Bartholomew of Krbava

Self-portrait according to M. Pantelić from 1403 in Berlin missal Bartholomew of Krbava (; ) was a Croatian manuscript illuminator, calligrapher and scribe. Several richly illuminated codexes are authored by and ascribed to him and his scriptorium, most notably the Berlin missal (1402), Beram missal and Roč missal (1421).

Biography

Historian Petar Runje identifies Bartol as a son of a local scribe and a citizen of Zadar, John, and his wife Florela as one of two children. The first recorded mention of Bartholomew was in 1399 in Zadar, when his father arranged for him to be sent to train as a goldsmith in Venice. This hypothesis is disputed by Ferenčak, stating that there were several scribes under that name during this period in Dalmatia and Croatia. In 1402, his first work, the Berlin missal, was completed somewhere in Krbava, which he wrote and illuminated for the priest Vuk, from the benedictine monastery of Saint George on the river Zrmanja.

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