Folio 1r - In principio...; the Creation

Commentary

Text

Genesis 1:1-5.

Illustration

the Creation of Heaven and Earth. The first sentence of the book is incorporated into the illustration with the wording on alternating blue and pink ground. To the left of this is a column of interweaving foliage ornament. The main picture shows God standing frontally with his right hand blessing and his left hand clasping a book. He wears a blue robe and red cloak and has a small ginger beard. The three circles which surround him fit within the frame and are decorated with coloured semicircles. He stands on four floating rocks of different colour covered with a white filigree ornament. The background is pure burnished gold. The restrained use of colour, predominantly blue, pinky-red and gold with a little green is sumptuous. This scene is closely modelled on the illustrated Hexaemeron by St Ambrose (Munich, Staatsbib. MS clm. 14399, ff. 14v, 21v) made at St Emmeram, Regensburg, c.1125-50. Earlier Creation scenes based on cosmic circles are in the Michelbueren Bible (Stiftsbib. cod. perg. 1, f.6. Both illus. Muratova 1984a, VII, VIII). On these continental examples the inner cosmic circles are decorated with billowing, cloud-like semicircles. In this respect Aberdeen f.1r and f.1v are closer to the continental models than the Ashmole Bestiary (f.4v) where a zig-zag pattern has appeared. The four rocks at the base may represent the four elements, earth, air, fire and water (Zahlten 1979, 12). In that case the Ashmole artist has misunderstood the model by using only three rocks. This page still bears the sixteenth-century inventory number, 518, from the Old Royal Library, Westminster, and H.2.7 in eighteenth-century hand, a shelf mark from Marischal College. For further information refer to the essay The Aberdeen Bestiary: the history of the manuscript. Initial type 3.