page_title: Haggadah
section_title: Illuminated manuscripts
hierarchical_section_title: Haggadah / History / Illuminated manuscripts
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of Exodus in the Birds' Head Haggadah. The fleeing Jews are depicted with birds' heads, while Pharao and most of the pursuing Egyptians have blank circles with or without eyes as heads; two of them, however, have bird's heads.
context_page_description: The Haggadah is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each Jew to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah.
  Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews also apply the term Haggadah to the service itself, as it constitutes the act of "telling your son."
context_section_description: The earliest Ashkenazi illuminated Haggada is known as the Birds' Head Haggadah,, made in Germany around the 1320s and now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
  The Rylands Haggadah (Rylands Hebrew MS. 6) is one of the finest Haggadot in the world. It was written and illuminated in Spain in the 14th century and is an example of the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and non-Jewish artists within the medium of manuscript illumination. In spring and summer 2012 it was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the exhibition 'The Rylands Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in Context'.
  The British Library's 14th century Barcelona Haggadah (BL Add. MS 14761) is one of the most richly pictorial of all Jewish texts. Meant to accompany the Passover eve service and festive meal, it was also a status symbol for its owner in 14th-century Spain. Nearly all its folios are filled with miniatures depicting Passover rituals, Biblical and Midrashic episodes, and symbolic foods. A facsimile edition was published by Facsimile Editions of London in 1992.
  Published in 1526, the Prague Haggadah is known for its attention to detail in lettering and introducing many of the themes still found in modern texts. Although illustrations had often been a part of the Haggadah, it was not until the Prague Haggadah that they were used extensively in a printed text. The Haggadah features over sixty woodcut illustrations picturing "scenes and symbols of the Passover ritual; [...] biblical and rabbinic elements that actually appear in the Haggadah text; and scenes and figures from biblical or other sources that play no role in the Haggadah itself, but have either past or future redemptive associations".
  Other illuminated Haggadot include the Sarajevo Haggadah, Washington Haggadah, and the 20th-century Szyk Haggadah.
caption: Detail of the Exodus from Egypt in the Birds' Head Haggadah: bird-headed Jews bake matzos for the journey and leave Egypt with their possessions (left-hand page); a blank-faced Pharaoh and Egyptian soldiers pursue the Jewish nation (right-hand page)
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