St. Augustine Gospels

The St Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Lib. MS. 286) is an illuminated Gospel Book which dates from the 6th century. It was made in Italy and has been in England since fairly soon after its creation; by the 16th century, it had probably already been at Canterbury for almost a thousand years. It has 265 leaves measuring about 252 x 196 mm, and is not entirely complete, missing pages with miniatures in particular.

This manuscript is the oldest surviving Latin (as opposed to Greek or Syriac) illustrated Gospel book, and one of the oldest European books in existence. Although the only surviving illuminations are two full-page miniatures, these are of great significance in art history, as so few comparable images have survived.

The manuscript is traditionally, and plausibly, considered to be either a volume brought by St Augustine to England with the Gregorian mission in 597, or one of a number of books recorded as being sent to him in 601 by Pope Gregory the Great – like other scholars, Kurt Weitzmann sees "no reason to doubt" the tradition. The main text is written in an Italian uncial hand which is widely accepted as dating to the 6th century - Rome or Monte Cassino have been suggested as the place of creation. It was certainly in England by the late 7th or early 8th century when corrections and additions were made to the text in an insular hand. The additions included tituli or captions to the scenes around the portrait of Luke, not all of which may reflect the intentions of the original artist.

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