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Cotton Genesis

Illuminated Manuscripts and Calligraphic Works

The Cotton Genesis is a fourth or fifth century Greek illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis, originally a luxury manuscript with many miniatures and one of the oldest illustrated biblical codices to survive to the modern period. Most of the manuscript was destroyed in the Cotton library fire of 1731, leaving only eighteen charred, shrunken scraps of vellum, though many of its miniatures had also been copied in the seventeenth century and are now held at the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris.

Facts
Medium
Illuminated manuscript on parchment (vellum) 1
Location
British Library, London (Cotton MS Otho B VI) 1
Current Use
Severely fire damaged, studied through ultraviolet and multispectral imaging 1
Classification
Genre
Manuscript Illumination 1
Medium
Medium (category)
Illuminated Manuscript 1
Connections

In Form

Manuscript Illumination, Art Forms
Source Cotton Genesis, Wikipedia

In Genre

Manuscript Illumination, Art Forms
In the Other Atlases

Located In

United Kingdom

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is located.

Source Cotton Genesis, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Cotton Genesis, Wikipedia
  • Description section, manuscript leaves sentence
    The manuscript contains the text of the Book of Genesis on 35 parchment leaves (size about 27 x 22 cm).
  • Lead section
    The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is a 4th- or 5th-century Greek Illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis.
  • Description section, damage and imaging sentence
    The manuscript is badly burned and nearly impossible to read with the naked eye, but the text and illustrations are visible when photographed in ultraviolet.
  • In Form: Manuscript Illumination, Lead sentence
    The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is a 4th- or 5th-century Greek Illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis.
  • In Group: Gospel Books and Bibles, Lead
    The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is a 4th- or 5th-century Greek Illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis.
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