The Illustrated Biblia cum comento from the Library of the Father of Croatian Literature, with Samples of his Marginalia
Colloquia Maruliana, (2010)Abstract
The paper offers an introduction to Marcus Marulus and his Latin Bible from his library – in the cultural-historical context of contemporary libraries. Marulus always remained a man of books and was very much part of the European »book culture« of the Renaissance and of the Devotio Moderna. The books of his library reveal part of his soul. The paper is guided by the question: What do we know about Marulus’ library; especially about the Bibles and the books on theology broadly defined which Marulus himself classified as books of »church writers« (Ecclesiastici)? One may call them books of »theology for piety« (Frömmigkeitstheologie). Of equal interest is what Marulus library did not contain. The second part of the paper focuses primarily on the four volumes of his Biblia Latina of 1489. Thirty pages show illustrations, mostly in the three Old Testament volumes. The paper concentrates on his marginalia in the form of his drawings of Eucharistic symbols, »crosses on socles«, »little hands« (maniculae), and his characteristic christogram which stands for »Christ« and the Christological interpretation of the Old Testament. It consists of two Greek letters, the first of which is an x (chi) and the last a ς (sigma) of the Greekword Xριστóς. In Marulus’ handwriting the sigma at the end of the Greek word Christos resembles the Latin capital letter ‘C’. Therefore, the marginal note looks like XC with one curly horizontal line over both letters.