L'art de la micrographie hébraïque en Espagne à la fin du XVe siècle

Resumen

Golden age of micrography was for nearly three centuries practiced by Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Scribes to adorn Hebrew Bible manuscripts from the first half of the 13th century up to the end of the l5th century. The use of minuscule script helped create either abstract shapes or figurative designs. Although one may find some trace of this decorative technique in Egypt, in Palestine, micrography developed at an early stage within the Islam territories and probably influenced the artistic creations of the Jews in Spain and Portugal. Much of the micrography is found in biblical codices where it was possible to introduce, unlike the Torah scroll where no decorative apart from certain omamented letters, some kind of omamentation. The scribes could employe several texts to create their micrographic adormnent. First, the Masorah a system of notations that ensure the correct transmission of the writing and reading of the Hebrew Bible copied together next the biblical text into the upper and lower margins of Bibles. Later, scribes began to use these masoretic notations into artistitic motifs, mostly intricate geometric designs. Micrography in the Sephardic manuscripts of Spain and Portugal as well as in the Ashkenazic works produced in Northem Europe consisted of elaborate carpet pages at the beginning and ending of the manuscript and at the main divisions of the biblical text, together with common motifs such as the seven branches Menorah, the tabemacle implements, mostly in Catalan Bibles as in the manuscript described in this article. Sometimes, scribes would use in their elaborate pattems psalms randomly copied, extract from the book of proverbs or any liturgical text they knew by heart. This late 15th century Bible codex, copied in Southem Spain, perpetuates in a unseen marmer the art of micrography reaching such a perfection, that, although the artist is not know, is a an authentic piece of art.