Gottorf Codex

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Image of the Crown Anemones from the Codex

The Gottorf Codex is a four-volume plant atlas, which was commissioned by Duke Friedrich III. was created by Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf from 1649 to 1659.

Under Duke Friedrich, the so-called Neuwerkgarten was laid out north of Gottorf Castle , an early Baroque terrace garden which, in addition to the famous globe house, was also adorned with a variety of exotic plants. The plants, some of which require a lot of care, including various hyacinth , narcissus and tulip species , citrus and aloes , were a sensation in northern Europe in the 17th century and should be cataloged with the Codex. The four volumes with a total of 1180 gouaches on 365 parchment pages (one to ten motifs per page) were drawn by the Hamburg artist Hans Simon Holtzbecker († 1671) over a period of ten years, but the work was discontinued with the Duke's death.

In the Gottorf Gardens, which were later partly overgrown, around twenty plant species from the 17th century have survived to this day. During the reconstruction of the Neuwerk garden, the codex served as an orientation point for the new planting.

The original of the Gottorfer Codex is now kept in the "Kongelige Kobberstiksamling" of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and has been restored since 2009 for 400,000 euros. Three years are planned for this work. As of May 2009, the "State Museum for Art and Cultural History" (Gottorf Castle) in Schleswig presented the first completed pages to the public and will be exhibiting the pages of all four volumes one after the other until October 2011.

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Commons : Gottorfer Codex  - collection of images, videos and audio files