This Latin Gospel book was made around 800 by Columban monks, probably begun on Iona and finished at Kells in Ireland. Its pages fuse Christian imagery with the knots, spirals and interlace of Insular art. This page opens the Gospel of John, "In principio erat verbum", with the letters IN P swollen into panels of snakes, crosses and ornament.
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At the top, a curly-haired figure holds a book inside a flame-like border. Scholars disagree whether he is John the Evangelist or Christ as the Word.
Looks like this
Compared by a vision model
