“The Moralized Bible: Life’s Little Royal Instruction Book”
Susanna Caroselli , Luce Visiting Professor in Scripture and Visual Arts in the Department of Religion, Boston University
and Professor of Art History at Messiah College
“The Moralized Bible: Life’s Little Royal Instruction Book”
In the early 1200s a group of lavishly illuminated Bibles was produced in Paris for members of the royal house of France. Unlike most illustrated Bibles or typological manuscripts, these so-called moralized Bibles paired images in which biblical episodes were interpreted and applied to the conduct of modern life. Such lessons had as their object not the cultivation of a devout personal life, but the execution of significant royal policies, from issues as large as the treatment of the Jews of France to matters as specific as the orthodoxy of philosophers of the University of Paris. This lecture analyzed imagery from the earliest moralized Bible, Codex Vindobonensis 2554, examined the messages conveyed by juxtaposition of text and image, and speculated on the identity of those who would dare to instruct a king.