The extraordinary Paduan Historiated Bible returns to the Diocesan Museum

Padua is preparing to welcome back one of its rarest and most significant treasures, the extraordinary Illuminated Padua Bible (Bibbia Istoriata Padovana), a 14th-century illuminated masterpiece of immense artistic, historical, and documentary value. The precious manuscript, created by illuminators active at the court of the da Carrara family, rulers of Padua until 1405, is returning to the Venetian city for a much-anticipated exhibition to be held from October 17 to April 19 in the magnificent Hall of the Bishops at the Diocesan Museum. The initiative, promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, strongly supported by the Cariparo Foundation and curated by Alessia Vedova with the scholarly collaboration of Federica Toniolo, stands as one of the most important cultural events of autumn 2025.

The story of the Illuminated Padua Bible is an ancient and winding one, marked by dispersal, rarity, and rediscovery. It is not known whether the original project had in fact envisaged the completion of the entire biblical narrative. What is certain is that such a colossal and costly undertaking would have required “biblical” timescales and patrons of great means. After the fall of the Carrara Signoria, the manuscript’s traces were lost: over the centuries the volume was fragmented, and only two sections have come down to us. One passed into the hands of the Silvestri family of Rovigo, noted bibliophiles and collectors, later entrusted to the Accademia dei Concordi of Rovigo, while another section, known as the Sussex Bible, reached London, entering the collections of the Duke of Sussex and eventually the British Library. The outcome of this history is that today two surviving cores of the Illuminated Padua Bible exist, now finally reunited after centuries in the Padua exhibition, thanks to the vital mediation of the conserving institutions.

In the sumptuous architectural setting of the Hall of the Bishops, the two fragments of the Bible will be displayed side by side, preserved in a highly secure case and enhanced by an evocative installation. This choice is far from accidental: the Illuminated Padua Bible finds profound stylistic and thematic affinities with the celebrated fresco cycle of the Cathedral Baptistery, dominated by the hand of Giusto de’ Menabuoi. The manuscript’s miniatures weave visual and narrative dialogues with Padua’s great pictorial tradition, beginning with the lessons of Giotto, Altichiero, Giusto himself, and other artists linked to the Carrara court. Each illustrated folio stages the sacred story through a language oscillating between image and caption, foreshadowing the spirit of modern comics, as shown by the frequent note “Como qui si è depento” (“As here it is depicted”), pointing to a narration entrusted more to images than to words.

One aspect that makes the Illuminated Bible truly exceptional is its linguistic choice. The biblical text is written in a vernacular enriched with Venetian and Paduan inflections—a true rarity at the time, when the Bible was generally transcribed and illuminated in Latin. This decision places it squarely within the European tradition of French illustrated Bibles, aimed at a cultivated lay elite ready to embrace new forms of communication, where visual narration and the popular tongue merge with extraordinary freshness. The sections known today include, from the Rovigo portion, the beginning of Genesis and the story of Ruth, while the London section contains the central part of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. The Sussex Bible consists of no fewer than 86 illustrated folios and 529 miniatures, splendidly preserved in a 19th-century blue-and-gold binding decorated with a royal crest.

The miniatures of the Padua Bible abound with iconographic and compositional references to the great decorations of the city’s religious buildings. Curator Alessia Vedova highlights the modernity and naturalness of the style, reflecting the influence of artists such as Giotto and Giusto de’ Menabuoi, capable of renewing the relationship between figure and space, narration and realism. The exhibition will also feature an immersive room designed to recreate the cultural and historical atmosphere of 14th-century Padua, the era in which both the Bible and other masterpieces of illumination and painting were born. It will be a journey through the history of late-medieval Paduan art, intertwined with the literary world of figures such as Francesco Petrarch, then a leading voice in a vibrant intellectual scene.

According to Federica Toniolo, professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Padua, the exhibition will give visitors not only the chance to lose themselves in the beauty of the miniatures, but also to glimpse, within the painted vignettes, a faithful mirror of late-medieval Paduan society: from rural landscapes to urban architecture, from religious customs to secular details. Each folio holds a surprise, each cycle of images opens as a window onto the practices and traditions of a rich civilization, to be rediscovered even in its linguistic layers.

The exhibition experience is further enriched by the possibility of visiting, with the same ticket, the great fresco cycle of the Cathedral Baptistery, acknowledged as an iconographic model of reference by the Bible’s illuminators. The entire path designed by the Diocesan Museum, directed by Andrea Nante, thus creates a continuous dialogue between miniature and mural painting, between the biblical image-narrative and the great figurative tradition of 14th-century Padua. The exhibition becomes a unique opportunity to see reunited parts of a manuscript that ideally “speaks” with the other great artistic masterpieces of the region.

The return of the Illuminated Padua Bible represents the happy outcome of a long process of study, preservation, and international cooperation involving museums, historic libraries, and banking foundations. The event carries with it the spirit of memory and care for heritage, reigniting the debate on the importance of conserving and promoting illuminated manuscripts and medieval applied arts. The manuscript and its mysteries, unresolved for centuries, return to Padua to shine again and inspire fresh stories and dialogues across generations.