Cotton Genesis
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The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B VI) is a 5th- or 6th-century Greek copy of the Book of Genesis. It was a luxury manuscript with many illuminations. It is one of the oldest illustrated biblical codices to survive to the modern period. Sadly, much of the manuscript was destroyed in the Cotton library fire in 1731, leaving only eighteen charred, shrunken scraps of vellum. From the remnants, the manuscript appears to have been more than 440 pages with approximately 340 illustrations that were framed and inserted into the text column.
The miniatures were executed in late antique style comparable to Catacomb frescoes. Herbert Kessler and Kurt Weitzmann argue that the manuscript was produced in Alexandria, as it exhibits stylistic similarities to other Alexandrian works such as the Charioteer Papyrus.
The Cotton Genesis appears to have been used in the 1220s to design 110 mosaic scenes in the atrium of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, after it was brought to Venice following the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The manuscript arrived in England, and was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th century.
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[edit] References
- Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.
- Weitzmann, Kurt. Late Antique and Early Christin Book Illumination. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
- Weitzmann, Kurt and Herbert L. Kessler. The Cotton Genesis: British Library, Codex Cotton Otho B VI. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
