Since Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1439, there hasn’t been much call for a hand-written Bible. But in 1998, the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota commissioned just such a work, and they contracted with Donald Jackson, calligrapher to the Crown Office of the United Kingdom, to produce it. It took Jackson and his team of artists and calligraphers the next thirteen years to create the seven-volume illuminated Bible, which resides in the abbey in Collegeville. A limited number of fine art facsimile reproductions were produced as well, and a set was gifted to the Santa Clara University Archives by Tita Crilly Diepenbrock.

You’ll learn about the history of biblical manuscripts and the medieval techniques for copying and illuminating them. We will then explore how these time-honored crafts and materials were enhanced with technology and infused with modern perspectives on creation, nature and the human person to produce a Bible for the twenty-first century. The illuminations invite renewed reflection on the meanings of the text, even as motifs in the images cross the seven volumes and create opportunities for intertextual insight. We will spend our final class in the University Archives, so that you can browse the volumes yourself and appreciate more deeply this unique and beautiful work of art.