The Cardeña Beatus is the most beautiful codex in the later series featuring the Commentaries on the Apocalypse by Beatus, the monk from Liébana. It can be dated to around 1175-1185 and was a model for other codices. It is the work of two miniaturists and one of the most lavish, artistically elaborate and finest quality codices in its group (Stemma II, branch B).
Its iconographical cycle includes the Preliminaries (Cross of Oviedo, the four Evangelists, Genealogies), the Revelation to St John and its commentary, and the Tables of the Antichrist. Its 51 extant miniatures are extremely beautiful and a reflection of the skill, subtlety and meticulousness of the artists who illustrated the commentary by Beatus. The entire manuscript is characterised on the one hand by elaborate and delicate representations of figures and, on the other, by the vivid and intense colours of the grounds, all lavishly embellished with gold leaf.
The vibrant palette based on red, blue and green tones combined with solid gold leaf on haloes and the usual architectural elements helps enhance its luxurious decoration, perfectly in keeping with the text transcribed by skilled copyists, some of whom, like St Martin of Leon, may have grumbled about the terrible pain inflicted on their backs and shoulders by such hard, never-ending toil. The illumination, dated around 1175-1185, is clearly influenced by insular art and is vaguely reminiscent of Carolingian art.
The Cardeña Beatus reached the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in 1871 incomplete. In this identical reproduction, M. Moleiro Editor has brought together for the FIRST AND ONLY TIME, all the surviving, dispersed fragments of this spectacular Beatus.
"Despite the missing folios, what remains is sufficient to say that this is one of the most magnificent, lavish and finest quality copies ever produced (...) The entire manuscript is characterised by a generous use of blue, the most expensive colour, and an abundance of gold.”
Joaquín Yarza
Beato de Liébana. Manuscritos iluminados
Cardeña Beatus
"Unique and unrepeatable first edition, strictly limited to 987 numbered and authenticated copies"
Codex of the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña
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290 pages, 51 illuminations decorated with gold.
Written in Carolingian gothic script between 1175 and 1185 in the important scriptorium of the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. The folios, in excellent condition, are housed in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid (127 ff.), the Francisco de Zabálburu y Basabe Library, Madrid (2 ff.), Museu Diocesà, Gerona (1 f.) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (15 ff.).
Bound in tanned hide.
Leather case.
Commentary volume (368 p.).
ISBN: 978-84-88526-66-3
Commentary volume
From the editor to the reader
The San Pedro de Cardeña Beatus. Introduction
Ángela Franco Mata (Head of the Department of Mediaeval Antiquities of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional)
The San Pedro de Cardeña Beatus: the history of the codex
Manuel Sáchez Mariana (Director of the Biblioteca Histórica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
The Ms 2 at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional: a codicological and palaeographic study
Elisa Ruiz García (Senior lecturer in Palaeography and Diplomatics, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
The illustrations in the San Pedro de Cardeña Beatus
Ángela Franco Mata
Beatus of Liébana and the Commentary on the Apocalypse
Eugenio Romero-Pose (Auxilliary Bishop of Madrid)
Bibliography
ISBN: 978-84-88526-65-6