Visions of the Apocalypse - Beatus Manuscripts and 13th Century Apocalypse Manuscrips

Alice White – EN646: Image, Vision & Dream – Seminar Leader: Sarah James

Vision and the Medieval Apocalypse

The Book of Revelation contains some of the most vivid images in the Bible, and provided

illuminators with rich subject material to create vibrant manuscripts. This may be a factor which

explains the popularity of illustrated apocalypse manuscripts during the Middle Ages.

In this essay I will explore the idea of seeing and vision, and different concepts of the role of the

image and illustration.

The Book of Revelation is excellent material for examining textual and visual representations of the

same concept, since during the Middle Ages apocalypse manuscripts frequently included both a

commentary and illustrations. The collection of manuscripts which have come to be known the

Beatus manuscripts contain a commentary assembled by Beatus of Liébana, and most 13th century

English apocalypses contain a version of the Berengaudus commentary. Similarly, most examples of

the above manuscripts also carry a set of accompanying illustrations. This demonstrates how far the

illuminations were considered an integral part of the manuscript as a whole just as much as the

commentaries. Like the commentaries, the illustrations were there to advance the reader’s

understanding of the text of the Book of Revelation, and yet the use of images has proved far more

contentious than that of the commentary. Both during the Middle Ages and today, the role of

images is controversial; the very fact that the role of the image was such a significant point of debate

indicates its importance and the value accorded to the image.

The relationship between text and image is not a straightforward one. A modern suspicion of the

image may stem from ‘a vague conception of the image as an area of resistance to meaning’1,

whereas words are considered to impart meaning. Similarly, those who argued against the use of

images during the many heated debates over the role of image in the Middle Ages proposed that

they confused the viewer, suggesting that they caused idol worship because the viewer

misunderstood the meaning behind the image and worshiped the image rather than what it

represented.

The concept of representation is particularly crucial to an understanding of the role of the image,

and this can be seen in regard to images in apocalypse manuscripts. Barthes has put it that the

‘image is re-presentation, which is to say resurrection’.2 This implies that it is a copy of a “real”

original, however medieval understanding of image was linked with entomology; “image” was

1 Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, trans. Stephen Heath (Fontana, 1977), p. 322 Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, trans. Stephen Heath (Fontana, 1977), p. 32

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understood in terms of the Latin similitude as being a species or “likeness”.3 In the Middle Ages,

popular theories of vision suggested that everything which was seen was a copy of a “real” original,

as intromission theories of vision suggested that seeing occurred when a ray or species (likeness)

was transmitted from an object to the eye.

If what is seen is merely a likeness of the original object that it represents, images in manuscripts

arguably played a similar role to text. Foucault writes that ‘when it was given to men by God himself,

language was an absolutely certain and transparent sign for things, because it resembled them’.4

Images in the Middle Ages are like language following the fall of Babel and the loss of this original

“transparent” language: both are a species or likeness and not an exact representation of the

original.

The “original” text was the literary creation of the scripture which was created by God and passed to

man. Creative representation of the originals such as that seen in the apocalypse commentaries or

illustrations were secondary creations. Both re-present an original which cannot be replicated

exactly and therefore seek to express its essence to the reader; only God had the ability to create,

man could merely imitate. The Book of Revelation even contains the warning that ‘if anyone adds

anything to [the words in this book], God will add to him every plague in the book; if anyone cuts

anything out of the prophecies in this book, God will cut off his share of the tree of life and of the

holy city’.5

The Beatus Apocalypses and the 13th Century English Apocalypses both utilise an unrealistic image

style, but the medieval attitude towards images as suggested in the concept of species may help to

explain why colours in the Beatus manuscripts ‘have no relationship to the natural world’6 and why

perspective is not important in 13th century apocalypse images; it is not important for the image to

be realistic, only that it expresses the likeness of what is described. Since Revelation does not depict

a world which resembles the natural world, but instead one filled with monsters and miracles and

fantastical occurrences, the vivid colours and the sizing of characters by importance and not

perspective are perhaps more suitable than any attempts at realism in the representation of

something dramatic and almost beyond the imagination.

3 Bernard McGinn, ‘Johns Apocalypse and the Apocalyptic Mentality’, Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse, Ed. Suzanne Lewis (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 64 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Routledge, 2002), p. 405 Revelation 22: 18-196 Mireille Mentré and Peter Klein as quoted in Elizabeth S. Bolman, ‘De coloribus: The Meanings of Color in Beatus Manuscripts’, Gesta (International Center of Medieval Art, 1999), p.26

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During the Middle Ages, sight was considered to be the most important of the senses, following

from Aristotelian thinking that it provided the greatest understanding of the world: ‘sight is per se

more valuable [in terms of the senses] so far as the needs of life are concerned’.7 It would follow,

therefore, that the image is used as an aid to understanding of the Book of Revelation.

The Beatus Apocalypses generally contain around

90 images which vary only a little from book to book

in terms of what they depict, and often take up

whole pages. The images almost act as cartoon

strips do today in terms of conveying the narrative,

for instance in the Morgan Beatus the Revelation to

Saint John is depicted in two stages, first with Christ

talking to the angels and then with John approached

to write (see Fig. 1). The Beatus manuscripts are

written in an older style of Latin and perhaps the

images closely following the narrative aided

translation. It has been suggested that in northern

Spain the Beatus Apocalypse text was memorised

by monks and nuns, and so the images could have

acted as a mnemonic device. Although not illiterate, the reader would then no longer require the

text in order to elucidate the meaning of the Book of Revelation. Elizabeth Bolman suggests that

colour changes in images of the plague bearing angels are one example of images being used as a

mnemonic device, by variation in the colouring of the angels’ clothes.8

This adherence to a conventional organisation of images also occurred in the 13th century English

Apocalypses, to the extent that by the time the Angers Tapestries were being produced in 1373, the

images became autonomous from text or commentary.

The Apocalypse manuscript images perhaps suggest therefore that images could be used

autonomously from the text as aids to spiritual reflection or meditation. Boethius’ Consolation of

Philosophy, which was extremely popular and influential in the Middle Ages, argued the importance

of cultivating the interior through piousness and spiritual reflection or meditation, as this was the

only route to true happiness. Since most medieval readers would not be able to make a physical

7 Aristotle, De Sensu and De Memoria: Text and Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Edited by G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge University Press, 1906), p. 488 Elizabeth S. Bolman , ‘De coloribus: The Meanings of Color in Beatus Manuscripts’, Gesta (International Center of Medieval Art, 1999), p. 25

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Figure 1 – God sends the Angel with the Book to John, Morgan Beatus, MS M.429 (Fol. 19v)

Figure 2 – The angel appears to St. John on the Island of Patmos, The Abingdon Apocaylpse, MS 42555 (Fol. 5r)


pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they are in the Apocalypse manuscripts provided with the opportunity to

make a spiritual pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem by following the textual and pictorial journey of St.

John.

Both Beatus and English manuscripts refer to

St. John’s presence on Patmos before the

vision occurs; in presenting this the images

demonstrate that although John’s physical

comfort has been lost and his earthly status

diminished with his exile from society, he

grows spiritually and develops his interior life

by becoming close to God. The images in the

Apocalypse manuscripts depict John on an

island, which is almost cartographic in

representation, emphasising distance from

society and physical comfort which suggests that the central life is the interior, spiritual life not the

physical existence. It is because of his piousness that St. John is chosen to receive God’s vision.

There were considered to have been three types of vision: corporeal, spiritual (ghostly) and

intellectual. St. John’s vision is corporeal in that he perceives with his senses, and spiritual in that it is

holy and issuing from God, and thus external, as seen in both the original text and the accompanying

images. However, it is also internal in that it ‘issued from the intellect of a visionary’9, hence

intellectual.

John experiences his vision in a form of vision not accessible to most mortal men, and so the way in

which this should be depicted is not immediately obvious. The Book of Revelation states that ‘the

Spirit possessed [St. John]’,10 but how John achieves this spiritual form of vision is represented in

very different ways by different illustrators and over different times. For instance, in the Beatus

manuscripts this has been suggested through the use of a line rising from the figure of John which

lies prostrated at the base of the image, which culminates in a bird within the mandorla containing

Christ.

9 Michael Camille, ‘Visionary Perception and Images of the Apocalypse in the Later Middle Ages’, Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse, Ed. Suzanne Lewis, (Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 28710 Revelation 4: 2

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Since the author of the Book of

Revelation was often considered to be

the same John as John the Evangelist

of the Gospel of John, this bird is

perhaps the eagle which was the

symbol used to represent John. An

eagle is thought to be used because of

the elevated style of St. John’s gospel

which differs from the synoptic

gospels in its discussion of the nature

of Christ, for instance as “the word”;11

St. John is able to see more highly than

the other evangelists. In the visual

representation of the Book of

Revelation this symbol works both because of the original

assumptions about authorship but also because it deals with the

exalted theme of the last events on earth, judgement and the

afterlife.

John is told in the Book of Revelation ‘Come up here: I will show

you what is to come in the future’.12 In the later manuscripts,

including the Las Huelgas Apocalypse (dated 1220), St. John’s

movement from earthly to spiritual vision is demonstrated

through a physical movement from Patmos to the celestial court.

In the Selden Supra Apocalypse, this is achieved by climbing a

ladder up to an angel in the clouds. In the Douce Apocalypse,

this is shown by an angel carrying St. John upon his back

up some stairs towards the turreted celestial kingdom.

In both of these examples St. John’s eyes are focussed

closely upon his destination and the angel points

towards it, indicating its importance and the

emphasising the move from terrestrial to heavenly.

11 John 1:112 Revelation 4:1

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Figure 3 – In the Spirit, Gerona Beatus, Archivo de la catedral I (Fol. 107) Highlighting added by me to show line more clearly.

Figure 4– John receiving book and entering celestial vision, Las Huelgas Apocalypse, MS M.429 (Fol. 146v)

Figure 5 – John ascending to witness celestial vision, MS Selden Supra 38 (Fol. 49r)


By suggesting the spiritual nature of the vision in this

way, the later English manuscripts express a physical

boundary between heaven and earth. St. John

physically traverses this boundary and thus continues

to be bodily represented in the majority of images

from the English Apocalypses. In the Beatus

Manuscripts, by contrast, St. John no longer appears

after he has been represented moving from his bodily

form to the celestial. The earlier manuscripts

represent what St. John saw, the later depcit St. John seeing what he saw.

In English Apocalypses, the frequency of representations of St. John may have been because of the

popularity of the hagiographical libellus, which had increased since they were introduced with the

reformation of Benedictine abbeys in the 12th Century. Alternatively, St. John’s presence indicates

not only that it is a vision, but that it is his vision and his intellect which has made the supernatural

attainable to the reader’s humble human perception. His role is shown to be primarily that of

visionary who has been selected by God, not merely a storyteller, imbuing him with a greater

authority. St. John is then able to direct the vision of the reader to the important aspects of the text.

This is instead done by the gaze of the

angels and other characters in the Beatus

Apocalypses. Their eyes are particularly

noticeable, as the stark white of the eyes

contrasts with the bold, bright colours used

for the rest of the image. Because of this,

the reader cannot help but be drawn to

these contrasting areas and visually engage

with the eyes of the characters depicted.

This allows the image to be used as a

mnemonic or aid to meditation, as it allows

the viewer to connect with each character

described in turn. For instance, in images of

Christ in majesty, the Christ figure is usually

central, staring out at the viewer and the

first thing to be considered, worthy of latria,

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Figure 4 - John ascending to witness celestial vision, Douce Apocalypse, MS Douce 180 (p. 92)

Figure 5 - Facundus Beatus, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vit. 14-2 (Fol. 117v)


and following that the figures of the 24 Elders (the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles

of the New Testament) who only warrant dulia. This is sometimes indicated by the Elders eyes all

being focussed upon Christ, as in the Saint-Sever Beatus (BN lat. 8878, fol. 121v-122r).

In the Beatus of Liébana, Christ’s importance is further demonstrated as he is placed beneath a

horseshoe arch on a throne, with two angels brightly adorned in red at either side. Their gaze is

directed outwards, thus the reader of the image connects first with Christ and only then moves to

the angels, indicating the order of precedence. Vision is similarly used elsewhere to direct

meditation. The four Living Beings, which are commonly

represented as a man or angel, an ox, an eagle and a lion

(the symbols of the four evangelists), are described as

‘with many eyes, in front and behind’.13 In many images in

Beatus Apocalypses, they are depicted as covered in eyes

all over their bodies or wings, which stare out at the

reader, which focus attention on the characters of the four

evangelists. In the case of the locust creatures sent to

torture those without the mark of God, the victims are

depicted with their eyes closed or averted, perhaps in

order that the reader does not imagine a person but

themselves in the place of the figure, and also in order to

emphasise the pain being experienced.

The gaze was considered extremely powerful in the Middle Ages, and this can be seen in the

depiction of St. John reacting to seeing the Whore of Babylon. He collects his robes about him as

closely as possible and even

pulls up his cloak to form a

hood to protect his eyes

further from the sight of

her, an action which is not

taken elsewhere even in the

face of the beasts. Women

were considered to be

objects of temptation, like

Eve to Adam, and thus very

dangerous to look upon, 13 Revelations 4: 7

7

Figure 6 - The Army Of Horsemen Over Lion-Headed Horses, Las Huelgas Apocalypse, MS M.429 (Fol. 94)

Figure 7 - The Great Harlot of Babylon, Dyson Perrins Apocalypse, MS. Ludwig III 1, (Fol. 35v)


therefore St. John demonstrates his piousness and the correct way to avoid the temptation of lust in

averting his eyes. The gaze of the woman is depicted as focussed upon her mirror, thus

demonstrating her vanity and lust, which are commented upon in both text and commentary.

There are instances of the defacing of Satan in the Beatus Apocalypses, which Williams suggests

indicate the individual’s close contact with the book and the power of the image as a pictorial gloss

or commentary.14 But I would argue that an alternative theory is that the fear of the power of the

image caused the reader to deface it. Intromission theories of vision imply that seeing an object

involves a part of or likeness of that image being transmitted to the viewer. Suzanne Lewis suggests

that this may contribute an explanation as to why religious images were so important in the Middle

Ages; the icon of a saint created a visible species, the power of which could influence the viewer,

such as the icon of St. Christopher giving the viewer protection. 15 It follows, therefore, that images

of Satan would be erased or defaced in order to reduce their power over the viewer.

Lewis suggests that the move from oral tradition to visual created a privacy which

‘engendered mind wandering and speculation... no longer controlled by instant

correction’ and that this caused the need to insulate the reader from such

temptations to independently interpret the text by providing an accompanying

textual and pictorial gloss.16 This glossing would be especially important in the 13th

Century English Apocalypses, since they are thought to have been more a creation for

the lay nobility (although some later Apocalypses belonged to nuns17). St. John’s

journey through his apocalyptic vision to the end of the world and the triumph of God

is accompanied by commentaries adapted from the Berengaudus commentary, which

provides the reader with a textual spiritual guide. The pictorial gloss, I would argue, is

often provided in St. John’s reaction to his sights. He acts as a guiding figure, not only

leading the reader through a spiritual pilgrimage of the journey to the New Jerusalem,

but also guiding them on the route in life that they must take to achieve a place in the

New Jerusalem at the end of time. In some images, St. John carries a pilgrim’s staff to

demonstrate this aspect of his role.

14 John Williams, ‘Purpose and Imagery in the Apocalypse Commentary of Beatus of Liébana’, The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 22515 Suzanne Lewis, Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 8 16 Suzanne Lewis, Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 317 Neil Morgan, ‘Illustrated Apocalypses of Mid-thirteenth-century England: Historical Context, Patronage and Readership’, The Trinity Apocalypse, Ed. David McKitterick (British Library, 2005) p. 13

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Figure 8 – St. John with Staff, from The Harvest of Grapes MS. Ludwig III 1, (Fol. 29v)


In the image of the Whore of Babylon above, for instance, St. John demonstrates how to prevent the

mind wandering to lustful thoughts when looking upon women, one should avert the eyes.

The only real example of this in the Beatus Apocalypses is when St.

John prostrates himself when in the presence of the Lamb of God,

demonstrating the suitable way to worship him. God, and

therefore the Trinity which represents God including the Lamb, is

accorded the highest form of worship, called latria. This is

demonstrated by St. John in his bowing down before God in this

image. This is possibly because the Beatus manuscripts are thought

to be a monastic artefact, created to stimulate the intellect for the

spiritual development of the reader. They contain extensive

glosses, demonstrative of the seriousness attributed to the texts.

The reader would already therefore be accustomed to the correct

way to worship, but perhaps desire more close analysis of the

meaning behind the analogous text. In many of the Beatus

manuscripts, the images take up whole pages or even double page

spreads (such as in the case of the miniature 47 in the Beatus of La

Seu d'Urgell18), perhaps in order to provide pictorial glosses or focuses for meditation. Just as the

British Library MS Egerton 1821 provided the reader with visual cues to contemplating the Passion,

the Beatus apocalypse provided the reader with visual cues to contemplate the end of the world.

Evidence of depictions of how to worship can be seen more frequently in English apocalypses, where

St. John, the four creatures and the angels and Elders are depicted performing gestures and acts of

reverence towards Christ, such as bowing or raising their hands. This reflects the text in which

reference is made to such reverence as well as verbal expressions such as signing praises of God,

which cannot easily be visually depicted. Text and image work together in such representations to

reinforce the devotion which should be shown to God by suggesting the many forms in which it can

be expressed.

As well as being shown bowed before God, in the English Apocalypses, St. John is also depicted being

corrected for wrongly worshiping an angel who is not due the same reverence as God. The angel

here raises St. John’s bowed head and indicates towards the mandorla containing Christ in order to

demonstrate where his worship should be directed instead. This provides a pictorial representation

18 The Seven Headed Beast pursuing the Woman Clothed in the Sun and then being locked away. <http://casal.upc.es/~ramon25/beatus/beat_47.jpg>

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Figure 9 – Detail of Facundus Beatus, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vit. 14-2 (Fol. 117v)

http://casal.upc.es/~ramon25/beatus/beat_47.jpg


of the concept that there

are different levels of

worship; latria and dulia,

and that only God is

deserving of the true

devotion expressed by

latria. Furthermore, it is

suggestive of the concern

that worship may be

directed towards idols

and visual

representatives of God

such as images of saints

in churches, rather than to the divine figure who has imbued them with their power: God. The image

acts as a corrective to any tendency to worship the image or one of God’s representatives instead of

the Lord himself, which may even arise as a result of the images included in the book. The images

thus provide the reader with a guide of how to read and interpret them.

Another example of St. John providing a guide to suitably pious behaviour can be seen in the image

of St. John in which he is depicted with his fingers in his ears because of the beast’s blaspheming.19

He demonstrates to the reader the appropriate response to blasphemy, and also makes the text

more pronounced in demonstrating how awful the things said by the beast are in his shocked

reaction. The illustrator furthermore demonstrates how terrible the beast is, and similarly his

followers must be in order to listen to him, reaffirming the boundaries of acceptable behaviour with

those who listen to the beast and deny Christianity located outside.

The reason that St. John guides the reader on a spiritual pilgrimage is to help them ensure their

place in Heaven at the time of judgement. With the short life expectancy and high possibility of

violent death during the Middle Ages, people were encouraged to think on their physical demise in

order to secure a place in Heaven at Judgement. The illustrated Apocalypse acted as a way to

reinforce church teachings via powerful iconography such as the weighing of souls, an image which

is frequently found in medieval church images.20 Christ or St. Michael are usually depicted at the

weighing of souls as gazing directly out at the reader, this gaze suggesting that they too look to

19 Suzanne Lewis, Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 13620 Ann Marshall, The Doom, or Last Judgement, and the Weighing of Souls: an Introduction, <http://www.paintedchurch.org/doomcon.htm> (2000) accessed 10/12/2009

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Figure 10 - The angel refuses St. John's homage and tells him to worship God, MS. Auct. D. 4. 17 (Fol. 22r)

http://www.paintedchurch.org/doomcon.htm


themselves and ensure that when their judgement comes that they will have done enough to ensure

their place in the New Jerusalem. The meaning of the text is delivered immediately through the

medium of image, and the suggestion of judgement is in the reader’s mind throughout their

consideration of the text.

St. John occupies a place in many

manuscripts which lies between text

and image, outside the frame but an

image himself nonetheless. As the

author of the work and a figure of the

text he is both real and imagined. As

God’s chosen messenger to the

mortal world, he acts as an

intermediary between heaven and

earth. The images themselves from all

of the Apocalypse manuscripts are similarly between heaven and earth, depicting spiritual visions

from one but actually extant in the other. Because of this, they are suggestive of many different

possibilities of vision and image, more than could be considered in this essay. In conveying a likeness

of the text, I would argue that the images provide the reader far more information, from how to

worship to ideas to focus meditation upon, as well as suggesting the route to the spiritual “true”

happiness that Boethius propounds. They even advise the reader on how to read them, and the

danger of misinterpreting the deified representatives and representations of God for the deity. Since

the original wisdom of the Book of Revelation had been passed down by God, and God is the highest

being, no human interpretation be it textual or image can present the same thing, but merely re-

present in order to convey meaning derived from the original. Both text and image thus provide the

reader with glosses for this highly allegorical text, and the value of the image in relation to the Book

of Revelation in medieval manuscripts must not be underestimated.

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Figure 11 – John watches through border as the Twenty-Four Elders Pay Homage to the Throne of God MS. Ludwig III 1, (Fol. 4v)


Bibliography

Aristotle, De Sensu and De Memoria: Text and Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Edited by G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge University Press, 1906)

Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, trans. Stephen Heath (Fontana, 1977)

Elizabeth S. Bolman, ‘De coloribus: The Meanings of Color in Beatus Manuscripts’, Gesta (International Center of Medieval Art, 1999)

Camille, Michael, Image on the Edge; The Margins of Medieval Art (Reaktion Books, 1992)

Emmerson, Richard K., and McGinn, Bernard ed., The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 1992)

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Routledge, 2002)

Harrington, W.J., The Apocalypse of St John: A Commentary (Chapman 1969)

Jones, Alexander, Ed. The Jerusalem Bible: New Testament with abridged introductions and notes (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967)

Lewis, Suzanne ed. Reading images : narrative discourse and reception in the thirteenth-century illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Ann Marshall, The Doom, or Last Judgement, and the Weighing of Souls: an Introduction, <http://www.paintedchurch.org/doomcon.htm> (2000) accessed 10/12/2009

McKitterick, David, Ed. The Trinity Apocalypse, (British Library, 2005)

Meer, F. van der, Apocalypse, Visions for the Book of Revelation, (Thames & Hudson, 1978)

Williams, John, The illustrated Beatus : a corpus of the illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, (Harvey Miller, 1994 – 2003

The British Library Online, <http://www.bl.uk/> accessed 01/12/2009

The Beatus of La Seu d’Urgell <http://casal.upc.es/~ramon25/beatus/index_eg.htm> accessed 01/12/2009

Dyson Perrins Apocalypse at the Getty Museum <http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1574> accessed 01/12/2009

The Morgan Beatus, MS M.644, Pierpont Morgan Library. <http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/pass_page_through_images_initial.cfm?ms_letter=msm&ms_number=0644&totalcount=1> accessed 01/12/2009

The Tapestries of the Apocalypse, <http://sourcebook.fsc.edu/history/apocalypse.html> accessed 01/12/2009

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http://sourcebook.fsc.edu/history/apocalypse.html

http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/pass_page_through_images_initial.cfm?ms_letter=msm&ms_number=0644&totalcount=1

http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/pass_page_through_images_initial.cfm?ms_letter=msm&ms_number=0644&totalcount=1

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1574

http://casal.upc.es/~ramon25/beatus/index_eg.htm

http://www.bl.uk/

http://www.paintedchurch.org/doomcon.htm


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Visions of the Apocalypse - Beatus Manuscripts and 13th Century Apocalypse Manuscrips

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