View source for Book of Dimma

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=December 2018}}
[[File:BookDimmaEvangelistPortrait.jpg|upright=1.0|thumb|Evangelist portrait]]
[[File:BookDimmaJohnSymbol.jpg|upright=0.8|thumb|St. John]]
[[File:BookDimmaMatthewSymbol.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|St. Matthew]]
The '''Book of Dimma''' ([[Dublin]], [[Trinity College Dublin|Trinity College]], MS.A.IV.23) is an 8th-century [[Irish art|Irish]] pocket [[Gospel Book]] originally from the Abbey of [[Roscrea]], founded by [[Crónán of Roscrea|St. Crónán]] in [[County Tipperary]], [[Ireland]].<ref>{{cite book |last=De Breffny |first=Brian |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia |url= |location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |page=75 |isbn=}}</ref>  In addition to the Gospels of [[Gospel of Luke|Luke]] and [[Gospel of John|John]], it has an order for the Unction and Communion of the Sick. The surviving illumination of the manuscript contains a number of illuminated initials, three [[Evangelist portrait]] pages, and one page with an Evangelist's symbol (the eagle of St. John).<ref>De Breffny, pg. 75</ref> The [[Insular art#Other books|pocket gospel book]] is a distinctively [[Insular art|Insular]] format, of which the [[Stowe Missal]] and [[Book of Mulling]] are other leading examples.<ref>O'Neill (2014), p. 228</ref>

The gospels other than John are "written for the most part in a rapid [[cursive|cursive script]]", while John is "by a different scribe, in neat [[minuscule cursive|minuscule]] bookhand".<ref>Hughes, Kathleen, ''The Church in Early Irish Society'', p. 294, 1966, Taylor & Francis/Cornell UP</ref>  It was signed by its scribe, Dimma MacNathi, at the end of each of the Gospels.  This Dimma has been traditionally identified with a bishop who was later Bishop of Connor, mentioned by [[Pope John IV]] in a letter on [[Pelagianism]] in 640. This identification, however, cannot be sustained.

==History==
[[File:"Book of Dimma" Shrine MET tem08233s1.jpg|thumb|left|[[Cumdach]] of the Book of Dimma, 20th-century reproduction of front]]
A well-known legend relates that Crónán asked a monk named Dimma to copy the book, but that it had to be done in one day. Dimma set to work on this impossible task and copied continuously without a break for any meals. All the while he worked the sun never set. When Dimma finished, he thought that it had only taken him one day, when in reality it had taken forty. This miracle was attributed to Crónán.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://saintcronanroscrea.ie/the-book-of-dimma/ |title="The Book of Dimma", St. Cronan, Roscrea |access-date=2014-03-28 |archive-date=2015-02-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215062849/http://saintcronanroscrea.ie/the-book-of-dimma/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Cumdach (book-shrine)==
In the 12th century, the manuscript was encased in a richly worked  [[cumdach]] or [[reliquary]] case, which remains with it at Trinity. On one face it has panels of [[openwork]] decoration in Viking [[Viking art#Ringerike Style|Ringerike]] style over the wood case. There is a good reproduction of 1908 in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in New York, which is not on display there, but has good illustrations available online, unlike the original piece.<ref>Bought with the [[Jacob S. Rogers|Rogers Fund]] in 1908; [http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/170002986 New York reproduction]</ref>

==Provenance==
Among the later owners, it belonged to William Meagher, a Catholic priest in [[Roscrea]], then to his descendant Philip Meagher, a priest in [[Nenagh]]. Meagher lent it to Dr Thomas Harrison, who sold it without permission to Henry Monck Mason, a librarian at the [[King's Inns]] society in Dublin, sometime before 1816. He was presented to the [[Royal Irish Academy]] on 24 May 1819. It was purchased by Sir William Betham before 1826 and he himself attempted to auction it on 4 July 1830. He finally ceded the manuscript to [[Trinity College Dublin|Trinity College]] on 29 March 1836.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* [[Rachel Moss (art historian)|Moss, Rachel]]. ''Medieval c. 400—c. 1600: Art and Architecture of Ireland''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. {{ISBN|978-03-001-7919-4}}
* Moss, Rachel. ''The Book of Durrow''. Dublin Trinity College Library; Thames and Hudson, 2018. {{isbn|978-0-5002-9460-4}}
* O'Neill, Timothy. ''The Irish Hand: Scribes and Their Manuscripts From the Earliest Times''. Cork: Cork University Press, 2014. {{isbn|978-1-7820-5092-6}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Book of Dimma}}
*[https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/9306t370s?locale=en The Book of Dimma] digitised at the [[Library of Trinity College Dublin]] [MS 59]
*[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/113771/rec/1 Treasures of early Irish art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.], an exhibition catalogue from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on the Book of Dimma (cat. no. 35,65)
*[https://www.tcd.ie/library/early-irish-mss/launch-of-the-digital-book-of-dimma/ Portal to digitised manuscript]
*[https://elmss.nuigalway.ie/catalogue/594 More information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts]
*[https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463142 Reproduction of Shrine case in New York, The Met].

{{Cumdachs}}
{{Insular art}}

[[Category:8th-century Christian texts]]
[[Category:8th-century illuminated manuscripts]]
[[Category:Cumdachs]]
[[Category:Gospel Books]]
[[Category:Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts]]
[[Category:Irish manuscripts]]
[[Category:Library of Trinity College Dublin]]