The mid-thirteenth-century Gothic large format manuscript known as the Morgan Old Testament Picture Book or Morgan Bible, after the Morgan Library which holds all but a few of the extant folios, is famous for its likely patron (King Louis IX of France), its lavish biblical picture cycles and original lack of text, and its later history as a diplomatic gift with owners who included Shah Abbas I of Persia. It was during that later history that the book acquired inscriptions in Latin, Persian, Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Hebrew that described the images for those who needed a little assistance.
This lecture will present the courtly and Crusader aspects of the imagery that together argued for the Franks as the “most Christian people,” worthy heirs to biblical history.
Registration
Free and open to the public
Registration is required to attend in-person or via Zoom
Contact Lori Strazza Brown for questions or requests regarding disability-related accommodations
About the presenter
Dr. Laura Hollengreen is currently Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. Trained as a medievalist art historian at UC Berkeley, she continues to engage in scholarship on medieval art while engaged in teaching architectural history and contemporary theory to budding architects.
Dr. Hollengreen’s current research, in collaboration with a digital media scholar in Sweden, explores liminal environments from the Middle Ages to the present.