The purple Codex Rossanensis: spectroscopic characterization and first evidence of the use of the elderberry lake in a 6th century manuscript

TL;DR

This study used spectroscopic techniques to analyze the materials of the 6th century Codex Rossanensis, revealing for the first time the use of elderberry lake as a pigment in an early medieval manuscript.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of elderberry lake in a 6th century manuscript and offers detailed material characterization of the Codex Rossanensis.

Findings

Identification of the complete pictorial palette

Detection of elderberry lake pigment

Material insights into early medieval manuscript techniques

Abstract

The Codex Rossanensis is a 6th century Bizantine illuminated manuscript written on purple parchment and conserved at the Museo Diocesano in Rossano Calabro, Italy. It is one of the oldest surviving illuminated manuscripts of the New Testament. The challenge of the analysis of the Codex Rossanensis lies in the lack of analytical information on the pictorial media used in the Early Middle Ages. Even though old-medieval illuminated manuscripts have been deeply studied from the historical standpoint, they have been rarely described in their material composition. This paper presents the results obtained during the measurements campaign (June 2012 - November 2013). The spectroscopic analyses performed by Raman, micro-FTIR and XRF allowed for the complete characterization of the pictorial palette, the inks, the support and the material used in a previous restoration treatment. To the author knowledge the article shows the first experimental evidence of the usage of the elderberry lake in a 6th century illuminated manuscript.