That Hebrew illuminated manuscripts are currently a hot topic owes much to a handful of scholars; none more so than Katrin Kogman-Appel who, for the last fifteen years, has published prolifically and authoritatively on the subject. Her 2006 volume, Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday, is an ambitious undertaking that bears witness to its author’s long engagement with this complex and fascinating subject. This is the only book to examine intensively the biblical cycles of Iberian Haggadot, which are the earliest Jewish narrative imagery to appear since Late Antiquity and the first to render biblical narrative in chronological order. In this densely illustrated and referenced work, Kogman-Appel’s mission is twofold: to explain how the narrative cycles were created, often from far-flung Christian sources and adapted for a Jewish audience, and to reconstruct the social context for the illuminated Haggadah’s emergence and reception in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Spain.

To a certain extent, the title of the volume is misleading. Kogman-Appel concentrates her investigation on seven fourteenth-century illuminated Haggadot believed to be from Catalonia and Aragon; she does not investigate those with marginal illuminations such as the Barcelona Haggadah or the Castilian examples, one of which (BL Or. 2737) is believed to be the earliest extant illuminated Haggadah with a biblical cycle. Also, the connection between the chosen manuscripts’ biblical imagery and the Passover holiday, although mentioned, is not a major theme of the scholarship. Regardless, there is plenty in this book to engage scholars working in the fields of Jewish studies, medieval manuscripts, or Spanish history.

From the beginning of her study, Kogman-Appel displays a sharp awareness of the historiography of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts and does a good job of making readers aware of the burden such notions as recension theory, particularly that which is focused on lost Jewish exemplars, have placed on scholars of Jewish art. The first part of her book is an effort to provide an alternative way of explaining how these extensive cycles were created and the manner in which traditionally paired manuscripts (the Golden Haggadah and BL Or. 2884; the Rylands Haggadah and BL Or. 1404; and the Sarajevo Haggadah and the Bologna-Modena Mahzor) are truly related.

Chapter 1 is a valuable introduction to the manuscripts that consolidates art-historical, codicological, and often elusive liturgical information in a manner that allows readers to see the diversity among Iberian Haggadot. It is a tremendous resource, but acknowledging such diversity in the text makes for difficult reading, and one wonders whether the liturgical section in particular may have been rendered more clearly in the form of a chart.

The characterization of some Haggadot as siblings has been a feature of the scholarship from the beginning. Indeed, it serves Kogman-Appel well as a device for revealing her theories about motif books and image-making from memory which form the core of her analysis in the first section despite the fact that many of the examples that emerge contradict the notion of completely harmonious pairings. Perhaps, after this exhaustive analysis, it is now time to put aside this way of structuring the discourse, since it may eventually limit the scope of our questions. After all, if what remains is only a fraction of what was made in a workshop, what is now a pair may once have been merely a simultaneously produced cluster of manuscripts with strong visual and iconographic similarities. The question of survival, both in the Haggadot and in the sources Kogman-Appel locates for their adopted imagery, bedevils this project as it does many others in the field of medieval manuscripts.

Although it is impossible to discuss all of the provocative findings in this section of the book, a few particulars should be mentioned. In her close study of the Golden Haggadah and Or. 2884, a pair which has some fifty-eight scenes in common, Kogman-Appel finds that the latter’s illustrator, whom she characterizes as a scribe rather than a professional illuminator, is much more concerned with the reading and viewing direction of the images than the more accomplished artist of the Golden Haggadah. Furthermore, this scribe/artist also changed the pictorial contents of certain miniatures which resulted in versions that were more textually accurate. One hopes that this discovery will encourage others to look more closely at how narrative scenes in the less well-known Haggadot were rendered, both individually and as part of their overall sequence. Similar close analysis of the Rylands Haggadah and its sibling, Or. 1404, yields proof that while both manuscripts were produced in the same workshop, Or. 1404 preceded rather than followed its more lavish sibling. Kogman-Appel’s observation contradicts a common assumption that the more artistically accomplished examples must serve as models for any less accomplished examples.

The second section of Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain is concerned with reconstructing the specifically Jewish meaning and messages contained in the biblical narrative that was developed for the manuscripts. It is here, in the absence of colophons, where the author seeks to develop a picture of the complex and often contentious community that commissioned and used the illuminated Haggadot.

The section opens with a thorough examination of midrashic (Jewish legendary) elements in the narrative sequences of the Haggadot, which Kogman-Appel convincingly demonstrates do not reflect a continuous tradition that can be traced back to Late Antiquity. Instead, she argues for the presence of midrashic material in the Sephardic cycles as a direct result of the revival of midrash in the milieu that engendered the manuscripts—a revival she treats in some detail. The presence of midrashic elements, therefore, reflects the designers’ interest in making the narrative, generally borrowed from Christian visual sources, relevant to their audiences.

Precisely how this material is relevant to the late medieval Sephardic audience Kogman-Appel reconstructs for the Haggadot is the subject of the book’s remaining chapters. Relying on the prevalence of midrashic additions to the biblical narrative, and in the absence of dated exempla, she conceives of this audience as the anti-rationalist camp in the famed confrontation between those Spanish Jews who followed the Maimonidean/rationalist approach to Torah and those who favored the anti-rationalist/Nachmanidean approach. Kogman-Appel, while acknowledging that many in the community were allied with neither camp yet held intermediate views of the issue, sees the production of illuminated Haggadot with biblical narrative as a direct result of this confrontation.

Building on her earlier Jewish Book Art Between Islam and Christianity: The Decoration of Hebrew Bibles in Medieval Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2004), in which the aniconic Islamic-derived decoration of these works is associated with rationalist scholars and sympathizers, Kogman-Appel conceives of the Haggadot as belonging to the opposing camp. Furthermore, the creation of these commentary-laden narratives are understood as participating in a rebirth of midrash conceived as a means of countering the allegorizing tendencies of the rationalist camp, which was so offensive to some in Spain’s Jewish community. Though her study is bolstered by a substantive bibliography drawn from historical and religious studies of Iberian Jewry, the art-historical conclusions that emerge from this analysis may prove problematic for some readers. Based on her association of the Islamic-influenced Bibles with the rationalist camp and the narrative Haggadot with the anti-rationalist camp, one wonders whether there was ever crossover in book commissions between the two communities. Did the rationalist followers of Maimonides never commission illuminated Haggadot? And if they did, what would they look like? Perhaps one might venture the suggestion that the Hebrew Bibles were decorated as they were because they were Bibles, and the Haggadot were decorated as they were because they were Haggadot. Each book would have served a different purpose in different contexts, and with different restrictions, obligations, or needs in terms of its relationship to the visual.

It may also be challenging for modern readers to consider Kogman-Appel’s characterization of the anti-rationalist camp, those whom she believes to have commissioned these highly visual works, as safeguarding traditional Judaism in the face of the philosophically minded elitist rationalists whose own Bibles were so carefully aniconic. Although the biblical narrative adopted for the Haggadot was vetted for iconography that was either Christian in message or overly anthropomorphizing, a process which Kogman-Appel details thoroughly, one wonders whether there were those in the community who found the rebirth of figural representation provocative, even if it occurred in the service of rabbinic teaching and authority and in manuscripts that were generally used in homes. Also worthy of further discussion is the question of allegory, a feature of the rationalist approach to biblical interpretation which was viewed as threatening by Ashkenazi scholars and those influenced by them in medieval Iberia. By the time these Haggadot were produced, Christian book illumination had developed extensive allegorical visual vocabularies. Was there not more risk in promoting allegorical interpretations of the Torah via figural imagery than via an Andalusian-derived decorative vocabulary—recognition of how such decoration may have worked allegorically in mosque interiors notwithstanding?

Whether or not readers will be convinced by Kogman-Appel’s model for the creation of the Haggadah’s narrative cycles or by her proposed context for their patronage and reception, she is to be commended for the scope and diligence of her effort. Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday, with its rich observations, plentiful illustrations, and thorough bibliography, is certain to be a valued resource for those working in the field of Hebrew manuscript illumination.