The Hamilton Bible is a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

 Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, commissioned by the Angevin court

House of Valois-Anjou

The Valois House of Anjou, or the Younger House of Anjou, was a noble French family, deriving from the royal family, the House of Valois. They were monarchs of Naples, as well as various other territories....

 in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and illustrated by the workshop of Cristoforo Orimina

Cristoforo Orimina

Cristoforo Orimina was an Italian illuminator of the 14th century. He was a painter at the court of Robert of Naples and of Joan I of Naples.The Orimini were a patrician family of Naples, belonging to the noble seggio of Capuana. The family's residence was in what is now the Via dei...

 around 1350.

It was part of the Hamilton Collection of medieval manuscripts, acquired by the Berlin State Library

Berlin State Library

The Berlin State Library is a library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.-Buildings:The State Library runs several premises, three of which are open for users, namely House 1 in Unter den Linden 8, House 2 in Potsdamer Straße 33 and the newspaper archive...

 in 1884, and is currently held in the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin

Kupferstichkabinett Berlin

The Kupferstichkabinett, or Museum of Prints and Drawings, is a prints museum in Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Berlin State Museums, and is located in the Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz...

, with call number 78 E 3.

It has been thought that the Bible open on the table in Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

's Portrait of Leo X

Portrait of Leo X (Raphael)

The Portrait of Pope Leo X with two Cardinals is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, circa 1518-1519. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence....

is the Hamilton Bible.

External links

• Helmut Böse, Die lateinischen Handschriften der Sammlung Hamilton zu Berlin (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966), pp. 45-46
• A page of the Hamilton Bible (black and white).