Limburg storage library
The Limburg Staurothek is an imperial cross reliquary that was created in Byzantium around the year 964 and was originally located in the imperial Pharos palace chapel in the Great Palace of Constantinople , along with other central Christian relics of the Passion of Christ . It is an outstanding example of Byzantine imperial treasure art. A reliquary (of ancient Greek σταυρός stau · ros "cross" and θήκη counter "container box") is a container in which components from the cross of Christ be kept.
history
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium , the Limburg storage library was donated around 964 by Parakoimomenos Basileios Lakapenos . The storage library formed one of the central relics of the Passion of Christ in the most important of the 30 palace chapels in the Great Palace of Constantinople , the Pharos Palace Chapel. During the Fourth Crusade , the knight Heinrich von Ulmen brought the Staurothek to Germany, among many other items. As his foundation, the reliquary came to the Augustinian convent Stuben near Bremm on the Moselle. After the monastery was dissolved in 1802, it was moved to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress near Koblenz, from where it came into the possession of the Prince of Nassau-Weilburg . He donated it to the Limburg diocese in 1835 . The reliquary is now kept in the Diocesan Museum in Limburg an der Lahn .
description
The storage library consists of sycamore wood covered with fire-gilded silver sheet . It is decorated with enameled cells , pearls, emeralds, sapphires, almandines and cut gemstones. Its dimensions are 48 cm in length, 35 cm in width, 6 cm in height, and its weight is approx. 11 kg.
The storage library consists of two parts, a sliding cover and the drawer with the cross relics. The sliding cover secured the contents of the box during transport and was the permanent face of the relic box. The sliding cover was only removed on special occasions and the view of the inner collection of relics was opened for worship.
A large Deesis is depicted in the middle of the lid : Mary, accompanied by the Archangel Michael , and John the Baptist , accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel , stand to the right and left of the enthroned Christ. The angels wear the Byzantine court dress, while Christ, Mary and John are dressed in purple, the emperor's color. The central picture is framed by ornamental strips with medallions of saints inserted. The back of the lid shows a cross made of chased silver with fire gilding and precious stones on a base . An acanthus vine grows from the base of the cross , symbolizing the cross as a tree of life .
On the inside, the cross particles are placed in a double-barred patriarchal cross . It is surrounded by ten fields depicting seraphim and cherubim , each of which covers small containers with relics of Mary and Christ. In a clockwise direction, the fields are labeled as follows - in German translation:
- The purple mantle of the life giver Jesus Christ
- The linen cloth of our Creator and God Jesus Christ
- The sponge of the patient Christ our Savior
- The belt of the always virgin Theotokos from the Chalkoprati church
- The venerable hair of St. John the forerunner
- The belt of the most holy virgin and childbirth of the Bishop of Zela
- The veil of the Most Holy Theotokos
- The shroud of the immortal God and Christ
- The diapers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God
- The crown of thorns of the loving Christ, our God
The inscription in the Staurothek, which praises the death-conquering and victorious power of the cross, reads in German translation:
“God stretched out his hands on the wood of life and exuded forces from himself and through it. The rulers Constantine and Romanos use the jewelry made of shiny stones and pearls to indicate its wonderful power. Because once Christ broke the gates of the underworld with him and led the dead from death to life. With him now those who adorned it crush the arrogance of cheeky barbarians and wear the wreath in their hair. "
literature
- Ernst Günther Grimme : Goldsmithing in the Middle Ages. Form and meaning of the reliquary from 800 to 1500. M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1972, ISBN 3-7701-0669-5 , pp. 32–35.
- Hans Wolfgang Kuhn: Heinrich von Ulmen, the fourth crusade and the Limburg storage library. In: Yearbook for West German State History. Volume 10, 1984, ISSN 0170-2025 , pp. 67-106.
- Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Volume 1. Oxford University Press, New York NY, etc. a. 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , p. 270.
- Holger A. Klein : Byzantium, the West and the “true” cross. The history of a relic and its artistic version in Byzantium and in the West (= Late Antiquity - Early Christianity - Byzantium. Art in the First Millennium, Series B: Studies and Perspectives, Volume 17). Reichert, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-89500-316-5 .
- Bernhard Kreutz: Heinrich von Ulmen (approx. 1175–1234). A crusader between the Eifel and the Mediterranean. In: Franz Irsigler , Gisela Minn (Hrsg.): Portrait of a European core region. The Rhine-Maas area in historical life pictures. Kliomedia, Trier 2005, ISBN 3-89890-087-8 , pp. 80-91.
- August Heuser, Matthias Theodor Kloft (ed.): In the sign of the cross. The Limburger Staurothek and its history. Exhibition on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Limburg Cross Week. Diocesan Museum Limburg, Cathedral Museum Frankfurt 2009/10. Schnell & Steiner publishing house, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7954-2304-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alexei Lidov: A Byzantine Jerusalem. The Imperial Pharos Chapel as the Holy Sepulcher . In: Annette Hoffmann, Gerhard Wolf (ed.): Jerusalem as narrative space -Erzählraum Jerusalem (= Visualizing the Middle Ages Vol. 6). Brill, Leiden-Boston 2012, pp. 63-103, here p. 69, digitized (PDF).
- ↑ Rolf Toman (Ed.): Ars Sacra, Christian Art and Architecture of the West from the Beginnings to the Present, Potsdam 2015, p. 80.