 The Rylands Haggadah and British Library, Or. 1404
4 The Sarajevo Haggadah and the Bologna-Modena Mahzor
5 Other Methods of Image Making
Conclusions to Part One
Part Two: Meaning and Message
6 Jewish Biblical Exegesis Employed in the Strategy of Image Making
7 Designing the Messages of the Sephardic Picture Cycles: The Cultural Profile of the People Involved
Conclusions to Part Two
Notes
Bibliography
Photo Credits
Index