The masterpiece of the tenth century, which again is due to the artists of Greece, is a “Psalter, with Commentaries,” belonging also to the Imperial Library (number 139 among the Greek manuscripts), a work in which the miniature-painter seems not to have been able to disengage himself from the Pagan creeds in illustrating Biblical episodes. Two celebrated manuscripts of the same time, but executed in France, and preserved in the same collection, show, by the stiffness and incorrectness of the drawing, that the impetus given by the genius of Charlemagne had abated: these are the “Bible de Noailles,” and the “Bible de St. Martial,” of Limoges ([Fig. 355]).
To speak truly, if in France there was a decadency, the Anglo-Saxon and Visigothic artists of this period
Fig. 353.—Miniature of the Ninth Century, extracted from the “Commentaries of Gregory Nazianzus,” representing the consecration of a Bishop. (Large folio Manuscript in the Imperial Library, Paris.)
were also very inferior, to judge from a Latin Book of the Gospels of the tenth century painted in England ([Fig. 356]); it, however, proves that the art of ornamenting books had degenerated less than that of drawing the human figure. Another manuscript with paintings, called Visigothic, containing the Apocalypse of St. John, gives, in its fantastic ornaments and animals, an example of the strange style adopted by a certain school of miniature-painters.
Fig. 354.—Fac-smile of a Miniature drawn with the pen, taken from a Bible of the Eleventh Century. (Imperial Library, Paris.)
Fig. 355.—Border taken from the Bible of St. Martial of Limoges. (Tenth Century.)