William de Brailes - Imago editore - Bibbia di William de Brailes (anno 1250): edizione facsimile - 2023

William de Brailes Bible - Ms. W.106

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum
Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet

Copy number: 28

- 27 full-page miniatures
- Hand-treated parchment for optimal aging
- Artisanally bound
- Hand stitching
- Mounted on ancient paper
- Red silk-cut velvet binding
- Cover with hand-embroidered gold thread

William de Brailes’ Bible is a masterpiece of English illumination from the 13th century. Not a traditional Bible, but a “figured Bible”: a visual narrative of the major episodes of the Scriptures, conceived to move and instruct through the power of images.

The thirty-one surviving miniatures from the original work, today partly housed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and partly at the Musée Marmottan in Paris, likely formed the introductory figurative cycle of a psalter. Vivid colors, refined compositions, and expressive figures characterize these scenes, in which William de Brailes interweaves spirituality and storytelling with extraordinary narrative sensitivity.

Active in Oxford around 1250, de Brailes translates sacred words into images of great intensity. The animated figures and stylized landscapes give the biblical episodes a nearly theatrical dimension, offering a precious testament to medieval art and devotion.

Thus, William de Brailes’ Bible preserves the charm of English Gothic miniatura: a work in which beauty, faith, and history meet in an illustrated narrative.

Copy complete with case and commentary.

Published by Imago - The Nobility of the Facsimile