Medievalismo 2019, N. 29

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The decoration of the Danila Bible: Aniconism as royal ideology in ninth-century Iberia.
(Sociedad Española de Estudios Medievales, 2019-12-18) Rodríguez Viejo, Jesús
The so-called Danila Bible (Cava dei Tirreni, Biblioteca della Badia, Ms. 1) is the earliest surviving manuscript created in the early medieval Iberian Peninsula displaying a cohesive decorative programme of figurative nature. Although its exact provenance has been matter of extensive discussion, current research points to the northern Kingdom of Asturias during the reign of King Alfonso II (791-842). The decoration of this monumental bible displays a complex aniconic programme made of decorated initials, frontispieces, and other symbols, such a number of crosses and cross-shaped motifs of large dimensions and different forms. This study aims to analyse in particular the different nature of these cross-shaped motifs displayed in the Danila Bible. This research also intends to shed light on the reception of aniconism in the Kingdom of Asturias, as well as its Visigothic background, one century after the Islamic conquest of 711 and in the wake of the First Iconoclasm and the Council of Frankfurt.