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Sub culmine gazas: The Iconography of the Armarium on the Ezra Page of the Codex Amiatinus

2009; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/29764893

2169-3099

Janina Sara Ramirez,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

This study emerges from the desire to explain the two affronted peacocks that appear within the pediment of the cupboard on the famous Ezra page of the Codex Amiatinus. Although many readings of this page have been suggested, no attempt has been made to connect these birds and the surrounding decorations on the cupboard with the iconographic readings proposed for other artistic features of the manuscript. This article analyzes the previously unexamined decorations on the baseboard, lintel, and gable of the cupboard, proposing that these are not a randomly collected group of images but a set of symbols deliberately included by the Anglo-Saxon artists who created the manuscript. These symbols work together to suggest an overall scheme associated with Christian salvation. That they interact in a meaningful way with the other elements on the page and the manuscript as a whole will also be proposed.