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
DAVID KAUFMANN AND HIS COLLECTION know Hebrew, the general structure of the script must have been clear to an artist with an eye specially gifted and trained for pictorial representation. In addition, the right margins of the scribal columns are always straight, while the left ones irregular, a feature unlikely to have escaped his attention. An interesting area of interaction between the activities of Jews and their Christian neighbours widely represented in illuminated Hebrew manuscripts is the practice of music. The musical instruments depicted in these manuscripts are important witnesses of the cultural history of the areas of their origin and their detailed examination in comparison with contemporary Christian manuscripts is likely to yield promising results. The Kaufmann Haggadah (MS Kaufmann A 422) and the Tripartite Mahzor (MS Kaufmann A 384) (on both of them see below) contain some remarkable illustrations in this respect. Important attempts have been made recently at their precise interpretation against the background of similar contemporary illustrations elsewhere. 12 4 Returning to our wonderful manuscript of the Mishneh Torah, we note that the connection between the illustration and the text may be represented in a remarkable way by the figures of David and Goliath, which shows the future king with his crown, while Goliath is "in full armour with chain-mail, golden helmet and greaves, holding an enormous sword in his right hand and a shield in his left". 12 5 This splendid picture adorns the frontispiece of Book Seven, which deals with the rules of gleaning among other things (fig. 5). The illustration is thus an allusion to the gleaning of Ruth, the ancestress of David, while Orpah is Goliath's mother according to the Midrash (Ruth 1:4). 12 6 Another remarkable trait of this manuscript is that it contains many profane illustrations in the margin - in one instance the illustration is even obscene - which bear no relation whatsoever to the text. 12 7 This cannot be regarded a unique feature of manuscripts produced in the middle of the 13th century: their emergence was closely connected to the spread of Dominican and Franciscan preaching at the time with parables and exempla using motifs from animal fables, bestiaries 12 8 and fabliaux 12 9 sometimes even becoming completely independent of the text itself. 13 0 The widespread ' See now András BORGÓ, Középkori héber kéziratok zenei vonatkozású illusztrációi. [Illuminations relating to music in medieval Hebrew manuscripts] = Magyar zene [Hungarian Music] 4 (2001) 395-416. 12 5 S FD-RAJNA 1984. 30-31. 1 2'NARKISS - SFD-RAJNA 1988. First Kaufmann Mishneh Torah. Card No. 15. 12 7 See Gabrielle SED-RAJNA'S contribution The Visual Dimension of Jewish Civilization: Concepts and Realizations in the present volume on pp. 86-87 above. 12 8 SED-RAJNA 1984. 35. 12 9 See Gustave LANSON, Histoire de la littérature franqaise. Onziéme édition revue. Paris 1909. 103-109. " U SFD-RAJNA 1984. 35. See also Joseph GUTMANN, Hebrew Manuscript Painting. New York 1978. 84. 153
