ABSTRACT
Iconographical subjects in medieval Ireland change according to the period and the medium in which they appear, with a surprisingly small selection of biblical scenes in illuminated manuscripts. If we take the Books of Durrow and Kells to be “Irish,” then we can include them here as demonstrating the use of evangelist symbols, which are also found in the Book of Armagh. Kells also illustrates St. John, the Enthroned Christ and the icon-like Virgin and Child. The smaller gospel books have figures of the Evangelists, but narrative iconography is rare among the early manuscripts. The Temptation and what is normally taken to be The Arrest of Christ occur in the Book of Kells and the codex numbered O.IV.20 in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin has The Ascension and a Second Coming of Christ. This latter scene is also encountered in Ms. 51 in the Stiftsbibliothek in St. Gall, which has evangelist figures and also depicts a Crucifixion of a very stylized kind—a subject that is not encountered again in Irish manuscripts until circa 1408–1411 in the Leabhar Breac in the Royal Irish Academy, where the marginally earlier Book of Ballymote features Noah’s Ark.
