
Ms. written and illuminated in Spain, in San Salvador de Tábara, ca. 945.
Texts: Beatus, Presbyter of Liebana, In Apocalipsin (fols. 1-233); Isidore of Seville, De adfinitatibus et gradibus (fols. 234-237); St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (fols. 238v-292v); an anonymous discussion of the Apocalypse and comments on Beatus's work (fols. 294-299). According to the colophon (fol. 293) Maius was both the scribe and the illuminator, and executred the work at the command of the Abbot of the Monastery of St. Michael.
Scribe: Maius (died at Tábara in 968)
Decoration: 68 full-page miniatures, 48 smaller miniatures; diagrams, colored initials, and ornaments; Spanish Mozarabic style.
Artist: Maius (died at Tábara in 968)
St. Beatus of Liébana completed his commentary about 776. The long cycles of pictures accompanying it constitute the greatest achievement of medieval Spanish illumination. The Morgan Beatus is important because it is the earliest complete copy and thus stands at the beginning of the Beatus tradition. Although the book was ordered for Escalada (consecrated in 913), it was not made there, as Maius worked in the tower scriptorium at San Salvador de Tábara, where he died and was buried in 968. Maius tells us he made the book so that the "wise may fear the coming of the future judgment of the world's end."