The question of the formation of manuscript production workshops in Iran according to Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allah al-Hamadhānī’s Majmūʿa Rashīdiyya in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Résumé
In his main charitable foundation, the Rabʿ-i Rashīdī, near Tabriz, Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allah al-Hamadhānī (ca. 645-648–718/1247-1250–1318) set up a manuscript production workshop in order to produce regular copies of the Qurʾān, a collection of Ḥadīth and his own works. This article addresses the question of whether this workshop can be identified as a kitāb-khānah. It focuses on the earliest preserved manuscript that was most likely produced in, or in relation to the Rabʿ-i Rashīdī: the compendium of four theological books titled Majmūʿa Rashīdiyya (The Compendium of Rashīd al-Dīn), dated to 707–710/1307–1311 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 2324). This large-scale and lavishly illuminated volume is submitted to a detailed stylistic and spectrometric analysis. Unlike previous works where style and technique, especially pigments, are usually studied independently, this article proposes a new, unprecedented approach where both dimensions are examined in close connection in an attempt to reconstruct the manuscript’s decoration process and the type of organization that lies behind it.