The Parma Psalter
c. A.D. 1280
Facsimile
Of all medieval Hebrew manuscript Psalters (tehillim), one of the most important is this masterpiece, the treasure of the Palatina Library in Parma, Italy. This profusely illuminated book of Psalms was written and decorated in about 1280, probably in Emilia in Northern Italy. Each psalm is illuminated and numbered, and many are exquisitely illustrated with musical instruments or with scenes described in the text, making this manuscript particularly valuable for musicologists and art historians of the Middle Ages.
The psalms are loved by Jewish people more than any other book of the Bible apart from the Torah, and almost every ceremony includes at least one of its 150 chapters. In fact, the 150 psalms seem to correspond with the 150 readings into which the Pentateuch was divided and originally read over a three-year cycle, a custom that appears to have died out in the Middle Ages. The personal and urgent tone of the poetry of the psalms make them a natural complement to the historical narrative of the Pentateuch. One midrash makes this feeling explicit: “Moses gave the five books of the Torah to Israel, while David gave them the Psalms, with its five books (cf. doxologies at the end of psalms 41, 72, 89, 106).
The Parma Psalter is one of the great treasures of early Hebrew manuscript illumination.
The psalms are loved by Jewish people more than any other book of the Bible apart from the Torah, and almost every ceremony includes at least one of its 150 chapters. In fact, the 150 psalms seem to correspond with the 150 readings into which the Pentateuch was divided and originally read over a three-year cycle, a custom that appears to have died out in the Middle Ages. The personal and urgent tone of the poetry of the psalms make them a natural complement to the historical narrative of the Pentateuch. One midrash makes this feeling explicit: “Moses gave the five books of the Torah to Israel, while David gave them the Psalms, with its five books (cf. doxologies at the end of psalms 41, 72, 89, 106).
The Parma Psalter is one of the great treasures of early Hebrew manuscript illumination.
