É. Apor (ed.): David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: David Kaufmann and his Collection
ISTVÁN ORMOS passage may really have been "horned," Ruth Mellinkoff points out that Jerome in fact understood his own rendering cornuta metaphorically as glorificata erat, as he himself explained in his Commentary on Ezekiel, i.e. he did not believe that Moses descended from Mount Sinai with solid horns on his head. Mellinkoff has also pointed out that strangely enough it was in England in the 11 th century that the representation of Moses with horns first appeared. Of course, the very positive connotation and frequent occurrence of horns in Norse archeology, art, folklore and mythology is well known, so their appearance on the face or forehead of Moses was nothing new or unusual to readers in Northern Europe. 9 7 In this context it may be noted that Kaufmann already touched upon the question of an eventual participation of Christian artists in the production of Jewish manuscripts and he basically denied this possibility. 9 8 Narkiss shares his view: "Undoubtedly most of the illuminators of Hebrew manuscripts were Jewish". 9 9 In connection with MS British Library Or. 2884 Munkácsi remarked that it is impossible to assume that the artist of the famous scene of the interior of a synagogue (see below) was not a Jew. 10 0 There can be found, however, several signs indicating that this precisely did happen in the illuminated manuscripts of the Kaufmann Collection. In addition to the examples quoted above we can adduce one scene in the Kaufmann Haggadah, where a nimbed young man emerges from the burning bush. Müller and von Schlosser had already recognized this as the representation of God in Christ's figure (fol. 59v; fig. 2). 10 1 Scheiber considered this view a mistake: in his view we are seeing God's angel here. 10 2 Although the Bible talks of God's angel appearing to Moses at the given place (Ex 3:2), two verses later it is God who addresses him out of the burning bush. It is a well-known fact that the Bible often does not differentiate 9 7 For a balanced view of the present state of our knowledge about the possible collaboration between Christian and Jewish artists in France, with special reference to our manuscript, see Gabrielle SED-RAJNA, Les livres: La communauté racontée. In: Gabrielle SED-RAJNA - Ziva AMISHAI-MAISELS - Dominique JARRASSÉ - Rudolf KLEIN - Ronny REICH, L'Art juif. Paris 1995. 227-229. Cf. also Cecil ROTH, The John Rylands Haggadah = Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 43:1(1960) 146-152. 9 8 KAUFMANN 1898. 295-311. Idem.: Bilderzyklen. In: Idem. 1908-1915. III. 260-261. Cf. VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderschmuck 1898. 229-230, 232. 9 9 Bezalel NARKISS, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles. A Catalogue Raisonné. I. The Spanish and Portuguese Manuscripts. Jerusalem - London 1982. I. 14. 10 0 MUNKÁCSI C. 1938. 247. Cf. p. 169 below. 10 1 David Heinrich MÜLLER - Julius VON SCHLOSSER, Die Bilderhaggaden der europäischen Sammlungen. In: David Heinrich MÜLLER - Julius VON SCHLOSSER, Die Haggadah von Sarajevo. Eine spanisch-jüdische Bilderhandschrift des Mittelalters. Vienna 1898. 198 [ad pag. 103]. VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderschmuck 1898. 232. 10 2 SCHEIBER 1957. 25. 148
