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IM-2819: (150x100 mm). Original leaf from a medieval manuscript Bible with illuminations from the Johannes Grusch Atelier. Red-ruled Latin gothic minuscule script, written in brown ink on animal vellum. Rubricated chapter numbers, initials & marginalia in red & blue. 44 lines of text in double columns (12 lines per inch!).    France: Paris, c. 1240-50 A.D. 

 The six-line historiated initial portrays St. Paul holding a sword, and extends into the center margin where its extender contains two dragon-like creatures facing each other!

Text is from I Timothy 3:3 through II Timothy 1:1: ''Oportet...'' (It behoveth therefore a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, of good behavior, chaste, given to hospitality ...). The historiated initial opens II Timothy: ''Paulus...'' (Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ...).

The book from which this leaf came was a very high-quality production, scribed in the Johannes Grusch Workshop in Paris. The calligraphy is excellent, and the vellum is of the finest style, extremely thin and very white. Other leaves from this same book were exhibited in the Jeanne Blackburn Collection at the Cleveland Art Museum (pl. 7 & 8).

This leaf is from a ''portable'' Bible of the Crusades period & would have been used in abstract study of theology or preaching of the Gospel around medieval countryside.