Golden Haggadah

The Golden Haggadah is a Hebrew illuminated manuscript originating around c. 1320–1330 in Catalonia. It is an example of an Illustrated Haggadah, a religious text for Jewish Passover. It contains many lavish illustrations in the High Gothic style with Italianate influence, and is perhaps one of the most distinguished illustrated manuscripts created in Spain. The Golden Haggadah is now in the British Library and can be fully viewed as part of their Digitized Manuscript Collection MS 27210. The Golden Haggadah measures 24.7×19.5 cm, is made of vellum, and consists of 101 leaves. It is a Hebrew text written in square Sephardi script. There are fourteen full-page miniatures, each consisting of four scenes on a gold ground. It has a seventeenth-century Italian binding of dark brown sheepskin. The manuscript has outer decorations of blind-tooled fan-shaped motifs pressed into the leather cover with a heated brass tool on the front and back. The Golden Haggadah is a selection of texts to be read on the first night of Passover, dealing with the Exodus of the Israelites. It is composed of three main parts. These are fourteen full pages of miniatures, a decorated Haggadah text, and a selection of 100 Passover piyyutim liturgical poems. The first section of miniatures portray the events of the Biblical books of Genesis and Exodus, ranging from Adam naming the animals and concluding with the song of Miriam. The following set of illustrations consist of illustrated steps on the preparations needed for Passover. The second section of the decorated Haggadah text contains text decorated with initial word panels. These also included three text illustrations showing a dragon drinking wine (fol.27), the mazzah (fol.44v), and the maror (fol.45v). The concluding section of the piyyutim consists of only initial-word panels.