The Three Riders

‘Figured micrography’, originally a unique Jewish scribal adornment, constitutes the main decoration plan for British Library Add MS 21160, also known as the ‘Yonah Pentateuch’.

A large resplendent Bible created in the German Lands in the second half of the thirteenth century CE, the manuscript is decorated with figured micrography formed into flora, fauna, human, and fantastic animal figures. It received its name from a micrographic image depicting a man with the title ‘Jonah’ above his head, standing inside a fish’s open mouth, hands clasped in prayer. The manuscript includes three other human figures, all of them mounted.

Elsewhere, I have argued that as micrography is part of the scribal art tradition and its raw material is text, the appropriate research methodology requires a precise reading of the micrographic text. This meticulous reading not only deepens our understanding of the characteristics of the writing, but also discloses the systems used by the micrographer to fashion the flow of words creating the decoration, which, in turn, can reveal the correlation between the forming text and the images it creates.

Reading the masoretic lists that form the four human images in the Yonah Pentateuch, together with an analysis of their iconographic content, reveals an interesting use of a commentarial text not thought to have been known in the German Lands at the time. Moreover, it also illuminates the reason for their drafting and the scribe’s fervent hopes for redemption.