The Barberini Gospels is an illuminated Hiberno-Saxon manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 Gospel Book

Gospel Book

The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

 (Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Vatican City

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

, Biblioteca Apostolica, Barberini Lat. 570, also known as the Wigbald Gospels), assumed to be of a late eighth century origin. After coming to light following its move to the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

 in 1902 this luxury Gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

 book had been largely ignored by the academic community until it became the subject of a doctoral dissertation in 2004. Earlier writing includes some brief comparisons of its iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 with that of its contemporaries and an inconclusive debate regarding the site of its production. There have also been speculations about a colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

, an entreaty for the reader to pray for one Wigbald and its role in providing a connection to a specific historical context. It is not known whether this is the same person as Wigbold, author of the Quaestiones in Octateuchum.

The Barberini Gospels contains one illuminated canon

Biblical canon

A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...

 table, four Evangelist portrait

Evangelist portrait

Evangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediæval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, may be prefaced by a portrait of...

s, and fifteen decorated initial

Initial

In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...

s. The book follows a fairly standard format in which each separate Gospel book opens with a portrait of the author and a large decorated initial, or incipit

Incipit

Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...

, at the beginning of the text. Another large decorated initial, often referred to as the “monogram of Christ,” punctuates the beginning of Matthew's account of the Incarnation; more initials are inserted in a similar fashion at key points in the other Gospel texts.

Key to the treatment of the origin of the Barberini Gospels is the striking contrast between two very distinct traditions and painting styles. On the one hand are the elaborate and intricately decorated initials one comes to expect in insular

Insular art

Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

 manuscripts of this period. The technical expertise of these embellishments is at the same level as those of more well-known manuscripts such as the Book of Kells

Book of Kells

The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

or the Lichfield Gospels

Lichfield Gospels

The Lichfield Gospels is an eighth century Insular Gospel Book housed in Lichfield Cathedral. There are 236 surviving folios, eight of which are illuminated. Another four contain framed text...

. On the other hand, there are many elements employed in the decoration of this Gospel book which do not seem to belong here, either because they more closely resemble motifs found in non-insular or Continental

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 art or because they are too early, foreshadowing trends of a later, even Romanesque

Romanesque art

Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...

period.