The Bible was commissioned in 1340 by Robert of Anjou, a member of the distinguished French dynasty who was then King of Naples. He intended the Bible as a wedding gift for his granddaughter, Joanna, and her husband, Andreas of Hungary. But by the time it was ready, two years after the wedding, Andreas had been strangled to death, and Joanna, by now the Queen, was the prime suspect.
The splendid illuminations still feature Andreas in several places, identified by the falcon on his arm, but his coat of arms was painted over with those of Niccolo d'Alife, the secretary to whom Joanna gifted the Bible when she fled to France.
After that, the Bible was passed on to the French duke and art lover Jean De Berry, before finally making its way via the bishop of Arras to Leuven, where it has stayed ever since.
Robert of Anjou, known as Robert the Wise, was an unusually cultivated king, referred to in the dedication of the Bible as rex expertus in omnia scientia. The historian Petrarch, his contemporary, described him as an "eminent king and philosopher", and he was also known as a patron of the arts.
The Bible is made up of 344 bound parchment folios of the books of the Old and New Testaments, richly illuminated in tempera paint and gold leaf. The capitals - the initial letters of the prologues and books of the Bible - depict scenes relating to the text, such as Solomon at the Temple, King David playing a hand organ and many a prophet warning the people of Israel of God's wrath.
The marginal illuminations, on the other hand, depict the life of Robert's court, with portraits of the King, his second wife Sancha of Majorca, Joanna and Andreas. They also stray from the courtly into the comical and even fantastical. As well as jousting, hunting and processional scenes, there's also a running thread featuring naked figures firing arrows and blowing trumpets while riding atop a variety of creatures: lions, camels, a unicorn, an ostrich.
In one margin, a pair of dragons are covering up the repair to a tear in the parchment; in another, a dragon biting the tail of a bird performs the same function. There's even a war elephant carrying a banner in his trunk, though it seems fairly clear the artist had never seen an elephant up close, possibly basing his portrayal on someone else's less- than-accurate description.
As well as being a crazy mix of the sacred and the profane, the Bible is also a landmark of art history, standing at the border of the Italo-Byzantine style of the Middle Ages and the new search by artists like Giotto - one of Robert's protegés - to find new, more realistic means of depicting everyday life.
After the exhibition, the Bible will be rebound and returned to a special climate-controlled room at the Maurits Sabbe library of KUL's theology faculty. Due to its frailty, it is not expected to be exhibited again, but the entire document can be seen online at www.bijbelvananjou.be.
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