Commentary on the Apocalypse and commentary on the Book of Daniel
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1910
Scene, Ecclesiastic: Writing -- Men climbing up tower of San Salvador de Tavara by means of ladder, man pulling bell ropes at bottom of the tower; to right, in second story of the building above doorway with horseshoe arch, two scribes seated on chairs, one writing with stylus in book on stand, one using compass on paper; seated man cutting paper with shears.
In the Apocalypse Christ refers to himself several times as the Alpha and Omega. Thus some Beatus manuscripts begin and end with monumental images of those two Greek letters. When the Morgan manuscript was rebound during the seventeenth century, the final bifolio containing the omega and the tower was turned inside out by the binder, who thought he was correcting a previous mistake. Thus the omega incorrectly ended up as the last illustration. Now, for the first time since then, the original order of these last two images has been restored. The representation of the celebrated scriptorium of San Salvador de Tábara was copied from a Beatus manuscript completed in Tábara in 970. The two images are the earliest "portraits" of a medieval scriptorium in a manuscript. It shows the scribe and illuminator laying out their folios, while a novice trims parchment. In the tower, three men ring the bells, which functioned as the community's clock.