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The Archbishop gave the Pope a leather-bound diptych (two pictures hinged together) of facsimile full-page illuminations from the Lambeth Bible – a mid-12th-century volume of the Bible in Romanesque style widely thought to have been written and illustrated at Canterbury, which featured in the Palace Library’s 400th anniversary exhibition this summer.
The left-hand panel depicts key moments in the book of Genesis—the Hospitality of Abraham, Jacob’s Ladder, and the Sacrifice of Isaac). The right-hand panel is a rare form of the Jesse Tree (featuring the prophets, the allegorical virtues, the evangelists, the Church and the Synagogue, the Virgin Mary, and Christ filled with the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit).
Together these two panels represent the great sweep of the Biblical story from Genesis to Christ and the Church.
The Pope viewed the original of the Jesse Tree illumination at the end of his Private Meeting with the Archbishop.
A photograph of the gift is available on request.
The small number of Lambeth Palace Library treasures on display for Pope Benedict were as follows:
Lambeth Bible, c.1150-70, open at Tree of Jesse
MacDurnan Gospels, ninth century, open at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel
St Anselm’s collected treatises and letters, compiled by William of Malmesbury, c.1120-24, open at letters to Archbishop Anselm from King Henry I and Pope Paschal II
Archbishop’s Register of Cardinal Pole, 1556-8, open at Cardinal Pole’s coat of arms as Archbishop
Gospels in Church Slavonic (Moscow, c.1564), open at the beginning of St John’s Gospel
