The sumptuously decorated First Bible of Charles the Bald may well be the most famous of all medieval manuscripts. The national library of France catalogs it as Number 1 among its thousands of Latin manuscripts. Despite its fame, however, the First Bible has remained a magnificent mystery, its poems largely unread and the connection between its poetry and paintings unexplored. In the first full study of its kind, Paul Edward Dutton and Herbert L.

Kessler carefully investigate and integrate the First Bible's words and pictures and arrive at some surprising discoveries: the identification of the poet; the context of the bible's production; hands-on changes to the codex; and a new, more political reading of the First Bible's stunning paintings.

The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald will appeal to medievalists, classicists, historians, and art historians as well as to anyone interested in the interrelation of words and pictures and in political messages in art.