Barcelona Haggadah

Folio 65

Hallelujah. ‘Praise the Lord.’ Let the name of the Lord be praised from now and forever. Recto there is no decoration, verso, the sequence of Psalms known as the Hallel begins on fol. 65b with a historiated initial word panel depicting a synagogue scene, accompanying the initial word Halleluyah, ‘Praise the Lord’. A rabbi or cantor stands on a reading platform to the left, holding a Torah in a decorated round case, similar to those used in many Sephardi communities. Jewish custom as well as a pictorial tradition already prevalent in early Christian and Byzantine art, dictates that to avoid touching a particularly holy object, one’s hands should be covered with drapery. Below the platform and under the initial word, four adults and three children stand in an architectural setting of three polyfoil arches in which four glass lamps hang. The whole initial word panel stands on two slender columns.

Leaf size is approximately 255 x 190mm (10 x 7.5in)