Читать книгу Memory of the World: The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day - UNESCO - Страница 30
ОглавлениеInscribed 2003
What are they
A dispersed set of ten manuscripts, dating from c.965 to 1020, produced during the Ottonian period in Germany. The illuminations in the Reichenau manuscripts feature miniatures of the life of Christ and portraits of emperors.
Why were they inscribed
The manuscripts are magnificent examples of Ottonian art and represent the climax of medieval German manuscript illumination. They were written and decorated for the emperor or high representatives of the church at a time when the Reichenau scriptorium flourished.
Where are they
Libraries in Munich, Bamberg, Darmstadt, Trier and Paris, the cathedral treasury at Aachen and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale at Friuli
After the decline of the Carolingian Empire at the end of the 9th century, political consolidation, the renewal of the idea of the Holy Roman Empire under Ottonian rule and the reform of the church all contributed to a period of cultural revival. With sponsorship from the emperor and influential imperial bishops, the great churches of the empire were provided with priceless equipment and choice manuscripts. The intense intellectual, cultural and religious climate inspired artistic masterpieces as demonstrated by these illuminated manuscripts. The illustrations reflect the spirituality of the time, and their ambitions can be inferred from the models on which the new art was based: paintings from Late Antiquity, the Carolingian period and Byzantium. Yet their intention was not imitation, but creative new design.
Pages from the Book of Pericopes of Emperor Heinrich II. The illuminated manuscripts created at the Reichenau monastery by Lake Constance in the 10th century are supreme examples of German medieval artistry.
The elaborate binding of the Book of Pericopes of Emperor Heinrich II containing an ivory panel dominated by Christ’s crucifixion.
The ten selected manuscripts were produced in the scriptorium of the Benedictine monastery of Reichenau (Lake Constance) between c.965 and 1020. While three of the manuscripts represent the earlier period, the other manuscripts selected were produced during the high period of the workshop and are the most outstanding examples of the Ottonian art of illumination. The iconographic tradition developed here formed the basis of the medieval Romanesque manuscript illumination.
Their history is closely connected with the coronation church at Aachen and the bishoprics of Bamberg, Cologne and Trier which received the books for liturgical use. The full-page portrait of Emperor Otto III (983–1002) is the artistic highlight of his Book of the Gospels; the miniature has been interpreted as a representation of Otto’s political agenda, which was based on the revival of Rome as the centre of the Roman Empire. As the son of the German Emperor Otto II and the Greek princess Theophanu, Otto III embodied the merging of Western and Eastern traditions which are reflected in the manuscript’s treatment of classical and Byzantine art. Emperor Heinrich II (1002–1024), who is shown together with his wife in a coronation scene in his Book of Pericopes, endowed his newly founded bishopric at Bamberg (1007) with several manuscripts (including the so-called Bamberg Apocalypse). The books thus symbolize the view of the ruler as protector of the church who was installed by God himself. By adding the ruler’s portrait to the book, both his support of the church and his inclusion into prayer are captured visually.
Pages from the Book of the Gospels of Emperor Otto III.
The manuscripts contain different versions of Jerome’s Latin translation of the Gospels, a text at the very centre of Western medieval culture. From the time of its standardization under Charlemagne (768-814) until the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Latin Book of Gospels formed an integral part of the Roman Catholic Mass. The full text of the four Gospels is shown in three manuscripts whereas five manuscripts present only those passages from the Gospels which are read during Mass (pericopes) following the order of the Church year. One further manuscript contains three books from the Old Testament and another manuscript, the Psalter, while one of the volumes of pericopes also contains the full text of the Revelation of St John (the Apocalypse). In addition to portraits of the emperors, clerical sponsors and the four evangelists, they contain the earliest examples of a narrative pictorial cycle based on the four Gospels and the most splendid rendering of the apocalypse in Western medieval art.
Pages from the Book of the Gospels of Emperor Otto III
The jewel-encrusted binding of the Book of the Gospels of Emperor Otto III
