The Kennicott Bible described by Malachi Beit-Arié

The Kennicott Bible is one of the finest Hebrew manuscripts in existence. Shelfmark MS. Kennicott 3, the bible is a wonderful and rare example of a dated and lavishly illustrated Ashkenazi Pentateuch with the Five Scrolls and the Additional Readings from the Prophets. Although its place or places of origin are still not clear, ranging from Northern France to Krinau in Northeast Switzerland, what is clear is the quality and imaginative power of the illuminations, as well as the coherent arrangement of the various components of the text on the page. Learn more about this item, digitised by the Bodleian Libraries and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican Library) in a joint landmark digitization project, which commenced in 2012, to open up their collections of ancient texts to the world. Malachi Beit-Arié is the Ludwig Jesselson Professor Emeritus of Codicology and Paleography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of the Hebrew Paleography Project under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the National Library of Israel. He served as the director of the Jewish National and University Library of Jerusalem from 1979 until 1990. More about the project: