Rabbula Gospels

The Rabbula Gospels (TM 115232 ), named after the otherwise unknown scribe who copied the manuscript and added the colophon in AD 586, is a Syriac (Peshitta) Bible. It is especially know for its miniatures, some of which, however, may have different origins and were bound with the current volume at a later stage. The text itself is a tetraevangelion, a synoptic version of the four canonical gospels, here arranged in four arcades to bring out similarities and differences. The manuscript was in Lebanon until the late 15th or early 16th century, when it was transferred by the Maronite patriarch to Florence, where it still is preserved in the Biblioteca Laurenziana.