bavarikon4UDescription
This manuscript dating from the 12th century, written in Caroline minuscule in one hand throughout, contains the Epistles of Saint Paul with an interlinear gloss and marginal glosses. The beginnings of each Epistle are preceded by golden initials decorated with tendrils and outlined in red on a green and blue background. Above the prologue to the first Epistle, the letter to the Romans, the title piece depicts Saint Paul sitting enthroned, holding two long scrolls in his hands and with an open book on his lap. He is surrounded by six male figures in half portrait, placed in framing arcades. The men on the right hand side wearing caps probably represent the Jews, the bareheaded men on the left the Greeks. Paul was both a Greek and a Jew, and Jews and Greeks are both mentioned in the accompanying verses in the right and left margins of the miniature. The illumination was probably executed in western Germany and is related to earlier models from the Coblenz area. The manuscript was owned by the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern, Bavaria, by the 15th century at the latest; it was transferred to Munich in 1802.