It can be said without too much hesitation that the Borso d’Este Bible, the most studied and well-known of the works preserved at the Estense University Library, is the most famous illuminated manuscript of the Renaissance, its fame probably equaled only by that of the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, or the Bible of Federico da Montefeltro.
The work consists of two large-format volumes (in-folio) with over a thousand miniatures spread across 604 parchment leaves illuminated on both sides, for a total of 1,202 pages. The miniatures provide a clear image of the imagination and elegance of Taddeo Crivelli and his collaborators, as well as their own creativity, with a style that is already modern and Renaissance yet still imbued with a courtly Gothic taste. The architecture, foreshortened in perspective, thus becomes the setting for almost fairy-tale-like encounters, battles, and sacred scenes that fully express the Ferrarese court’s taste for refined and elegant works, as well as the book culture that had spread among the intellectual circles of the Este family.
The Borso Bible features pages set within elegant frames decorated with volute plant motifs, with the text arranged in two columns. The illuminators inserted miniatures into the frame to illustrate the narrated episodes, but detailed descriptions of plants and animals are also found, along with the Este coats of arms and emblems that always refer to enterprises connected to the Duke and the State of Ferrara.
The Borso d’Este Bible was one of the most expensive undertakings of its time: the Duke’s final expenditure was 5,609 Marchesane lire, a sum which, as scholar Anna Melograni has underlined, was “extraordinary and difficult to compare with that of other codices”.
There are no words to describe the beauty and wonder of these reproductions of a true Renaissance masterpiece.
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