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The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies & the Herbert D. Katz Center Distinguished Fellow's Lecture in Jewish Manuscript Studies

The Sephardic Bible Bookcraft: Codicology, Layout and Contents in Two Manuscripts at the Library of The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Presented by Javier del Barco, Universidad Complutense de Madrid & the 2025-2026 Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies & the Herbert D. Katz Center Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Manuscript Studies.

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Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 5:15 - 7:00 pm EST
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Class of 1978 Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 6th floor, & Virtual
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Open to the Public
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Hosted by: Kislak Center

detail from a Hebrew Bible manuscript, with decorative element between two columns of script.

The library of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania houses two medieval Hebrew biblical manuscripts produced in the Iberian Peninsula: CAJS Rar Ms 620 and CAJS Rar Ms 364. Both codices display distinctive codicological features, textual contents, and layout strategies that reflect broader patterns in the production of Sephardic Hebrew Bibles. This lecture examines these manuscripts in order to contextualize their characteristics and to propose a definition of the Sephardic Hebrew Bible as a distinct and coherent book category, comparable to and yet differentiated from other European traditions of Hebrew biblical manuscript production.

Attend the Workshop!

Join Professor del Barco as he leads participants through a hands-on, archaeological survey of  Penn Libraries’ MS Codex 1052, a manuscript described in the Library’s online catalog as a Hebrew Bible with Masora possibly produced in Modena, Italy, around 1480. It is indeed a Hebrew Bible produced in northern Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century, but a close examination of its codicological, textual, and historical features will shed further light on the context of its production and potentially reveal the identity of some of its first owners and other secrets hidden within the pages of this unique witness to biblical history in the European later Middle Ages. 

To be held October 30, 2025, 3:00 - 5:00 pm in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, Seminar Rm 627. Seating is limited, but open to all. Register here to attend.

Javier del Barco

Javier del Barco is Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Religious Sciences of the same university. His research focuses on the study and interpretation of Hebrew manuscripts in general and biblical manuscripts in particular, including the study of manuscript production, use, transmission and circulation. He has written several catalogues of Hebrew manuscripts, among which Catálogo de manuscritos hebreos de la Comunidad de Madrid (3 vols., 2002-2006), and Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Hébreu 1 à 32; Manuscrits de la Bible hébraïque (2011). He has edited The Late Medieval Hebrew Book in the Western Mediterranean: Manuscripts and Incunabula in Context (2015), and is an active member in the following national and international research projects: "Legado de Sefarad IV" (CSIC), " Understanding the Paratexts of the Hebrew Bible-PARAHeB" (CSIC), "Manuscripta Bibliae Hebraicae" (AMU-CNRS), and "BiNaH-Bibliothèque nationale Hebraica" (IRHT-CNRS).

Headshot of Javier del Barco

The lecture is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Attendees are invited to a reception following the lecture.

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies & the Herbert D. Katz Center Distinguished Fellowship in Jewish Manuscript Studies is funded in part by the David B. Ruderman Distinguished Visiting Scholar Fellowship.

Image: Detail of a bifolium from an Iberian Bible, written in Iberia during the second half of the 14th century, or the first half of the 15th century (University of Pennsylvania Libraries, CAJS Rar Ms 620)

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