A tale for a lost haggadah. Beyond the Golden Haggadah and the Sister Haggadah

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to extract new conclusions from the relationship that B. Narkiss established between the Golden Haggadah and the Sister Haggadah, two important manuscripts from the second quarter of the 14th century which were illuminated in Catalonia. The stylistic distance between the two Haggadot is great, but they are unequivocally related through certain iconographic solutions and compositions. The golden manuscript features exceptional illuminated elements of an aulic nature, which are linked to a workshop from the second linear Gothic stage, in the times of King James II, while the Sister Haggadah can be considered to date from the reign of Alfonso the Kind. Despite the plastic limitations of the illuminators of the Sister Haggadah, their work does not hide expressions and formulae connecting it with a new Italianizing culture that would progressively invade the Catalan context. Thus, a comparison of the styles and thematic aspects of the Hebrew documents in question reveals two heterogeneous creative contexts and suggests the existence of a lost Haggadah of an Italianizing style, which, having plausibly drawn on the Golden Haggadah or maybe an equivalent work, would become a model for the Sister Haggadah. The differences between the two manuscripts, which are kept in the British Library, constitute a gap that could be explained by such a missing link. On that basis, and without ignoring the uncertainties of the hypothesis, the Italianizing characteristics of the Sister Haggadah suggest the possible existence of a Haggadah produced in the workshop of Ferrer Bassa, painter and miniaturist to the king, who received commissions from Jewish clients and played an essential role in the introduction of the new stylistic codes that transformed 14th-century Catalan figurative culture.