Trinity Apocalypse

Trinity Apocalypse

The apocalypse manuscript named after its repository in Cambridge has come up with a pictorial treasure that is without equal. In over 100 pictures, the Revelation of John about the end of the world and the Day of Judgement is portrayed in wonderful colorful, richly detailed miniatures. The magnificent Trinity Apocalypse, which was created for an unknown commissioner, can be classified stylistically in the English artistic landscape, but simultaneously exhibits French-Gothic characteristics.
##Wondrous Stories in Luminous Colors
Pandemonium rules the scenes: a black sun, a red moon, leaning and collapsing towers, flying waves, a horde of scared people. A single man standing on the left margin observes the wild events before a dark blue night’s sky in utter silence. The mysterious Revelation of John about the end of the world and the accompanying Day of Judgement with events that are equally joyous and frightening uses drastic and powerful imagery. The apocalypse was an especially popular theme for manuscripts in 13th century England. In the Trinity Apocalypse, which according to recent research originates from sometime after 1250, the artists succeed in creating a particularly impressive illustration of John’s tales. In 70 miniatures with over 100 individual pictures, the four illuminators, who can be differentiated from one another stylistically, portray approximately every passage of the book in a stylistic depiction. In doing so, the bizarre images are intensified with powerful colors, especially red and blue, and richly employed, often finely engraved gold. In a rectangular, gold framed image field, the mostly multi-figured scenes find their respective place. In doing so, not even the smallest fleck is free of decorative ornamentation.

A Masterwork of Anglo-Saxon Book Art

The commission of the apocalypse manuscript is unexplained. Stylistically, the artistic design, seconded by the distinctly linear style, can be placed in either England or Northern France. With regard to the artists, two can obviously be characterized as late English Romanesque, the other two are already Gothic and more likely French. The French language is also another peculiarity of the Trinity Apocalypse: the text is a specific French translation from Latin. An exciting detail, that always bothers the scholarship, is the distinguished lady, which constantly resurfaces in some of the miniatures. Some want to see the English Queen Eleanor, the wife of King Henry III in her. The very hypothetical connection to her would make the splendid and highly artistic design of the manuscript plausible. The design of the Trinity Apocalypse offers an additional innovation. On its 32 sheets, the Revelation is framed by the telling of the John’s life story on 11 pages. This artistic principle can be observed more frequently in subsequent works. Thus the magnificently colored and expressive miniatures are closely associated with the person of its author, traditionally believed to be John the Evangelist.