Title
Beatus Morgan (Beatus of San Miguel de Escalada)
Maius (?, ? - San Salvador de Tábara, 968)
Generic classification
Manuscripts and illuminationsObject
BookDate
c. 940-945Century
Mid 10th c.Cultural context / style
Mozarabic artTechnique
IlluminationIconography / Theme
ApocalipsisProvenance
Monasterio de San Salvador de Tábara (Tábara, Zamora, Spain)Current location
The Morgan Library (New York, United States)Inventory Number in Current Collection
MS M.644Inscriptions / Marks
Ex libris of the Earl of Ashburnham, Henry Yates Thompson and John Pierpont Morgan.
MAIUS MEMENTO (fol. 233v)
Signature of Maius in acrostic on colophon (fol. 293r).
Object history
Made in the monastery of San Salvador de Tábara c. 940-945.
In the monastery of San Miguel de Escalada until the 14th century.
Martín Pérez de Ayala, archbishop of Valencia, until 1566.
Bequeathed to the monastery of Uclés in 1566.
Sold around 1840 in Madrid to Roberto Frasinelli for a silver watch.
Sold to Guglielmo Libri in 1847.
Sold to Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham in 1848.
Ashburnham Place, 1848-1897.
Sold to Henry Yates Thompson in London in 1897.
Purchased by John Pierpont Morgan in London on June 3, 1919.
Description
The Beato Morgan consists of two volumes, the first with 149 folios, the second with 151 folios, the writing is in two columns, with 34-35 lines per folio, including 68 full-page illuminations and 48 of different sizes. The distribution of the text is as follows:
- Beato de Liébana, In Apocalipsin (fols. 1-233).
- St. Isidore of Seville, De adfinitatibus et gradibus (fols. 234-237).
- St. Jerome, Commentary on the Book of Daniel (fols. 238v-292v).
- Anonymous, Commentary on the Apocalypse and Beatus (fols. 294-299).
Beatus wrote his commentary on the Apocalypse around 776 in the mountains of Liébana almost two hundred years before Maius copied and illustrated his text, along with others related to the same subject, such as the Book of Daniel, commissioned by Abbot Victor of a monastery dedicated to St. Michael, which has been proposed to be that of Escalada (León) or that of Moreruela (Zamora), founded by St. Froilán and St. Atilano. Maius was a monk in the monastery of San Salvador de Tábara (Zamora) where he died in 968, a monastery near San Miguel de Moreruela. Of what there is no doubt is the high consideration in which he was held when he was mentioned as "archipictor", or when he signed his manuscript twice, once with an emotional MAIUS MEMENTO (fol. 233v) and again with his signature in acrostic in the colophon (fol. 293r). His quality as a scribe and illuminator is attested by the neatness of his writing and the elegance of his illuminations, always balanced despite the profusion of details and with an impressive mastery of color. Maius' painting shows the relationships that existed between different artistic centers, given the similarities between some of the illuminations of the Beato Morgan and those of the Bible of Valeránica, from the year 960 (León, Real Colegiata de San Isidoro) or between the initials with interlacing and the work of the scriptorium of the monastery of San Martín in Tours just as the horseshoe arches or the figures seated on cushions show the knowledge of Andalusian art, with horseshoe arches, geometric interlacing or specifically Cordovan motifs, as shown by the voussoirs alternating in white and red of the great horseshoe arch that frames the scene of Balthazar's Banquet (fol. 255v). These elements are widely used in Mozarabic art, as can be seen in the church of San Miguel de Escalada, in Santiago de Peñalba (León) or in San Cebrián de Mazote (Valladolid).
The Beato de San Miguel de Escalada or Beato Morgan is the oldest of those that have reached our days, being preserved practically intact, with slight textual faults and of the initial pages (fols. 1-9), besides some that appear sectioned, which turns it into the head of series of this type of manuscripts and the touchstone with which all the others are compared, but it was not the oldest copy, since the subjects of the miniatures and their plastic resolution are similar in the majority of the Beatos, showing a common starting point. In spite of being a genre that was already defined in the middle of the 10th century, Maius incorporated important novelties, like the representations of the evangelists, the genealogical tables or the borders that frame the scenes, at the same time that he used agglutinants of animal origin that allowed a greater intensity in the coloring, emphasizing the depth of the blues, rarely used in the Hispanic miniature of the 10th century. The painter uses bands of parallel colors for the background of many of his scenes, which increases their flatness and visionary character, although at the same time the complexity of his figures and the folds of their clothes suggest inspiration in earlier works linked in some way to the classical world.
The two volumes include different texts of which the most important are the commentary to the Apocalypse of Beato de Liébana and the commentaries of St. Jerome to the book of Daniel with a marked millenarian tone, which recalls the need to be prepared for the Last Judgment and which is well understood in view of the advent of the year 1000.
The chronology of the work has been debated, ranging from 922 to 958, although the date proposed by John Williams, between 940 and 945, based on the resemblance of the illustrations to those of the Moralia in Job of 945 (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España), made by Florencio de Valeránica, is the most accepted at present.
Locations
945 - Xth c.
Xth c. - XIVth c.
1566
private collection
Martín Pérez de Ayala, Valencia (Spain) *
1566 - 1837
monastery
Monasterio de Uclés, Uclés (Spain)
ca. 1840 - 1847
private collection
Roberto Frasinelli, Madrid (Spain) *
ca. 1848 - 1897
private collection
Bertram, IV conde de Ashburnham, Ashburnham Place (United Kingdom) *
1897XIXth c. - 1919 XXth c.
private collection
Henry Yates Thompson, London (United Kingdom) *
1919
private collection
John Pierpont Morgan, New York (United States) *
1919 - present
Bibliography
- BOLMAN, Elizabeth S. (1999): "“De coloribus: The Meanings of Color in Beatus Manuscripts”", vol. 38, nº 1, en Gesta, pp. 22-34.
- O’NEILL, John P. (ed.) (ficha a cargo de John Williams) (1993): The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, pp. 153-155.
- WILLIAMS, John (1987): "Tours and the Medieval Art of Spain", en BJURSTRÖM, Per, HÖKBY, Nils-Göran y MÜTHERICH, Florentine (ed.), Florilegium in Honorem Carl Nordenfalk Octogenarii Contextum, Nationalmuseum, Estocolmo, pp. 197-208.
- WILLIAMS, John (2017): Visions of the End in Medieval Spain. Catalogue of Illustrated Beatus Commentaries on the Apocalypse and Study of the Geneva Beatus, Amsterdam University Press, Ámsterdam, pp. 69-72.
- WILLIAMS, John (1994): The Illustrated Beatus, vol. 2, Harvey Miller, Londres, pp. 21-33.
- WILLIAMS, John (2020): Los Beatos ilustrados en la España medieval, Centro de Estudios Beneventanos Ledo del Pozo, Benavente, pp. 89-94.
- WILLIAMS, John y SHAILOR, Barbara A (1991): A Spanish Apocalypse: the Morgan Beatus manuscript, George Braziller-The Pierpont Morgan Library, Nueva York.
- YARZA LUACES, Joaquín (1998): Beato de Liébana. Manuscritos iluminados, M. Moleiro Editor, Barcelona, pp. 321-323.
Record manager
Miguel Hermoso CuestaCitation:
Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, "Beatus Morgan (Beatus of San Miguel de Escalada)" in Nostra et Mundi. Cultural Heritage from Castile and Leon around the world, Fundación Castilla y León, 2025. https://inventario.nostraetmundi.com/en/work/282
The Morgan Beatus
