Barcelona Haggadah

Folio 32

Once, when Rabbi Eliezer…Five Rabbis of Bnei Brak …’ Master the time has come to recite morning prayers. ‘The illuminated word panel on fol. 32b, containing the words ‘Rabbi Eleazar [ben Azariah] said…’ in gold leaf, introduces a statement on the theme of Passover and redemption. The ascender of the letter lamed in ‘Eleazar’ terminates in a decorative fleur-de-lis from which two acorns sprout; but the illustration relevant to this text appears in the right-hand margin in a quatrefoil, rather than in the initial word panel. The seated male, clearly Rabbi Eleazar, holds a book in his left hand and strokes his beard with his right, focusing attention on the beard, which is formed of white lines on a blue ground. Legendarily, Rabbi Eleazar was elected president to the Sanhedrin when aged only eighteen, whereupon his hair miraculously turned white, in order to win him the respect due to age. The text in the Haggadah reads ‘I am now about [or ‘like one who is’] seventy years old’, because he was merely given the appearance of a seventy-year-old man. The ornamental border also includes hybrid figures, dragon-like forms and acorns.
Leaf size is approximately 255 x 190mm (10 x 7.5in)