The Book of Kells contains a wealth of decoration, featuring not only abstract interlacing patterns and zoomorphic motifs but portraits of the Evangelists, of Christ, and of the Virgin and Child. The patterns that flank this portrait are typical of the Hiberno-Saxon style of manuscript illumination.

Book of Kells : Book of Kells, largest and most sumptuously decorated of the few illuminated Gospel books to survive from monasteries in Ireland and the north of Britain between the 7th and the 9th centuries. The date and place of origin of the Book of Kells have long been disputed. The rich monasteries of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, and Kells, in County Meath, Ireland, could well have produced such a lavish illuminated manuscript, whose vellum pages required over 185 calf-skins. It may have been begun at Iona in the late 8th century and then taken to Kells, where in ad 807 a monastery was established as a refuge from Viking raids.

The manuscript is incomplete and now comprises 680 pages of the Gospels in Latin preceded by canon tables and other introductory text pages usual in such manuscripts. Much of the Gospel of St John is missing.

The manuscript’s glory lies in its decoration. Illustrations include the symbols of the Evangelists, their portraits, and those of Christ, and the Virgin and Child. The additional scenes of the Temptation and Arrest of Christ are the earliest narrative scenes to survive in a Gospel manuscript. Each Gospel opens with a richly decorated initial. The text is filled with abstract and zoomorphic (animal-form) interlace patterns which characterize not only this manuscript but also the other Hiberno-Saxon gospel books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Durrow. It is the use of the human figure, the unusual colours, and the wealth of decoration that set aside the Book of Kells from the other manuscripts. It is not known how many scribes contributed to the elegant and confident majuscule text (written in large letters), nor whether they were also the artists who produced the intricate and magnificent decoration that makes the Book of Kells one of the finest exemplars of the Insular, or Hiberno-Saxon, style (the British and Irish style of manuscript illumination).

The Book of Kells is in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. [Image : Bridgeman Art Library, London / New York / The Board of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland]