The Pamplona Bibles: A New Member of the Family

Abstract

In the last decade of the twelfth century, two monumental illustrated bibles were produced in the Kingdom of Navarre, Spain. Named after the city where they originated, they are known as the Pamplona Bibles. Encompassing around a thousand illustrations each, the two bible picture books were commissioned by King Sancho VIII el Fuerte of Navarre: the oldest was completed in 1197 and produced for the king’s use, while a second was finished not long after for an unknown female reader. In 1328, a third Pamplona Bible was produced in a different style by commercial artisans in Paris. This paper introduces a single surviving leaf that appears to represent a fourth Pamplona Bible. The remaining leaf, which is kept at the University of Victoria, holds an illustration that closely resembles its counterpart in the 1197 copy and may well be of a similar age. The leaf deepens our understanding of the production context of the oldest Pamplona Bibles and the workshop that produced them. At the same time, its codicological features suggest that the original manuscript to which the leaf belonged was a very different object than the other surviving Pamplona Bibles.