Treasures of Ottonian Illumination (Collection)

Treasures of Ottonian Illumination (Collection)

Vibrant colors made from precious pigments, extensive use of highly burnished gold, and stylized figures: an expressive style of painting brought to the highest perfection! Even today, one cannot help but to be enthralled by the lavishly illuminated deluxe manuscripts, which the monks on the island of Reichenau created for the Ottonian rulers as well as for important patrons of the imperial court in the 10th and 11th centuries. In fact, Reichenau Monastery was at the center of Ottonian art and the illuminated manuscripts produced by the so-called Reichenau school during this period continue to fascinate people today. Every page of these manuscripts evokes a solemn aura of the sublime and the sacred. In 2003, the UNESCO committee decided to inscribe ten of these works on the Memory of the World Register. The facsimile cassette published by Quaternio Editions Lucerne provides an insight into the wonderful imagery of these Ottonian masterpieces.

A Grand and Monumental Style

Ottonian art was produced primarily in modern Germany as well as northern Italy and the Low Countries. A continuation of Carolingian Illumination, Ottonian Illumination was strongly influenced by Late Antique and Byzantine Art, looking to them both for aesthetic inspiration and for the political implications of these classical forms as the kings of Germany claimed the mantle of Roman Emperor. Its compositions appear static, often relying on expressive glances and gestures with elongated fingers. Some Insular influences can also be seen in Ottonian art, especially with regard to marginal interlace patterns, large decorative initials, and incipit pages in particular. Ottonian Illumination is distinguished by a grand aesthetic, sometimes cumbersome in its early period, but then ca. 1000 "a solemn monumentality is combined with a vibrant inwardness, an unworldly, visionary quality with sharp attention to actuality, surface patterns of flowing lines and rich bright colors with passionate emotionalism". Often furnished with luxurious bindings, Ottonian manuscripts are counted among some of the greatest masterpieces in all of medieval manuscript art.

Masterpieces from Reichenau

Illuminated manuscripts made at Reichenau Abbey are among the most magnificent works of art created under the Ottonian monarchs. At that time, the Benedictine Abbey on the island of Reichenau in Lake Constance was one of the major cultural and scholarly centers of the East Frankish Empire. The scriptorium housed at Reichenau Abbey produced deluxe manuscripts of great beauty with an aesthetic that markedly influenced Ottonian art. The Abbey of Reichenau was founded in 724 by Saint Pirmin (d. 753), a Hiberno-Frankish itinerant Bishop, on an island in Lake Constance. Under Charlemagne, the abbey ranked among the great Frankish imperial monasteries and gained even more influence under the Ottonian dynasty. The scriptorium produced illuminated manuscripts of outstanding artistic quality for emperors, kings, and members of the higher clergy under the abbots Witigowo, Immo, and Berno (985-1048) in particular. At least 58 deluxe manuscripts from the ‘Reichenau School’ have survived to the present, but only seven of these works record the names of their scribes and illuminators been preserved.

This compendium of single sheets mounted on boards and suitable for framing consists of ten outstanding specimens of Ottonian illumination from the following manuscripts:
Bamberger Daniel-Kommentar - Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Msc. Bibl. 22
Bamberg Apocalypse - Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Msc. Bibl. 140
Gospel Book of Otto III - Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4453
Evangeliar aus dem Bamberger Dom - Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4454
Pericopes of Henry II - Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Clm 4452;
Codex Egberti - Trier, Stadtbibliothek Weberbach, Hs. 24
Egbert-Psalter - Cividale del Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli, Ms. 136
Evangelistar von Poussay - Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514;
Evangeliar Ottos III. (Liuthar- Evangeliar) - Domschatzkammer Aachen, G 25.