Salzburg Biblia Pauperum

Bibliae pauperum were among the bestsellers of the Late Middle Ages. The so-called Paupers' Bibles present the key events of the New Testament concisely and richly illustrated and can be described as a kind of medieval comic for theologically educated Christian readers. The Salzburg Biblia Pauperum, created between 1360 and 1370, is designed in an extremely dense and well-structured manner with colored pen and ink drawings, making it without question one of the most beautiful surviving examples of this widespread book genre. Each of the 18 pages is divided into 12 roughly square fields. Two “lines” of this layout form the primary pictorial elements and show a New Testament scene in the central section, which is flanked by two Old Testament miniatures. The latter are understood as foreshadowings (antitypes) of the central scene (type) by means of the associated texts above them – thus visualizing the “fulfilment” of the prefigurations of the Old Testament in the New Testament. This typological view of the Testaments has been common in Christianity since late antiquity. Further text elements are added in the form of banners, which belong to representations of prophets above the main images.