This book is an essential coda for those of us who rely so heavily on John Williams’ five-volume corpus of the illustrated Beatus manuscripts (Reference Williams1994–2003). It is also a fitting in memoriam publication for Williams, who died only a few months before it went to press. Therese Martin, Williams’ former student and also a specialist in the art of medieval Spain, undertook the editing and saw the volume through to publication.

The original corpus, completed in 2003, covered twenty-seven manuscripts. It provided an introductory volume, extensive catalogue entries, a full bibliography and a comprehensive set of mostly black and white photographs. Two further examples have since come to light, both from Italy: the two Milan fragments (Archivio di Strato, Rubriche notarili 3823) and, in 2007, a small Beatus (250 × 160mm), now known as the Geneva Beatus (Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève, ms lat. 357, ff. 149–245). The Geneva Beatus forms the main subject of this new book, which includes a catalogue entry, an essay, a description of each image accompanied by a colour photograph and, in an appendix, a codicological analysis. Dated on the basis of its text and illuminations to the mid-eleventh century, this Beatus is assigned to a south Italian scriptorium. The monastery of Monte Cassino is the most obvious candidate, but, as Williams says, there is no evidence to confirm that. Its model may have come from San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja), the probable source of the c 1000 Escorial Beatus.

Unusually for Beatus manuscripts, but not for Italian codices of this period, many of the illuminations were executed before the text, which is written in a mixture of Caroline and Beneventan scripts. Williams suggests that one illustrator executed the careful under-drawings, whereas more than one painter was responsible for the somewhat haphazard application of the pigments, and for the lavish amount of gold. Sometimes the text prompts the use of gold (for example, in the depiction of the ‘pure gold’ Heavenly Jerusalem on fol. 241r), but elsewhere it is used to highlight significant features. The creativity of the artists who worked on Beatus manuscripts rarely escaped Williams, and in the Geneva Beatus he notes the way that the draughtsman broke away from some of the traditional formulas to create unique images: Antichrist is shown wearing a crown (f. 206v); the Woman Clothed in the Sun is portrayed pregnant (f. 208v); and the Beast from the Sea (f. 211r) is part leopard, as the text suggests. Most dramatically, the doves embodying the souls of the decapitated martyrs are shown emerging directly from their bleeding necks (f. 185v).

The small Milan fragments were recently discovered in the binding of a sixteenth-century volume. They are similarly assigned to a south Italian scriptorium and to the mid-eleventh century. The script is Beneventan, and one fragment bears a small image of the Message to the Church of Laodicea. The extravagant use of gold is again a notable feature.

Williams also took this opportunity to update the bibliography on Beatus manuscripts, although it is still not exhaustive and continues to grow. In addition, he provided a new introductory essay and a register of all the illustrated commentaries and fragments, including fresh iconographic observations. These two sections give his final thoughts on the many controversies that surround the Beatus manuscripts and some small shifts in opinion. Responding to Roger Gryson’s critical edition of Beatus’ text, Williams reopens ‘the challenging question of what inspired the inclusion of illustrations’ (page 24). Importantly, he modifies his earlier stemma, or family tree, to show Geneva on a sub-branch, where it is both alongside the Escorial manuscript and related to other Branch i examples, notably the Osma Beatus; this reflects both Gryson’s analysis of the text and William’s analysis of the images. On function, Williams seems more convinced by the idea that the Beatus manuscripts were read aloud, probably in the refectory. On scriptoria, he proposes that Tábara produced the Morgan Beatus initially for the nearby monastery of San Miguel and not for San Miguel de Escalada, and he maintains the existence of an important scriptorium at Sahagún. Some of the most thought-provoking ideas concern San Millán de la Cogolla, and he floats the idea that the ninth-century ‘Silos fragment’ could have been copied at that monastery. Through this volume Williams continues to raise questions for future generations of scholars.