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picard, to medievodons
@picard@firefish.social avatar

The Daily Art app this week featured this fascinating, beautiful illuminated manuscript. I felt like it was worth sharing.

The illumination is from northern Ethiopia, some time around the late 14th or early 15th century.

The style is somewhat reminiscent of Eastern / Orthodox / Byzantine style, but obviously quite different too.

The writing around the edge is apparently Ge'ez - old Ethiopian church language. But I believe the script (or a derivation thereof) is used in modern Amharic.

I'm unsure of Daily Art's subscription model now (I've an old lifetime subscription from before they changed it), but I think it still has some free tier. It's a great way to see art from around the world, in styles you might not otherwise encounter.

https://www.getdailyart.com/en/24503/unknown-artist/illuminated-gospel

Editing this post to add a bit more context - so sorry for multiple edit notifications the server here is a bit overwhelmed today - big thanks to @alpine_thistle and @jlundell for providing some great additional information! It was all new to me but really interesting, and might interest others reading this too.

The four winged figures surrounding Jesus are the four Gospels - those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - represented as animal forms: a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle (respectively). These are traditional representations of the four Gospels; Ezekiel 1:10 includes references to a vision of these four figures. More information about this, and why those particular representations over on Aleteia: https://aleteia.org/2016/12/27/do-you-know-the-meanings-of-the-creatures-in-the-tetramorph

And a great resource for seeing more of the pages from this manuscript (there were 20 in total) on the Metropolitan Museum of Art site: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/317618

@medievodons @histodons

alpine_thistle,
@alpine_thistle@fandom.ink avatar

@picard @histodons idk your familiarity with classical Christian iconography, but the angels/creatures at the top represent the four Gospels! I can't remember which creature corresponds with which Gospel, but representing them as a lion/eagle/man/ox is really common in many styles of iconography across many cultures

alpine_thistle,
@alpine_thistle@fandom.ink avatar

@picard @histodons otherwise, this looks like an illustration of Pentecost, with Mary and the 12 apostles pointing up at Jesus in the sky (you can tell it's Jesus because he has a cross-shaped halo)

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