Bernwardpsalter

Hildesheim, Germany, 1020

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The so-called Bernwardpsalter was commissioned by bishop Bernward of Hildesheim for the foundation of St Michael's abbey, it is decorated with 14 ornamented initials. The scripture can be attributed to a single scribe: in Guntbald, bishop Bernward found a master of his profession, trained in Regensburg, one of the most important centres of book production in medieval Germany.

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Illuminated manuscript on vellum

255 x 216 mm. – 141 vellum leaves, 3 paper leaves at the beginning and 11 at the end.

of 255

An outstanding testimony to manuscript culture in Lower Saxony at the time of the Emperor Henry II

Overview

Bernward of Hildesheim (c. 960-1022) was one of the most influential bishops of the Ottonian period. The precious objects commissioned by Bernward, spanning the arts from manuscript illumination to architecture, made Hildesheim one of the principal centres of European culture.

This psalter was written by the scribe Guntbald in a Carolingian minuscule. The decorative initials comprise golden letters with red contours inside and out. Brackets painted in silver provide variety. The letters are filled with silver tendrils, whose pointed ends, framed by two small roundels, resemble trefoils. The entrelac of the rather fleshy tendrils sometimes envelops the initials but rarely stretches any further. The backgrounds are coloured in light blue, an intense green or a light pur- ple, or else left neutral. As these characteristics are common to all manuscripts written by Guntbald, we may suppose that he was likewise responsible for the decorative initials.

This work is now in the collection of the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.

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