Early Print : Apocalypse

Early Print

<p style='text-align: justify;'>The blockbook Apocalypses belong to the tradition of the illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts, which originated in the Anglo-Norman cultural sphere in the thirteenth century. An especially close relationship exists to a group of manuscripts known as 'picture book Apocalypses'. Just as the blockbook editions, they offer no running text, but contain blocks of Latin text that are integrated into the pictorial representations in bordered sections and speech scrolls (see Bod-Inc 2005, BB-1, page 7, with a list of the manuscripts). The sources for the texts are to be found in the scriptural text of John’s Apocalypse, the 'Legenda aurea' of Jacobus de Voragine, the Berengaudus commentary to the Apocalypse and, occasionally, the later commentary tradition (see Purpus/Schneider 1991, page 59).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>It contains a cycle of 92 woodcut illustrations of the life of St John and from the Book of Revelation with xylographic texts on 48 leaves printed in brown ink on one side only (anopistographic printing) of 24 sheets of Chancery folio paper.</p>