The "Genealogical stemma of Christ" is a devise of knowledge with origin in the late antiquity but took a specific form in the Hispanic monasteries from the 10th century with an adequacy among design, informative content, and figurative images of its own. To understand the presence of this stemma in the Beatus and analyse its function in them, we must first mention the structure of these codices and the transformations that took place between the time of their composition in the 8th century and the time when they took on a form. definitive in the 10th century. The Beatus (dia. 2) that we know today are the surviving copies of a Commentary on the Apocalypse written by an 8th century Asturian monk named Beatus. The Apocalypse was incorporated late into the canon (in the 4th century) and the liturgy (in the 7th century for Hispania), so in the 8th century the religious had to study it. But its poetic and prophetic language made it difficult to understand and its interpretation was diverse. Beatus believed that this book would be a key to understanding the rest of the Gospels and that it should show the correct interpretation elaborated by the great theologians, especially Ticonius. (d.3) The oldest preserved copies are from the 10th century and are divided into two branches: The codices of branch I are characterized by incorporating (d. 4) pericopes of the Apocalypse of John (or storia) followed by an illustration (or figura) and a comment (or explanatio). Its iconographic development is limited almost exclusively to the illustration of the storiae. (d. 5) The codices of branch II have the same basic form, but with additions of new texts and images. The most relevant of these are the series of preliminary images and the illustrated text of Jerome's Commentary on the Book of Daniel, at the end of it all. (d. 6) (d 7) Among the preliminary illustrations that were probably introduced in the 10th century, there is a complete Old Testament and New Testament cycle with a Christological character which has been called “Genealogical Tables of Christ”, although it is not precisely a question of tables, but of a branched stemma. It is a genealogical diagram that wants to make the historicity of Christ visible, including it in the history of humanity through chains of names and affiliations within circles, which advance horizontally, as a representation of diachrony, supported by other formulas of text-image arranged in parallel and marking landmarks, geographical, historical, and chronological references. The manifest complexity of this visual and textual combination device disposed in several levels makes it an interesting matter of study. Analysing its internal structure and its relationship with the codex where it is inserted allows investigating the intelligence the design presents and ways of use for readers. (d 8) The "genealogical stemma of Christ" can be seen as a work inserted into another one, which is wider. Structured in approximately fourteen folios it is, in synthesis, a graphic scheme that links the ancestors of Christ through chains of names, beginning with the first fathers of mankind and ending in the figure of Jesus. Along with this central content, diverse information about the times and places of this family history that coincides with the history of humanity are displayed (d. 9). The stemma not only integrated the Beatus but different kinds of codex, especially Bibles and others of historical type. (d10) Today twenty-five codices are conserved which adopted it, most of them of Hispanic origin. These slides show the 25 stemmata of Christ that we have today, indicating the codex to which they belong, their location and classification according to Yolanta Zaluska (1984). (d11) Among Beatus of the 10th century the genealogical diagram of Christ can be found in Morgan, Girona, Urgel and Tabara Beatus. In this opportunity I will consider the two first ones that can be contrasted easily because Girona has all the folios and Morgan almost all, and it is possible to complement partially the missing folios with those of Facundus Beatus, that is very similar. (d.12) A quick thematic of the stemma by folios permit us a first approach. The table shows the location of the different subjects from the Genealogical Stemma of Christ just like they are present in Morgan and Girona Beatus. The tables first and second (facing folios) refer to the "first age of the world" (from Adam and Eve to Noah). The third, 4th and 5th, to the second, from Noah to Abraham's father; from the 6th to 10th show the third (from Abraham to David). From the table 11th to 14th, the fourth age is presented (from David to Christ). In addition, as we can see in the last column on the right, not only do the different families of the ancestors of Christ and humanity appear, but other content is also placed, such as the most relevant events of an outstanding member of one of these families, years of life of the patriarchs and relationships with the history of other latitudes, in the manner of chronographs. These contents are those that are located in the large circles, rectangles and arcs that can be seen in the previous slide. (dia 11 here, here, here) (d. 13) Structure of the Girona and Morgan Stemmata. The whole and the relation among parts. The genealogical stemmata of the Beatus have a clear vocation of totality through its general form and its parts. Is a complex diagram where texts, images and geometrical forms connect with each other building a general form with meaning for the mind of the viewer, but its parts are also interacting producing subsystems, giving place to visual syntagms of a smaller size. (d.14) About the unity of the Genealogical Stemma of Christ, there is an antecedent that helps to understand this sense of wholeness expressed through its design. This is the genealogical stemma from the Florentine codex Plutei 20.54 -a miscellaneous codex of the 11th century that retains a form closer to the late ancient original than the rest of the codices. With this antecedent we can observe that in the studied Beatus, despite some deformations of order and content, the idea of unity remains. (d. 15) If the folios of the Beatus are put together side by side and analyzed as only one volume unrolled, as we do on the slide, we can find the structure that gives continuity to the stemma. In the first place, it is possible to see the continuity of the top bar that unfolds from the first until the last folio and under it, the circles with information following the top and bottom edges of each folio. All of it produces an effect of "game of 58 holes", an exterior rectangle that encompasses the whole beginning with a vertical and ending in a curve. (d.16) From the original structure similar to the millennial game found by Piggin, it also remains a layer that runs in the middle with contextual information. This layer is better perceived in the final folios, less crammed of names extensions from the different families, but it can also be seen through figures like columns, circles or rectangles that allow distinguishing this new level of data from the properly genealogical. (d. 17) Each circle contains names and genealogical filiations (such filius from such uxor and so on). It is also an element that gives continuity to the form, because even though its disposition changes in some sectors, it begins and ends in an order. The dynamic element of continuity that allows to see the development in time, is given by the lines linking some circles to others (like in a flux diagram). (d. 18) The development of families that sometimes goes downwards, forms vertical and radial chains, which can cause confusion, which is overcome thanks to the use of colors and separating and containing figures such as single and twin arcs, big circles, rectangles, parchment imitations and the final knot -that seems to represent a building plan-whose contents are related with historical information. (d.19) All this allows perceiving a circuit, the road travelled to get to Christ, (d. 20) that can be travelled again beginning from the Constantinian knot (the union between square and circle). In the Florentine code, there is even an arc upwards and downwards (like in a mirror) that must be read upside down or it is necessary to turn around to read it (d. 21). The broader and general first look, then, creates an imaginary circuit that joins the Old and the New Testament and, in a second travel from the last folio to the first, it begins with Christ and ends in Paradise. (d. 22, 23, 24, 25) In a second look the prefigurations of Christ are underlined with iconographic images (Adam, Noah, Isaac, David). We can interpret this circuit or road that can be travelled several times, as a representation of the Christian sense of history. Associated with this sense of the historical cycle that manifests itself through the general design of the diagram is the concept of historical time that updates the Old Testament and at the same time gives actual presence to the future (the Apocalyptic visions). A concept where the idea of "figure" dominates, in the sense of Auerbach (1998). The genealogical stemma would work, then, as a dispositive to meditate about the unity of human history through the diagrammatic visualization, that would be embodied in its totalizing general form and in the way its parts allow a movement of the reader-viewer, first from above to pay attention later to the details or the nodes, that in this case are indicated by the iconographic figures from where emerge the diverse histories that at the same time are Patriarchs representing each one of the history ages. The functioning of the Stemma of Christ as a machine of thought The genealogical stemma, therefore, is a visual dispositive allowing to appreciate, at a glance, complex information and, besides, change the graduation of the glance: from a farthest one to closer one or particular. It is a way to visually connect with the total contents to be transmitted, for a superior understanding, a preliminary encounter leading to meditation and contemplation, as Mentré has interpreted all the drawings of the Beatus. And it is exactly the sense of unity of the whole what allows to think in the tables as a way, an entrance map to the contents-like the tours of the peregrines but in a spiritual sense. But besides, it is an instrument that helps the thought process starting from visualization. It allows visualizing the direction of the information and its knots: where to stop, which things are linked with which, or if they are contemporaries with which. it serves to help the comprehension of the content, more that to memorize it. It is the way the mind can remember and to reason about the multiple connections. (d. 26) We can say then, like Carruthers, that the Beatus from branch II on were designed as a "thinking machine". Through the images and letters a diagram about history and the road to the salvation is exposed, formula that is repeated through the whole codex, first with the series of paratextual images from the preliminaries, among them, the four Evangelists in eight folios, later with a series of geographic illustrations representing the universality of the message (mapamundis, four beasts and four winds, among others). All wrapped up by the presence of the Alpha at the beginning and the Omega at the end. The whole book is disposed so that the beginning be the end and the end be the beginning, and it follows a design form learnt during centuries facilitating the overall look, establishing categories and times. The genealogical tables are characterized by performing the cycle that leads to the first Parousia, while the Commentary to John relates the cycle that leads to the second Parousia and its outcome. (d. 27) The Book of Daniel, located at the end, embodies the anticipation of all history.
