Tradición y copia en la ilustración de manuscritos bíblicos en la Península IbéricaLas biblias de San Isidoro de León (1162) y san Millán de la Cogolla (ca. 1200)

Resum

The Bible was, undoubtedly, the most important text in western Christianity. Its illustration reached a peak in the 12th and 13th centuries, chronological frame of this doctoral thesis, when manuscripts containing the Scriptures were copied all around Europe. These codices were usually quite large, divided into several volumes and extensively decorated. The Iberian peninsula, where the illumination of the biblical text had an established tradition dating back, at least, to the 10th century, played an important part in this process. Among the Bible codices made in the Iberian kingdoms during this period, two stand out because of the similarities that exist among their illustration: a Bible produced at the canonry of San Isidoro de León in 1162 (León, Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, Códice III), and another made at the monastery of san Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja) around the year 1200 (Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, Códices 2-3). Their miniature cycles are also very similar to an older volume, the Bible of San Isidoro de León made in 960 in the abbey of Valeránica in Burgos (León, Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, Códice II). The connections between these manuscripts were noted by John Williams in various studies published in the 1960s, where the author suggested the existence of a Castilian tradition of Bible illustration that would include these three codices, as well as others nowadays lost. This doctoral thesis analyses the extensively illuminated Bibles of San Isidoro and San Millán, whose similarities indicate their dependence from analogous models. Furthermore, the codex made in the year 960 in the monastery of Valeránica (Burgos), one of the most important scriptoria in the Iberian peninsula during the early Middle Ages, functioned as the direct prototype of the 1162 Isidorian Bible. Due to the rare preservation of a model and its copy, complemented in this case with a third link in this fascinating chain of influences and inspirations, a comparative analysis of the three manuscripts provides large amounts of information, unattainable through the exam of isolated pieces...