Manuscript by Saint Jean d'Acre

parchment
13th century

This manuscript written on parchment is a missal containing all the instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. Graphological analysis dates the text, written in an elegant French gothic script, to the 13th century. It also contains partitions for music to be sung during ceremonies and is illuminated with marvellous miniatures. This work is thought to be the hand of San Giovanni d’Acri (present day Accra in Israel) as one page records his consecration of a church in that city.

Saint Jean d'Acre lived until 1291 when he fell during the Muslim reconquest of the crusader city then held by the Levantine Frankish. While the scribe has used a French style script, the miniaturist would seem to have been trained according to the Venetian school suggesting the work is a collaboration between artists from different disciplines and of different origins.