Bamberg Apocalypse

The angel of the sixth trumpet, in the lower half of the picture three ominous horsemen ride on ashes and fire-breathing horses over corpses

The Bamberg Apocalypse is a work of Ottonian book illumination from the period between 1000 and 1020. The exact date is disputed. The manuscript is one of the most famous works from the scriptorium of the Reichenau monastery and is now in the Bamberg State Library . Since 2003 it has been part of the UNESCO World Document Heritage .

content

The image of the ruler on sheet 59 ^v between the apocalypse and the evangelist, which either Otto III. or Heinrich II. shows

Two Latin texts are combined in the volume, namely the Apocalypse or Revelation of John and an Evangelistary . The second part of the text provides that in the exhibition presented Gospel texts , however, limited to the central celebrations of the Lord and the saints ; the content was therefore not tailored to everyday liturgical practice. The combination of the two heterogeneous texts is unique.

The Codex was written by a main scribe and two other hands (on fol. 1v – 2v, 4r). With its equipment, which does not save on gold , it represents one of the great creations of Reichenau book art . The text is adorned with numerous initials with tendrils . The Apocalypse is accompanied by 50 large-format miniatures (the two image strips on fol. 21v are counted as two units); they offer the only surviving picture cycle from the Ottonian period on this subject. The Evangelistary contains five christological scenes (the birth of Christ and the proclamation of the Shepherds , the crucifixion and the burial , women at the grave, the ascension of Christ and Pentecost ).

The Evangelist part (on fol. 59v / 60r) is preceded by a double-sided image of the ruler . The left side shows a youthful ruler enthroned between the apostles Peter and Paul ; underneath, four female figures offer their gifts as allegories of peoples . On the opposite side, the triumph of virtues over vices is illustrated allegorically.

The image equipment is assigned to the so-called Liuthar group of the Reichenau manuscripts. The fine dating within the first quarter of the 11th century is disputed. In this context, palaeographic findings as well as the iconographic and style-critical assessment of the relationship to the Gospel of Otto III are important. and on Henry II's pericopes. The controversial discussion is accompanied by the questionable identification of the ruler figure in the representational image , in which portrait resemblance can be ruled out ( Otto III. or Heinrich II. ?). Dates “before 1002” (the year of Otto III's death), “around 1010” (before or at the same time as the pericopes of Henry II) and “around 1020” (after the pericopes) are championed.

history

The incomplete donor inscription on the (lost) cover documents the donation of the codex by Emperor Heinrich II. And his wife Kunigunde to the Bamberg Collegiate Monastery of St. Stephan . For the handover, one could think of its foundation around 1007/1009 or the consecration of the church in 1020; but other occasions are also conceivable.

The original splendid binding was separated from the book block in the course of secularization in 1803 . The jewelery on the book cover - gilded silver and precious stones - was auctioned , with the exception of an ornamented agate plate from the Near East . It is presented today in the treasury of the Munich Residence . The book block came to today's Bamberg State Library in 1805. There the manuscript is placed under the signature Msc. Bibl. 140 kept.

The Bamberg Apocalypse is the most important manuscript in the Bamberg State Library. A facsimile edition was published in 2000 .

On January 26, 2004, the Bamberg Apocalypse was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites together with nine other manuscripts from the Reichenau School of Illumination.

exhibition

The Bamberg Apocalypse was shown between October 2012 and January 2013 in the exhibition Splendor on Parchment in the Hypo-Kunsthalle in Munich .

literature

• Heinrich Wölfflin : The Bamberg Apocalypse. A Reichenau illuminated manuscript from the year 1000 . Second, increased edition, Munich: Wolff 1921.
• Johannes Maas: Bamberg Apocalypse. Miniatures from the Reichenau School around the year 1000 from the Bamberg State Library (Bibl . 140) . Catalog of the slides, Richard Scherpe, Krefeld o. J. (approx. 1955).
• Gertrud Schiller : The Revelation of John. Colored pictures from the Bamberg Apocalypse around 1020. Wittig, Hamburg 1955.
• Alois Fauser (ed.): The Bamberg Apocalypse. The miniatures of the Apocalypse and the Evangelistary in the Bamberg State Library. Bibl. 140 (A II 42) . Wiesbaden: Insel-Verlag 1958 (edition limited to 650 copies).
• Alois Fauser (ed.): The Bamberg Apocalypse. Sixteen colored miniatures on boards (= Insel-Bücherei 775). Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1962.
• Ernst Harnischfeger: The Bamberg Apocalypse . Stuttgart: Urachhaus 1981, ISBN 978-3-87838-311-6 .
• Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, Bernhard Schemmel (ed.): The Bamberg Apocalypse. Facsimile edition of the manuscript Msc.Bibl.140 of the Bamberg State Library. Facsimile and commentary volume, Facsimile-Verlag, Lucerne 2000:
  • Facsimile: ISBN 978-3-85672-076-6 .
  • Comment: ISBN 978-3-85672-077-3 .
• Gude Suckale-Redlefsen and Bernhard Schemmel (eds.): The book with 7 seals. The Bamberg Apocalypse . Lucerne: Facsimile Verlag 2000. ISBN 978-3-447-04363-2 .
• Gude Suckale-Redlefsen: The manuscripts of the 8th to 11th centuries of the Bamberg State Library . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004 (catalog of the illuminated manuscripts of the Bamberg State Library, vol. 1,1 and 1,2), here vol. 1 (texts), pp. 90-100, 177-178 (with lit.); Vol. 2 (illustrations), pp. 11, 18-20, 112-120.
• Herwig Zens: Graphical reflection on the Bamberg Apocalypse . Edited by the Bamberg State Library by Bernhard Schemmel and Werner Taegert, Bamberg: State Library 2005, ISBN 978-3-924530-12-9 .
• Rubina Ballach: The Bamberg Apocalypse . In: Caroline Zöhl (Ed.): Visions from the end of the world. Apocalypse facsimiles from the Detlef M. Noack collection (= University Library Exhibition Guide , No. 50). Catalog for the exhibition of the same name from June 5, 2010 to August 31, 2010. Berlin: University Library of the Free University of Berlin 2010, pp. 28–31 (with lit.).
• Werner Taegert : Bamberg Apocalypse and Evangelist . In: Claudia Fabian, Christiane Lange (ed.): Splendor on parchment. Book illumination treasures from 780 to 1180 . Munich: Hirmer 2012, pp. 168–171 (with lit.), ISBN 978-3-7774-5391-0 .

Web links

Commons : Bamberg Apocalypse  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Digital copy of the manuscript Msc. Bibl. 140 in the Kaiser Heinrich Library of the Bamberg State Library

Remarks

1. ↑ Website of the UNESCO Commission with a list of the individual manuscripts, pp. 2–4 (PDF; 103 kB).
2. ↑ Announcement from October 19, 2012 ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the online archive of the Bavarian State Library.