A Haggadah is the script for the seder ritual on the first nights of Passover. The word means “telling,” and the seder is a ritual for the telling of the Passover story—the Exodus from Egypt—in a particular rabbinic fashion. 

This Haggadah, produced in ca. 1300 in the Catalan region of Spain by an unknown scribe and artist, is an exceptional sample of a decorated Haggadah manuscript in the local tradition; it may be compared with the famous Sarajevo Haggadah, with which it shares a liturgical and artistic tradition. Its fine decorations and illustrations are a testament to the wealth of its patron and his concern for beautifying the tradition. Notably, the manuscript is unfinished (for unknown reasons), allowing us to view the process by which such manuscripts were created. 

On this page you can see the illustration of the second of the “Four Sons,” the wicked one.” He is equipped with weapons of violence, ready for a battle. The artist is making a connection between wickedness and violence. In addition, his face is ugly and his teeth bared; were his skin painted, it would probably be darker. This may be a racist degradation of the “moor” who was so well known in Spain at the time.