Copying and Illuminating the Bible at the Grande Chartreuse in the Early 12th Century: A Multi-Technical Study of the Notre-Dame de Casalibus Bible
Among the 267 manuscripts currently preserved from the library of the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, no fewer than 137 date from the 12th Century, forming one of the richest collections of illuminated works from this period. However, this ensemble has long rem...
محفوظ في:
| المؤلفون الرئيسيون: | , , , , |
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| التنسيق: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| اللغة: | Français |
| منشور في: |
2026
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| الموضوعات: | |
| الوصول للمادة أونلاين: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| الملخص: | Among the 267 manuscripts currently preserved from
the library of the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, no fewer than
137 date from the 12th Century, forming one of the richest collections
of illuminated works from this period. However, this ensemble has long
remained unstudied. Few works based on codicological analyses, have
shown the profusion of the production and its artistic richness. They
question how a very small community of monks, a priori subjected to
strict conditions of silence and solitude, could have produced such a
large number of manuscripts. With a cross-disciplinary approach, this
study aims to clarify the Cartusian organization around the activity
of copying manuscripts. Based on the physico-chemical analysis of inks
and pigments, we seek to determine recipes and know-hows, making it
possible to reconstitute the material, intellectual and human
modalities which presided over the origin of this collection. Three
volumes of one of the main Bibles (the so-called Notre-Dame de
Casalibus) were investigated with hyperspectral imaging and portable
X-ray fluorescence and powder diffraction. Because of the geometric
constraints of diffraction in reflection mode and the fragility of the
bookbinding, we have developed a specific support for the analysis of
large books. The first results have helped to identify the pigments of
the decorators’ palette. According to codicological studies, five
decorators have contributed to this manuscript, the complementarity of
the non-invasive techniques used allowed to highlight the differences
and similarities between them. Among the five colors used, the blue
stands out and results from a mixture of azurite and lazurite that
varies significantly between the decorators. Moreover, the study of
the inks revealed the use of a pure iron gall ink for the copyists
against a contaminated one for the decorators (containing As, Cu) and
seems to confirm their distinct intervention.
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