Psalterium Quadruplex

Unknown

1170–1180

Facing pages of illuminated manuscript with columns of text in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
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An illuminated Christian copy of the book of Psalms, in Hebrew-Latin and Greek-Latin. Psalm 1 in Hebrew and Latin (Jerome’s Hebraica) is on the left, and Psalm 2 in Greek and Latin (Jerome’s Gallicana) is on the right. The Hebrew lettering is not a Jewish scribal hand and contains some mistakes. The vocalization is a simplified version sometimes used by medieval Christians, thought to be based on the Palestinian-Tiberian system found in early Jewish manuscripts from Italy and France. The Christian scribe likely copied his text from a French Ashkenazic manuscript that had this vocalization.

Credits

Psalterium Quadruplex: hebraice-latine et graece-latine, Leiden University Libraries, BPG 49 A. Licensed under (CC BY 4.0).

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.

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