Codex Alexandrinus Facsimile Edition

Created around the year 400, the Codex Alexandrinus is a complete bible now bound into four volumes. The text is written in Greek Uncial in two columns with decorative tail pieces and colophons demarcating the end of major text divisions. These ornaments along with the enlarged and offset capitals and rubricated initial lines are among the earliest surviving manuscript decorations. The book derives its name from the city of Alexandria in Egypt where it was kept through the late Middle Ages.

The manuscript originated in the eastern Mediterranean, though its specific origins are unknown. No record of it exists before the early fourteenth century, at which time it was considered to be a great treasure. It is one of the four Great Uncial bibles and preserves a number of additional sacred writings. For this reason, it holds a significant place in the study of early Christian scripture.

Important Record of Early Christian Bible

The resources required to write a complete bible are enormous, which makes early copies exceptionally rare. Now bound in four separate volumes, taken together nearly 780 parchment folios (V: 279 fols.; VI: 238 fols.; VII: 118 fols.; VIII: 144 fols.) comprise the Codex Alexandrinus requiring the skins of hundreds of animals.

Its survival is fortunate, however, because it preserves the oldest copy of 2 Maccabees and 3 Maccabees as well as the best versions of Deuteronomy and Revelation. It also contains a copy of the first epistle of St. Clement of Rome.

Among Earliest Surviving Manuscript Decoration

The decoration at the end of each major section is typically geometric bands forming a complete or partial box surrounding the titular text often aligned on a central access to create an additional decorative element.Earthy colors of green, yellow, and red are used either as the primary ink or as dot and line accents.

Sometimes plants or an ornate vase are drawn above or below the title text. Through the manuscript, the initials of each verse are enlarged and offset into the left margin of each column. These elaborations are both decorative and functional, providing visual signals for breaks in the text.

A Complete Bible in Four Volumes

The exact origins of Codex Alexandrinus are unknown. It is the work of at least two scribes working in the fifth century somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. Records for the manuscript begin in 1315 when it was taken to Alexandria by Athansius III as recorded in an Arabic colophon.

It remained there until 1621 when Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Alexandria, took it to Constantinople. In 1627 he gifted it to Charles I of England. It was rebound and entered into the Royal Library. In 1733 it survived the fire being rescued by the librarian Richard Bentley. It eventually became part of the British Museum.

Binding description

The current bindings date to the second quarter of the seventeenth century when the manuscript was bound into four separate volumes when received into the Royal Library of England. The set is bound in brown leather edged in blind tooling. A gilded central panel has shell and scroll motifs in the corners surrounding a central cartouche of the royal arms of England with initials CR.