Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts 9783110637526, 9783110620153

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Illuminating Metalwork

Sense, Matter, and Medium

New Approaches to Medieval Literary and Material Culture Edited by Fiona Griffiths, Beatrice Kitzinger, and Kathryn Starkey

Volume 4

Illuminating Metalwork Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts Edited by Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing

ISBN 978-3-11-062015-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-063752-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063708-3 ISSN 2367-0290 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944638 Bibliografic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliografic data are available online at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Microscope detail of the Adoration of the Golden Image. Weltchronik of Jans der Enikel. Regensburg, ca. 1400–10. Los Angeles, JPGM, 88.MP.70 (Ms. 33), fol. 212r. Photo: Nancy K. Turner. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck. www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgments Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts represents years of development and collaboration. The editors are indebted to the Sense, Matter, and Medium series editors—Fiona Griffiths, Beatrice Kitzinger, and Kathryn Starkey—for their generous, spirited, and painstaking stewardship of this volume. We are especially grateful for Beatrice Kitzinger’s early encouragement of the project and her thoughtful input throughout. We also salute the team at De Gruyter—Elisabeth Kempf, Laura Burlon, and Dominika Herbst—for their meticulous and patient guidance of this project, and the two anonymous peer reviewers, whose feedback greatly strengthened the essays. Support for the research and publication of Illuminating Metalwork was generously provided by the International Center of Medieval Art; the School of Art of the University of Arkansas; and The Medieval Iberian Treasury in Context: Collections, Connections, and Representations on the Peninsula and Beyond (PI Therese Martin, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, AEI/FEDER, RTI2018-098615-B-I00). We are grateful to these organizations for their support and investment. This project originated with a panel at the 2016 Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies at Saint Louis University, and we wish to thank Susan L’Engle for her invitation and enthusiasm about the topic. A series of Zoom workshops, including a keynote address by Nancy K. Turner, took place in August 2020 to facilitate dialogue and exchange among the volume contributors. The editors express their sincerest and most enthusiastic gratitude to our authors, with and from whom we have had the distinct privilege of working and learning.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-202

Contents Acknowledgments Contributors

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Abbreviations

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I Introduction Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing Preciousness on Parchment: Materiality, Pictoriality, and the Decorated Book 3

II Technique Nancy K. Turner Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts 51

III Representation Brigitte Buettner Metal Labor, Material Conversions: Goldsmiths in the Life of St. Denis and in Parisian Life, ca. 1300 113 Jacopo Gnisci Copying, Imitation, and Intermediality in Illuminated Ethiopic Manuscripts from the Early Solomonic Period 139 Roland Betancourt The Colors of Metalworks: The Painted Materials of Machinery in Byzantium 167

IV Material Translations Beatrice Leal Metal, Materiality, and Maṣāḥif: Ornamentation in Abbasid Qur’ans

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Beth Fischer Manuscript as Metalwork: Haptic Vision in Early Carolingian Gospel Books 223 Heidi C. Gearhart A “Multimedia” Manuscript: Metalwork and the Siegburg Lectionary Sophia Ronan Rochmes Illuminating Luxury: The Gray-Gold Flemish Grisailles

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V Treasuries in Books, Books as Treasuries Eliza Garrison The Golden Spaces of the Uta Codex

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Sasha Gorjeltchan The Matter of Memory: Illuminated Metalwork in the Vita of St. Albinus of Angers 333 Julia Oswald Packaging the Sainte-Chapelle Relic Treasury, Paris ca. 1500

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VI Phenomenology and Piety Megan H. Foster-Campbell Pilgrimage across Borders: Painted Pilgrim’s Badges in Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 393 Susan Barahal and Elizabeth Pugliano Peripheral Primacy: Metallic Illumination and Material Illusion in the Aussem Hours 421 Lynley Anne Herbert A Curator’s Note: The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts Bibliography

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Index of Manuscripts

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Contents

Index of Names

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Index of Places

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Subject Index

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Contributors Joseph Salvatore Ackley is Assistant Professor of Art History at Wesleyan University. His research focuses on gold, metalwork, and what he broadly terms the “radiant aesthetic” across medieval art, from precious-metal objects to manuscripts, panel paintings, and polychrome wood sculpture. His publications include essays on copper-alloy substrates, church treasury inventories, the Carolingian artist-monk Tuotilo of St. Gall, late medieval relic altarpieces, and late medieval figural sculpture in gold and silver. He is currently preparing a book on gold, broadly conceived, and its medieval objects. Susan Barahal is Director of the Art Education Program and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education at Tufts University. Her research interests include how the arts facilitate and inform learning and understanding across disciplines and content areas. Her current work explores the empathic responses that art objects evoke in viewers. She is a practicing artist and a juried member of the New England Sculptors Association. She holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Boston University, an MEd from Boston University, and a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Roland Betancourt is Professor of Art History and Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2020); Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge University Press, 2018); and Performing the Gospels in Byzantium: Sight, Sound, and Space in the Divine Liturgy (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Brigitte Buettner is the Louise I. Doyle ’34 Professor of Art at Smith College. Her early research focused on late medieval manuscripts in the context of French court culture, including practices of gift-giving and women as patrons. More recently, she has written about the cultural uses and meanings of precious stones and, more broadly, about questions of mineral materiality. Her book The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture is forthcoming with Pennsylvania State University Press. Beth Fischer is the Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the Williams College Museum of Art. Her research focuses on the relationship between early medieval art and its surroundings and, more broadly, the use of digital tools to explore the effects of viewing environments on the experience of medieval objects. She is currently cowriting Visualizing Objects, Places, and Spaces: A Digital Project Handbook (available at handbook.pubpub.org) and preparing a publication on the use of digital material modeling to render medieval objects under different lighting conditions. Megan H. Foster-Campbell is Professor of Art History at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois. Her research focuses on late medieval devotional practices, pilgrim souvenirs, and devotional manuscripts. Past publications include essays on pilgrim souvenirs affixed into books of hours. Eliza Garrison is Professor of Art History in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Middlebury College. Her research focuses on the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires, the historiography of medieval art, political representation, theories of portraiture, and simulative practices in the early Middle Ages. Her scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her first book, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III

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and Henry II, appeared in 2012 with Ashgate and was reissued by Routledge in 2017. She is currently at work on a book on the Uta Codex. Heidi C. Gearhart is Assistant Professor of Art History at George Mason University. Her research focuses on northern European Romanesque manuscripts and ars sacra, and she is particularly interested in artists, medieval art theory, and issues of memory, craft, and manufacture. She is the author of Theophilus and the Theory and Practice of Art (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017), which examines the only complete treatise on art to survive from the High Middle Ages, On Diverse Arts. Her current book project studies how artists were remembered and recorded in the Middle Ages. Jacopo Gnisci is Lecturer in the Art and Visual Cultures of the Global South at UCL, a Visiting Academic at the British Museum, and the co-PI of the AHRC-DFG project “Demarginalizing Medieval Africa: Images, Texts, and Identity in Early Solomonic Ethiopia (1270–1527).” He recently edited the volume Treasures of Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (2019). Lynley Anne Herbert is Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum. Her research focuses on the complexities of visual exegesis, as explored in publications on the Carolingian Sainte-Croix Gospels and on a Swiss sacramentary fragment. As curator of nearly one thousand manuscripts spanning time and place, her research projects have expanded accordingly and include the twelfth-century St. Francis Missal, a seventeenth-century illuminated Lutheran treatise, a neo-Gothic missal, and a prayer book woven out of silk. She is currently developing a book project and exhibition around a unique fourteenth-century lace-cut book of hours at the Walters. Beatrice Leal is an honorary lecturer in the Department of Art History and World Art Studies at the University of East Anglia and an associate of the Manar al-Athar archive at the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford. Her areas of research are late antique and early Islamic art, with a particular interest in imagery that moves between the figural and non-figural. She is working on a book based on her PhD thesis (University of East Anglia, 2016) about architectural images in late antiquity, and a project on the mosaics of the Great Mosque of Damascus. Julia Oswald is a freelance editor of museum publications and a research associate at the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, a private art foundation in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in modern and contemporary works on paper. She received her PhD in art history from Northwestern University in 2020, having completed her dissertation with the support of a two-year Samuel H. Kress Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Her doctoral research focused on representations of treasury objects, and particularly relics and reliquaries, across media in the late Middle Ages. Elizabeth Pugliano is Instructor of Art History at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research encompasses topics of violence, conflict, and combat in medieval art; sensory experience of and in medieval images; perception, reception, and empathy; and identity construction and alterity. Her current projects include a focused study of violence, alterity, and representation in Romanesque art, as well as pedagogical initiatives around failure and risk-taking in academia, laboratory and workshopping practices in humanities disciplines, and an open-access resource that centers visual art and art history within interdisciplinary inquiry. Sophia Rochmes is Project Manager at the Flanders Heritage Libraries in Belgium, where she coordinates interlibrary projects for cataloguing and digitizing historic documents. Her research

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has focused on fifteenth-century Flemish manuscripts and the Burgundian court, and her doctoral dissertation treated the topic of grisaille (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015). She is a senior member of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (Rare Book School, University of Virginia) and has previously held fellowships at the Getty Research Institute and Utrecht University. Nancy K. Turner is Conservator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she is responsible for the care of the museum’s collection of illuminated manuscripts. Her conservation and bookbinding training included an advanced internship at Trinity College Library, Dublin. She received her BA in Art History and Anthropology from Stanford University and earned an MA in History from UCLA. She has published widely on the materiality and methods of facture of manuscripts dating from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. Her special interests include the history, trade, and use of pigments across geographies, historical technical treatises, and the painting techniques of illuminators, often as they relate to other media. Shannon L. Wearing is a Visiting Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto and Managing Editor of the journal Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics. Her research centers on medieval Iberian manuscripts, with a particular focus on decorated charters and cartularies. She is the author of “Holy Donors, Mighty Queens: Imaging Women in the Spanish Cathedral Cartularies of the Long Twelfth Century” (Journal of Medieval History, 2016) and is currently preparing a book based on her doctoral dissertation (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, 2015), which centers on royal artistic patronage and courtly culture in twelfth-century Barcelona.

Abbreviations BAV BL BM BnF BSB JPGM KBR NYPL ÖNB PML SB WAM

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican) British Library (London) Bibliothèque municipale Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris) Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Munich) J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles) Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (Brussels) New York Public Library Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna) Pierpont Morgan Library (New York) Staatsbibliothek Walters Art Museum (Baltimore)

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-205

I Introduction

Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing

Preciousness on Parchment: Materiality, Pictoriality, and the Decorated Book The medieval book was a gathering, both physically and metaphorically—a considered assemblage of material, skill, and erudition. Such gatherings preserved, composed, and transmitted the intellectual culture of the medieval world, from philosophy and sacred scripture to history and poetry. Medieval books resulted not just from intellectual labor but from a spectacular harnessing of physical resources; as such, these manuscripts could simultaneously serve as dazzling platforms for material luxury, from fine parchment, painted decoration, and elegant bindings to, in the most sumptuous cases, precious metals. To grace a book with gold and silver—that is, to illuminate it—was to transform the page into something that scintillated and shimmered, a surface that bounced and reflected light back into the viewer’s space. At the same time, because these metals, especially gold, were both earthly wealth, embodied and measurable, and the stuff of heaven (as in the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21), the application and sheer presence of such metallic media mattered on multiple fronts beyond their visual impact. Materially, visually, and ontologically, therefore, the metals of medieval manuscripts operate differently than the non-metallic paints and other stuffs of the book. They are firmly and equally grounded in the visual and in the physical, entailing the attendant complexities of both. These media and their practices warrant further scrutiny than scholarship has traditionally afforded. For medieval art history, this scholarly oversight is ironic, as metallic decoration has long served as the hallmark of luxurious book painting. Among the most prominent and intentionally significant applications of metal to parchment was the depiction of precious-metal objects, that is, liturgical chalices, figural sculpture, secular tableware, and other real-world luxuries made of gold, silver, gemstones, and other luxurious materials. The “mediumspecific” representations that resulted, in which metallic objects were depicted with metallic media, strikingly contrasted with the rest of the (non-lustrous, non-metallic) page. Given this material and semiotic richness, pictured metalwork provides a fitting

Note: This essay has been greatly enriched by the generous feedback of Jonathan Alexander, Erik Inglis, Nancy Turner, and our Sense, Matter, and Medium series editors–Beatrice Kitzinger, Fiona Griffiths, and Kathryn Starkey–as well as the two anonymous peer reviewers. We are indebted to the constructive and sustained dialogues we have enjoyed with all our volume contributors. Research leading to this publication was supported by the International Center of Medieval Art, the School of Art of the University of Arkansas, and The Medieval Iberian Treasury in Context: Collections, Connections, and Representations on the Peninsula and Beyond (PI Therese Martin, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, AEI/FEDER, RTI2018-098615-B-I00). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-001

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focal point for a sustained exploration of how metallic luxury, actual and simulated alike, was bundled into the medieval codex. Illuminating Metalwork, the title of this volume, signals therefore these twin themes: the use of metal media and the depiction of precious metalwork across medieval book decoration. The essays collected here intervene in existing understandings of the medieval book by foregrounding the material consequence of this type of decoration and its multifaceted significance. These essays are gathered into four thematic clusters: “Representation,” “Material Translations,” “Treasuries in Books, Books as Treasuries,” and “Phenomenology and Piety.” The present essay prefaces these case studies by introducing four related topics that are then threaded throughout the volume: materiality and intermediality, representations and “portraits” of specific objects, the formal tension between material presence and pictorial representation, and the potent optical and devotional encounters triggered by metallic illumination. Above all, this essay, like this book as a whole, seeks to advance the study of metalwork and, especially, the study of manuscripts through a fruitful interchange of disciplinary knowledge. At the heart of this enterprise is a deliberate attention to technique, materials, and experiential encounter, guided by the conviction that a sustained incorporation of technical data deeply enriches the art historical project; that the most radiant aspects of manuscript illumination continue to hold underexplored significance; and that the critical layering of metalwork and manuscript painting reveals a fundamental cross-media adjacency that deepens our understanding of two major fields of medieval art.

Illuminare A brief consideration of key terms, together with a striking example of illuminated metalwork, introduces the stakes. In the strictest sense, the phrase “illuminated manuscript”—from the Latin illuminare, meaning “to light up,” as if with a lamp or candle, or “to decorate with something bright”— refers specifically to those manuscripts decorated with metal, although today the term is commonly applied to decorated manuscripts in general.1 The use of illuminare in the sources can be flexible, although it appears, frequently and pointedly, in conjunction with gold: among the items bequeathed to Glastonbury Abbey by Bishop Brihtwold of Ramsbury (d. 1045), for example, were “a book of collects illuminated with gold [collectaneum auro illuminatum], a pallium woven with gold [pallium auro textum],” and other liturgical luxuries.2 The

1 Nigel Morgan, “Painting with Gold and Silver,” in Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2016), 192–99, at 193. 2 Brihtwold’s testament is recorded in William of Malmesbury’s De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae, which was originally authored during the 1130s before undergoing significant revisions and

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testament of Henry of Segusio (d. 1271) records “a Bible, without gloss or commentary, that I received in Paris, illuminated with gold and azure in one volume” (Bibliam quam emi Parisius sine glossis et sine postillis, illuminatam auro et azuro in uno volumine); the mention of both gold and azure suggests here that illuminare can indicate the use of precious, or perhaps simply bright, colors, in addition to gold.3 The additional medieval definitions of illuminare extend toward metaphorical variations of “to light up”: “to enlighten,” “to make illustrious,” “to heal from blindness,” and even “to baptize”—that is, enlightenments not of a physical but of a mental, symbolic, spiritual, or eschatological kind, for which books, not coincidentally, could play key roles.4 The physical luster of an illuminated book might thus allegorize its intellectual and spiritual content and consequence. Already in antiquity a variety of textual sources, from administrative documents to literary prose, abound with references to books written or decorated, inside and out, with gold and silver.5 Church treasury inventories of the early and High Middle Ages tend to emphasize the exterior bindings alone. An inventory of Solnhofen Abbey, for example, dated ca. 1070–1150, tersely records “four Gospel books decorated with gold and gemstones. And a book of homilies similarly decorated with gold” (Libri IIII aevangeliorum auro et gemmis ornati. Et liber omeliarum similiter ornatus auro).6 A ca. 1000–50 inventory of Aschaffenburg lists “two books of Gospels, one decorated with gold, the other decorated with silver” (Libri evangeliorum II, unus deauratus, alter deargentatus), and an early thirteenth-century inventory from Tholey Abbey lists “four books decorated with silver” (quatuor libros deargentatos).7 But other records, such as chronicles and narrative descriptions, may specify interior decoration, be it script or images, in addition to the exterior. The Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, made ca. 870 at

expansions in subsequent centuries. For this passage see John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury’s De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1981), 139. 3 For this passage in Henry of Segusio’s testament, which is dated 29 October 1271, see Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, I testamenti dei cardinali del Duecento (Rome: Presso la Società alla Biblioteca Vallicelliana, 1980), 135. 4 See Du Cange, Lewis and Short, and Niermeyer, among other Latin dictionaries, for examples of usages of illuminare. 5 For a survey of late antique and early medieval manuscripts written in gold or silver see Vera Trost, Gold- und Silbertinten: Technologische Untersuchungen zur abendländischen Chrysographie und Argyrographie von der Spätantike bis zum hohen Mittelalter (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), 6–27. 6 Bernhard Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Schatzverzeichnisse: Von der Zeit Karls des Großen bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Prestel, 1967), 88, cat. no. 83. 7 See, respectively, Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Schatzverzeichnisse, 14 and 94–95, cat. nos. 3 and 90. The brevity of these inventory records can make their language ambiguous, yet it is likely here that deauratus (“gilded”) and deargentatus (“silvered”) are referring to the covers, given the fact that such treasure bindings, as opposed to interior decoration, were more likely to be mentioned in inventories. For church treasury inventories in general see Joseph Salvatore Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western Medieval Church Treasury Inventory, c. 800–1250,” Journal of Art Historiography 11 (2014): 1–37.

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the Court School of Charles the Bald, is perhaps first documented in a tenth-century record of treasury objects taken from Saint-Denis by King Odo of France (r. 888–898), which describes “a Gospel book excellently decorated with gold and gemstones and, inside, written in gold” (evangelium auro et gemmis optime paratum et intus auro scriptum).8 Interestingly, the stand-alone phrase codex aureus, commonly used today for this and other select, brilliantly decorated (“golden”) manuscripts, does not seem to appear verbatim in the medieval sources (far more common would be variations of liber auro paratus, “a book decorated with gold,” and so forth), and it may be an early modern or antiquarian invention. The first record of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram that approaches the simplified moniker of “golden book” dates to 1531, where the humanist Johannes Aventinus (d. 1534) refers to it as das gulden puech.9 Another such “golden” book is the Munich Golden Psalter, made in England ca. 1200.10 Although its ostensible function is to enable private contemplation for the reader fortunate enough to behold it, a simultaneous and not at all secondary function of this codex is to serve, and simply exist, as a luxury object. Indeed, this luxurious mandate might be foregrounded in our historical appreciation of such deluxe manuscripts. The presence of extensive pictorial cycles itself signals this: the images, which do not illustrate the psalms but supplement them with additional Biblical context, potentially serve as memorial reminders and devotional aides, but the extravagance with which they are rendered seems equally crucial to their existence and function.11 The lavish images of the Munich Golden Psalter contain an especially revealing example of illuminated metalwork that effectively introduces many of the issues at

8 See Blaise de Montesquiou-Fezensac and Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, Le Trésor de Saint-Denis (Paris: Picard, 1977), 3:129–30; and Percy Ernst Schramm and Florentine Mütherich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser: Ein Beitrag zur Herrschergeschichte von Karl dem Großen bis Friedrich II. 768–1250 (Munich: Prestel, 1962), 95. The identification of this description with the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000) remains tentative. The first secure mention of it comes from two eleventh-century sources from Regensburg; see the literature in notes 9 and 23 below. 9 For the documented late medieval and early modern references to the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, as well as discussion of the codex aureus epithet, see Georg Leidinger, Der Codex Aureus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München (Munich: Hugo Schmidt, 1921–25), 6:7–9 and 51–78. We thank Riccardo Pizzinato for his thoughts on this matter. 10 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 835. See Nigel J. Morgan, ed., Der Goldene Münchner Psalter: CLM 835 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Lucerne: Quaternio, 2011), esp. 211–48. The 150 psalms, following early medieval practice, are divided into three groups of fifty, each separated by several densely illustrated folios of Old and New Testament image cycles. The manuscript is digitized: https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00012920/images/. 11 This speculation can apply to almost any luxury manuscript. The patron of the Munich Golden Psalter is not conclusively known; a high-status laywoman, perhaps Margaret de Briouze (d. before 1241), has been proposed as either the patron or the recipient of the psalter, given the emphasis in the book’s narrative vignettes on heroic Old Testament women, among other contextual clues. Morgan, Der Goldene Münchner Psalter, 224–26 and 243–45.

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the heart of this volume. The vignette in question, which illustrates an episode from the Book of Daniel, features two statues made of metal (Fig. 1a–b). To the left stands Nebuchadnezzar’s colossus (Daniel 2): Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had dreamed of a colossal statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, abdomen and thighs of bronze (ex aere), legs of iron, and feet partially of iron and partially of clay.12 To the right of the colossus stands Nebuchadnezzar’s gold idol (Daniel 3), which the king had erected to be (idolatrously) worshipped.13 In keeping with the textual specificity of the biblical passage, as well as the luxurious mandate of the book, the illuminator seized the opportunity to use metallic media for the depiction of these two statues. Gold is already in use for the architectural frames of the image cycles, but Nebuchadnezzar’s idol can be rendered completely with the stuff, though defined with black contouring and wispy white highlights. For Nebuchadnezzar’s colossus the painter uses gold and silver for the gold head and silver chest, but switches to colorful paint—less precious and non-metallic, but iconographically legible and distinct—for the bronze, iron, and clay sections of the statue. Material preciousness is therefore present, but conformed and subordinated to an image—and in this case, an image whose significance depends upon its metallic identities. The Daniel text notes that in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the colossus is destroyed by a rock cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. Daniel, captive and raised at Nebuchadnezzar’s court, is able to interpret the dream: the gold part of the colossus (the head) represents Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom of the Babylonians, which will be replaced by a lesser kingdom (represented by the silver part of the colossus), which will in turn be supplanted by other kingdoms (the bronze and iron portions). Such earthly kingdoms, however, are ultimately fleeting and inconsequential, as they will be smashed and replaced by the kingdom of God, represented by the rock not cut by human hands, whose mountain will extend across the earth. Jerome’s commentary on Daniel, written in 407, glosses the transition of kingdoms (translatio imperii) symbolized by the colossus with an updated history: the

12 We translate ex aere, fully cognizant of the historical instability of the lexicon, as “bronze”; the Douay-Rheims Bible translates it as “brass.” The marginal captions flanking the vignettes on fol. 105v simply describe the colossus and idol, respectively, as statua and statuam auream. 13 Above the statues are depictions of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel sleeping; below appears the episode of the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace. For an analysis of late medieval examples of the Nebuchadnezzar sequence see Nina Rowe, “Shrugging at the Sacred: Dreams, Punishments, and Feasting in the Daniel-Nebuchadnezzar Cycles of Illuminated Weltchroniken, circa 1400,” Gesta 57 (2018): 43–68; eadem, “Devotion and Dissent in Late-Medieval Illuminated World Chronicles,” Art History 41 (2018): 12–41, at 29–38; and eadem, The Illuminated World Chronicle: Tales from the Late Medieval City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), 113–19. For the wider Daniel iconography see, among others, Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 281–87.

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Fig. 1: (a) Colossus and idol of Nebuchadnezzar, detail from the Munich Golden Psalter, photographed from the manuscript facsimile to show the luminescence of the golden paint; (b) the full folio, with episodes from the Book of Daniel. Munich Golden Psalter. Oxford (?), ca. 1190–1210. Munich, BSB, Clm 835, fol. 105v. Photos: (a) Joseph Ackley, from Der goldene Münchner Psalter (Luzern: Quaternio Verlag, 2011); (b) Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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gold head represents the Babylonians, the silver chest the Persians, the bronze the Greeks, and the iron the Romans.14 Another example of a many-metaled Nebuchadnezzar colossus appears in a sumptuous manuscript made at Reichenau ca. 1000 containing the Song of Songs and book of Daniel, both glossed; it, too, demonstrates an inventive balance of metallic preciousness and colorful legibility (Fig. 2a).15 Nebuchadnezzar sleeps at left; the mountain representing the kingdom of God, here surmounted by Christ, stands at right; and the rock not cut by human hands has just begun to shatter the multimedia colossus, which sports a classicizing helmet and stands atop a pedestal. A pigment analysis for this folio remains outstanding.16 However, it appears that gold (as a burnished pigment) has been used for the head, silver (burnished and well preserved) for the chest and arms, and then either a reddish paint, or possibly a mixture or layering of red and gold, for the “bronze” abdomen. The clay feet are rendered with paint, and yet, for the iron legs, it looks as if silver has been mixed with a grey pigment; the use of silver for both chest and legs is strongly suggested by the show-through seen on the folio’s recto (Fig. 2b).17 These depictions of Nebuchadnezzar’s multimedia colossus stoke questions of pictorial legibility, material presence, the function of an image, and, not least, the fundamental importance of technical analysis to an enriched and expanded art historical understanding of all of the above. Such investigations, which can determine precisely which metals were used and how they were applied, are always ongoing; and indeed, the increasing integration of technical analysis into art historical inquiry provides one of the most fertile, exciting areas of manuscript research. 18

14 Jerome, Commentaire sur Daniel, ed. and trans. Régis Courtray (Paris: Cerf, 2019), 174–79; for the sources of Jerome’s In Danielem in historical context, see Courtray’s commentary at 73–78. 15 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Msc. Bibl. 22. This manuscript was commissioned by either Otto III or Henry II and then most likely donated by Henry to Bamberg Cathedral. See Gude SuckaleRedlefsen, Die Handschriften des 8. bis 11. Jahrhunderts der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 1:85–88, cat. no. 63; and Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study (London: Harvey Miller, 1999), 2:31–45. The Nebuchadnezzar miniature, together with the depiction of Daniel facing it across the opening (fols. 31v–32r), has figured prominently in discussions of medieval vision. See, for example, David Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung: Visionsdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer, 2008), 38–40. The manuscript is digitized: https:// zendsbb.digitale-sammlungen.de/db/0000/sbb00000033/images/index.html. 16 We thank Gude Suckale-Redlefsen for sharing her thoughts regarding the pigments used. 17 Wilhelm Vöge’s description states that gold is used for the bronze abdomen and silver mixed with black paint for the legs. Wilhelm Vöge, Eine deutsche Malerschule um die Wende des ersten Jahrtausends: Kritische Studien zur Geschichte der Malerei in Deutschland im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert (Trier: Fr. Lintz’schen Buchhandlung, 1891), 107. 18 Exemplary of this would be the recent MINIARE project at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/miniare), and its related publications. See Stella Panayotova, ed., Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Harvey Miller, 2016); Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi, eds., Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, 2 vols.

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Fig. 2: Dream of Nebuchadnezzar (a) with silver show-through on the folio recto (b). Commentaries on the Song of Songs and Daniel. Reichenau, ca. 1000. Bamberg, SB, Msc. Bibl. 22, fols. 31v and 31r. Photos: Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Gerald Raab).

(London: Harvey Miller, 2017–18); and Stella Panayotova, ed., The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook (London: Harvey Miller, 2020).

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Fig. 2 (continued)

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Fig. 3: Silver show-through (a) from an initial P (b) beginning Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Large Hartmut Bible. St. Gall, ca. 850–880. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 83, pp. 127–28. Photos: www.e-codices.ch, by permission of the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen.

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Fig. 3 (continued)

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The results can surprise: brass, for example, might be substituted for gold, or tin for silver, and the myriad ways in which these media were alloyed, layered, and applied to the page will continue to warrant further examination. One vivid avenue of inquiry is the tarnish of silver, both from a technical perspective but also in terms of how such degradation would have impacted the medieval lifespan and appreciation of the book. The show-through produced by silver tarnish demonstrates the occasional instability, and even volatility, of metallic media. At times, this volatility yields spectacular effects: for instance, in the Large Hartmut Bible, made in St. Gall ca. 850–880, the shadow of a dainty dog spewing forth a foliate spiral makes a surprise appearance on page 127, anticipating the actual animal, painted in silver, on the following page, which doubles as an initial P naming the apostle Paul (Fig. 3a–b).19 Metallic illumination, it seems, can be magnificently stable (gold) and dynamically unstable (silver), producing light, shadow, and innumerable nuances in between, its visual effects and material substance alike leaping off the page or, as in the St. Gall dog, bleeding through.

Materiality and Intermediality Recent scholarship on medieval manuscripts has pushed beyond established inquiries of image and text to embrace the wider physicality and presence of these books.20 Such studies have analyzed often overlooked ingredients of the manuscript, such as the animal-skin membranes of the parchment, the wood, leather, and thread used for binding, and the metals, gemstones, enamel, horn, and ivory that adorned the most precious of book covers.21 Textiles, whether local or exotic,

19 St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 83. The Large Hartmut Bible is a six-volume Bible, of which Cod. Sang. 83 is the sixth. See Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts (St. Gall: Verlag am Klosterhof, 2008), 1:389–90, cat. no. 94. The manuscript is digitized: https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/searchresult/list/one/csg/0083. 20 Among the multiple studies that have appeared on this theme, see Patrizia Carmassi and Gia Toussaint, eds., Codex und Material (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018); David Ganz, “Clothing Sacred Scriptures: Materiality and Aesthetics in Medieval Book Religions,” in Clothing Sacred Scriptures: Book Art and Book Religion in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Cultures, ed. David Ganz and Barbara Schellewald (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 1–46, as well as the other essays of that volume; and Kathryn M. Rudy, Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). 21 For a recent study of book covers and their many metaphorics, see David Ganz, BuchGewänder: Prachteinbände im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer, 2015). See as well Guy Lanoë, ed., La reliure médiévale: Pour une description normalisée (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008); Paul Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings: 400–1600 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979); and Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1965). On parchment, see Nancy K. Turner, “The Materiality of Medieval Parchment: A Response to ‘the Animal Turn’,” Revista Hispánica Moderna 71, no. 1 (2018): 39–67.

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might be interspersed throughout these books, both inside and out, and physical tokens, such as pilgrim’s badges, could be affixed within. To all this must be added the oils, dirt, grease, and other signs of human use, including abrasion from rubbing or kissing, that forcefully index the real-world use and circulation of books as physical objects.22 These qualities of the manuscript—in sum, its materiality—provide a prerequisite context for any discussion of use and interpretation, and they collectively direct further attention to the existence of the book as a physical presence. Precious-metal bindings were perhaps the most immediate herald of a manuscript’s luxury. The cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, for example, presents a three-dimensional cityscape of microarchitecture, gemstones, and repoussé images (Fig. 4a–c): gemstones and pearls are mounted atop small gold chalices and filigreed arcades and secured with fleshy gold acanthus leaves.23 The mid-eleventh-century Translatio S. Dionysii Areopagitae likens the Codex Aureus book cover explicitly to the Heavenly Jerusalem, whose gates, pavements, and walls are constructed of gold, pearls, and gemstones. The exuberant description of the Translatio also notes that the chalices of the book cover recall the suffering of the martyrs, the mounted gemstones the heavenly lodgings of the saved.24 Such treasure bindings, be they bound covers or book boxes, remind us that the most precious books of a monastery or church would have been stored not in the library with other texts, but in the treasury or sacristy alongside valuable liturgical objects, such as vestments, chalices, reliquaries, and other ornamenta, and that these books were as likely to be inventoried with the treasury (thesaurus) as they were with the library. Precious books were thus hybrid, multimedia things, poised between text and object.25 The incorporation of textiles into manuscripts provides an instructive parallel to the present discussion of metal in manuscripts. Textiles might line the interiors of

22 The work of Kathryn M. Rudy is authoritative in this regard. In addition to Rudy, Postcards on Parchment, see eadem, “Eating the Face of Christ: Philip the Good and His Physical Relationship with Veronicas,” in The European Fortune of the Roman Veronica in the Middle Ages, ed. Amanda Murphy, Herbert L. Kessler, Marco Petoletti, Eamon Duffy, and Guido Milanese (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 169–79; and eadem, “Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 2 (2010): 1–44. 23 See Ganz, Buch-Gewänder, 158–91. The manuscript was rebound in 1608, and the book cover was most recently restored in 2014–18 as part of the “Erschließung und Digitalisierung von Einbänden als eigenständige Kunstobjekte” research project at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; see https://einbaende.digitale-sammlungen.de/Prachteinbaende/Clm_14000_Einband_ Hauptaufnahme. For the digitized manuscript see: https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/ 0009/bsb00096095/images/. 24 Discussed in Ganz, Buch-Gewänder, 175. For the text see Veronika Lukas, ed., Die jüngere Translatio s. Dionysii Areopagitae (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 442–47. 25 Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western Medieval Church Treasury Inventory,” 19. See also Éric Palazzo, “Le livre dans les trésors du Moyen Âge: Contribution à l’histoire de la memoria médiévale,” in Les trésors de sanctuaires, de l’Antiquité à l’époque romane, ed. Jean-Pierre Caillet and Pierre Bazin (Paris: Picard, 1996), 137–60.

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Fig. 4: (a) Treasure binding of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram; (b) detail of the chalice mounts; (c) side view of the treasure binding. Court School of Charles the Bald, ca. 870 (manuscript rebound in 1608), gold, gemstones, and pearls. Munich, BSB, Clm 14000. Photos: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

book covers, clad the spine and exterior, or be wrapped and secured to a book as chemise bindings.26 Silks might be used as protective curtains for miniatures and

26 For textile bindings see Ganz, Buch-Gewänder, 32–63; and Leonie von Wilckens, “Zur Verwendung von Seidengeweben des 10. bis 14. Jahrhunderts in Bucheinbänden,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53

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Fig. 5: Silk veil (a) covering the initial page of the Gospel of Luke (b). Gospel book. Manuscript: Tours, ca. 834–843. Silk: central Asian or Byzantine, 800s. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°, fol. 79r. Photos: Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel.

sumptuous initials, and may have, in effect, served to stage a spectacular unveiling (revelatio).27 A ninth-century Touronian Gospel book incorporates four veils cut from the same ninth-century central Asian silk, each covering the initial pages of the four Gospels (Fig. 5a–b).28 Many if not most of these curtain silks, which were sewn into the parchment, have been removed over the centuries, their only remaining

(1990): 425–42. For a selection of late medieval and early modern examples see those discussed in Maxence Hermant, “Les reliures de la famille d’Angoulême,” in Trésors royaux: La bibliothèque de François Ier, ed. Maxence Hermant (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015), 92–111. For chemise bindings see also Frederick Baerman, “The Origins and Significance of Two Medieval Textile Chemise Bookbindings in the Walters Art Gallery,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): 163–87. 27 On textile curtains in manuscripts see Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain on the Use of Textiles in Manuscripts,” in Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and Their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161–90; and also Anna Bücheler, Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile Metaphors in Early Medieval Manuscripts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 74–81. 28 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°. Discussed in Bücheler, Ornament as Argument, 75. The silk, which may postdate the manuscript’s binding, has yet to be firmly attributed; it may originate from Byzantium rather than central Asia. For literature on the manuscript see Jutta Frings and Jan Gerchow, eds., Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern (Munich: Hirmer, 2005), 260, cat. no. 130. The manuscript is digitized: http://diglib.hab.de/mss/16aug-2f/start.htm.

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traces the holes left by the sewing needle. Christine Sciacca has found that in certain manuscripts, such as the ca. 1215–17 Berthold Sacramentary, curtains were affixed only for those miniatures or initials that incorporate gold or silver.29 Other manuscripts might simulate textiles in paint. The illuminator of the ca. 1040–50 Codex Aureus of Echternach, a late Ottonian Gospel book, painted luxurious Byzantinizing textiles before each of the four Gospels, each distinct and extending continuously across a full opening, as if a real textile had been laid over the book (Fig. 6).30 Such painted evocations, not necessarily of an identifiable object but instead of a broader medium, texture, or surface, constitute another potential dimension of a book’s materiality. Textile pages therefore serve not only as simulacra but as fantastic imaginings of the formal limits and possibilities of real-world stuffs, and of the medium of painting itself. Similarly, illuminators could use paint, metallic pigment, and metal leaf to simulate and evoke metalwork and metalworking techniques. A canon table from a late eleventh-century Byzantine Gospel book shows a fantastic architectural edifice, which might be read as a monumental arch, portico, or doorway, with votive crowns suspended at the sides, partridges flanking a vase at top, and foliate acroteria sprouting fancifully (Fig. 7).31 The architecture serves to visualize a ceremonial, even ritual threshold or passage into the text of the Gospels and their revelatory truth, allegorizing the function of the concordance table it contains. Some of the painted architecture evokes the possible real-world materials of the depicted objects, such as the porphyrylike column shafts and the gold and gemstones of the crowns. But, most spectacularly, the large rectangular superstructure is rendered in gold and pigment, all to simulate not monumental architecture but cloisonné enamel. The decoration clearly echoes contemporaneous enamel objects in its color, style, and vegetal motifs (as well as its physical scale on the folio), such as a ca. 1000 fragmentary nimbus once attached to an icon

29 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.710. Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain,” 181. The Berthold Sacramentary is digitized: https://www.themorgan.org/collection/berthold-sacramentary. 30 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 156142. Bücheler, Ornament as Argument, provides the most comprehensive analysis of textile pages and their symbolism. For the Codex Aureus of Echternach textile pages see ibid., 123–43; and also Anja Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol: Die sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex Aureus von Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei und Textilkunst,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012), 54–74. 31 Princeton, Princeton University Library, Department of Special Collections, Scheide Library, 83.4 (MS Scheide 70). For literature see Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb, eds., Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 156, cat. no. 72; and Sofia Kotzabassi and Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, Greek Manuscripts at Princeton, Sixth to Nineteenth Century: A Descriptive Catalogue (Princeton, NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 2010), 210–17. The manuscript is digitized: https://dpul.princeton.edu/ msstreasures/catalog/2b88qh240. On canon tables in general, see Canones: The Art of Harmony; The Canon Tables of the Four Gospels, ed. Alessandro Bausi, Bruno Reudenbach, and Hanna Wimmer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020).

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Fig. 6: Textile pages preceding the Gospel of Mark. Codex Aureus of Echternach. Echternach, ca. 1030–50. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 156142, fols. 51v–52r. Photo: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.

(Fig. 8).32 The canon table does not reproduce an identifiable cloisonné-enamel object, but the cloisonné-enamel medium in general. Such evocations of precious metalwork abound in medieval manuscripts, and yet, despite their ubiquity, they have not attracted the same degree of systematic analysis as textile pages. Throughout this consideration of materiality and intermediality in manuscript painting, semiotic self-referentiality—that is, the depiction of a thing (such as a chalice) with the very material that it would actually be made of (gold)—emerges as a recurrent theme. Among the most self-referential of images would be those that depict their host books themselves. An opening in a pericopes book donated by Henry II to Bamberg Cathedral in the early eleventh century, for example, shows the emperor, at left, offering the book across the gutter to the Virgin, to whom Bamberg’s cathedral had been dedicated (Fig. 9).33 Henry and the Virgin, despite their shared scale and

32 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.190.683. See Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, Geschichte und Denkmäler des byzantinischen Emails (Frankfurt: [publisher not identified], 1892), 312 and 316–19. 33 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Msc. Bibl. 95, fols. 7v–8r. The book was made in Seeon and donated to Bamberg, whose high altar in the east choir was dedicated to the Virgin in 1012. See Suckale-Redlefsen, Die Handschriften, 1:108–11 and 177, cat. nos. 68 and 68E; and also Bücheler,

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Fig. 7: Canon table. Gospel book. Constantinople (?), late 1000s. Princeton, Princeton University Library, Department of Special Collections, Scheide Library, 83.4 (MS Scheide 70), fol. 6r. Photo: Princeton University Library.

Ornament as Argument, 113–14; and Ganz, Buch-Gewänder, 95–99. The manuscript is digitized: https://zendsbb.digitale-sammlungen.de/db/0000/sbb00000056/images/index.html.

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Fig. 8: Nimbus from an icon cover. Byzantine, tenth to early eleventh century, gold and cloisonné enamel, 11.5 x 12.8 x 0.2 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 17.190.683. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

similar architectural setting, including the gold-flecked porphyry-like infill between arch and outer rectangular frame, are kept separate; only the book, it appears, can cross from left to right, from the more earthly sphere to the heavenly, from his hands into hers. The luxurious book, similar to other ornamenta ecclesiae, thus becomes the primary interface between human and divine. The dress of both figures introduces inequality to the balance: whereas the Virgin, inherently majestic, requires no golden embellishments on her modest mantle and tunic, Henry must present himself in finery, including a crown (an aspirational pendant to the Virgin’s nimbus) and a cloak with gold embroideries, rendered as flattened rhomboids outlined in red. Visually, these embroideries connect with, and are magnified by, the gold used elsewhere across the opening, including the ground, the frame, Henry’s crown, and the porphyry flecks. The cloak’s embroideries also resonate with the gold decorations, again outlined in red, on the cover of the book he holds, as well as the book’s overall shape, which is itself turned into a rhombus through the artist’s apparent attempt at foreshortening: it is this very book that the fortunate, real-world viewer might now be holding in theirs. There is a twist, however. The binding of the actual book donated by Henry—the book that is today preserved in Bamberg—is a textile binding, coeval with the manuscript, which consists of a red Byzantine silk (perhaps donated by Henry himself) that clads not a hard cover of wood boards but a soft cover of doubled folios. From its fine condition it can be surmised that the book was probably kept in a book box, no longer extant (its current book box dates to the early modern period). Depicted in Henry’s

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Fig. 9: Henry II and the Virgin. Seeon Pericopes Book. Seeon, before 1012. Bamberg, SB, Msc. Bibl. 95, fols. 7v–8r. Photo: Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Gerald Raab).

hands on folio 7v, however, is not a book box or a textile-bound manuscript, but a manuscript bound with a bejeweled, precious-metal book cover. The miniaturist would have painted this image before the manuscript was bound, and may have anticipated a treasure binding rather than the textile binding it received. Regardless, the lack of literal likeness does not compromise the efficacy of the image: indeed, this “portrait” of Henry’s book idealizes it, dressing it up in gold, all the better to sublimate it into a quasi-timeless dialogue between a king and the Virgin.

Object Portraits The meta-manuscript Henry offers to the Virgin in the Seeon Pericopes Book can be understood alternately as an idealized depiction of a generic luxury manuscript or as a highly specific rendering of the pericopes book itself. Depictions of treasury objects such as this represent an especially complex category of illuminated metalwork. When rendered with metallic pigment or leaf, these depictions possess a distinctive semiotic immediacy—indeed, a medium-specificity—that richly and pointedly contrasts with the color pigments surrounding them. A gold-leaf chalice, for instance, signals its referent both iconically, via its shape, and indexically, via its metal

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material—a duality unavailable to the remainder of the miniature. Such images accrue added significance when intended to represent historically specific, real-world objects. In addition to “portraits” of particular objects34 we might also be able to identify visual “inventories” of specific collections.35 A luxurious sacramentary, made ca. 844–845 in Tours for Abbot Raganaldus of Marmoutier, provides a more generalized, typological presentation of liturgical metalwork in the context of a clerical taxonomy.36 The manuscript’s opening illumination is a two-tiered composition outlining the hierarchy of ecclesiastical grades: the major orders occupy the upper register (with the centrally placed bishop flanked by the seated presbyter or priest and the standing deacon), while the minor orders (headed by the elevated subdeacon) are arranged across the lower register (Fig. 10).37 Each member of the lower group is identified by a golden inscription and an attribute of his respective station: the doorkeeper (ostiarius) holds two gold keys attached by a chain, the lector a lectionary bearing gem-shaped outlines on its red cover, the exorcist an open libellus containing the exorcisms he is tasked with performing, the 34 An early sixteenth-century illumination in the Pontifikale Gundekarianum, for instance, shows Wilhelm von Reichenau, Bishop of Eichstätt, performing the Mass before a silver statue of the Virgin, rendered in gray paint with golden accents (Eichstätt, Diözesanarchiv, Ordinariatsbibliothek, MS Codex B4, fol. 41r); Jeffrey Chipps Smith has identified this depicted statue with the silver and parcelgilt Virgin of 1486 given to the cathedral by Wilhelm himself, now in the Kimbell Art Museum (AP 2002.03). Jeffrey Chipps Smith, The Art of the Goldsmith in Late Fifteenth-Century Germany: The Kimbell Virgin and Her Bishop (Fort Worth, TX: Kimbell Art Museum, 2006), 56–58. 35 See, for example, Thomas Elmham’s ca. 1414–18 drawing of the high altar of St. Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury, which illustrates a collection of reliquaries and crosses along with the six manuscripts sent by Pope Gregory to St. Augustine (Cambridge, Trinity Hall, MS 1, fol. 77r, digitized at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TRINITYHALL-00001/159). See Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova, The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), 254–55, cat. no. 115; and the discussion in Elizabeth Carson Pastan and Stephen D. White, The Bayeux Tapestry and Its Contexts: A Reassessment (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014), 272–75. For further discussions of represented treasuries, see, e.g., Jennifer Kingsley, “Picturing the Treasury: The Power of Objects and the Art of Memory in the Bernward Gospels,” Gesta 50, no. 1 (2011): 19–39; and Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 161–98. 36 Autun, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms. S19 [19bis]. See Ulrike Surmann and Johannes Schröer, eds., Trotz Natur und Augenschein: Eucharistie – Wandlung und Weltsicht (Cologne: Greven, 2013), 46–51 and 370. The manuscript is digitized: https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/21890/canvas/canvas-1964867/view. 37 Although the arrangement of the lower figures and their corresponding inscriptions implies a triangular hierarchy, Roger Reynolds demonstrated that apart from the central subdeacon, these figures should be read from left to right, which is likewise the order in which they appear in the text on the subsequent folios (2r–4v): doorkeeper, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon. This is the sequence in which a cleric would pass as he progressed along the clerical cursus honorum. Roger E. Reynolds, “The Portrait of the Ecclesiastical Officers in the Raganaldus Sacramentary and Its LiturgicoCanonical Significance,” Speculum 46, no. 3 (1971): 432–42, at 435–36 and 439–40. See also Cécile Voyer, “La mise en ordre du monde: Le sacramentaire de Marmoutier au IXe siècle,” in L’église, lieu de performances: In locis competentibus, ed. Stéphanie-Diane Daussy (Paris: Picard, 2016), 85–101.

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Fig. 10: The clerical orders. Raganaldus Sacramentary. Tours, ca. 844–845. Autun, BM, Ms. S19 [19bis], fols. 1v–2r. Photo: IHRT-CNRS.

acolyte a gold candlestick, and the subdeacon a chalice and ewer. These last two items, both rendered as gold objects, are the most prestigious by virtue of their direct connection with the sacrament of the Eucharist. Collectively, the five figures and the objects they carry serve as a schematic visualization of the text on the subsequent folios, which describes the ordination rites corresponding with each clerical grade. During these rituals the cleric received a particular object or objects pertinent to his new office, and it is these objects that are borne by the clerics in the accompanying illumination. The scribe/artist used gold to identify each figure through both word (inscription) and image (the metal objects held by three of the five figures). Moving on to the text of the facing page, the reader discovers that the doorkeeper, having been entrusted with the keys, is himself transformed into glittering gold within the initial O for ostiarius, a symbolic keyhole for the entire codex.38 The acolyte and candlestick also reappear later in the manuscript, in the upper right corner of folio 98r, in conjunction with the benediction of the Easter candle (Fig. 11). In contrast with the candlestick’s initial appearance as an isolated metal 38 The ostiarius is an example of the metallic, two-dimensional Silhouettenbilder characteristic of the Raganaldus Sacramentary and related Touronian manuscripts. See Wilhelm Köhler, Die Karolingischen Miniaturen, vol. 1, Die Schule von Tours, part 2, Die Bilder (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1933), 94–108, esp. 96–102 for the Raganaldus Sacramentary.

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Fig. 11: The blessing of the paschal candle. Raganaldus Sacramentary. Tours, ca. 844–845. Autun, BM, Ms. S19 [19bis], fol. 98r (detail). Photo: IHRT-CNRS.

object in the context of the clerical hierarchy, here the artist has topped it with a lit candle, activating its pragmatic and liturgical function. The illuminated object thereby becomes an illuminating object, proclaiming the resurrection of Christ, the “Light of the World” (John 8:12). The acolyte, having just performed the sacred duty of lighting the candle, elevates his hand toward it—a gesture that might express pride as well as piety—as his own golden and haloed figure materially merges with his sacred paraphernalia, including the open book he holds in his left hand. Gold is, in turn, used for the rubric (Benedictio cerei) and the opening words of the paschal hymn (Exultet iam angelica turba caelorum), which we can imagine the acolyte singing in praise of the candle he has just lit, aided by the book he holds, which would surely be open to this very page. Depictions of liturgical metalwork also proliferate throughout the twelfth-century Iberian cartulary known as the Liber Testamentorum of Oviedo Cathedral, a work commissioned by the powerful bishop Pelayo (d. 1153) to compile evidence, both

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factual and forged, of royal donations to his episcopal see.39 In this instance, in addition to idealized typological representations of liturgical objects, we find depictions that are detailed enough to be connected with specific objects from Oviedo’s treasury; this manuscript thus represents a valuable case study of illuminated metalwork’s capacity to express institutional identity. The cartulary’s extraordinary series of full-page illuminations, most of which represent kings and queens of the Asturian-Leonese line making donations to the cathedral, are replete with gold and silver, which the artist liberally used not only to depict metal objects but also, more fancifully, for garments, architectural details, and inscriptions; this conspicuous abundance of precious metal marks the cartulary as a luxury book, thereby assimilating it with the other objects in the cathedral’s treasury. The folio featuring the donation of King Ordoño II (r. 914–924) is especially noteworthy for its veritable treasury of precious-metal objects (Fig. 12).40 Like the image of the clerical grades in the Raganaldus Sacramentary, it is a doubledecker composition with hierarchical implications: in this case, the clergy appears in the upper register while the secular figures stand below. Above, the bishop of Oviedo performs Mass before an altar, assisted by a priest (identified in the inscription as minister eius) bearing a golden chalice with veiled hands,41 and by a deacon (diaconus) holding the bishop’s crosier in one hand and an open codex in the other, both objects rendered in silver and gold. All three figures are endowed with silver nimbi. Below, the golden-nimbed queen stands opposite her crowned husband, both offering gold coins along with a charter of donation boldly inscribed in silver with the word testamentum.42 Like the bishop, they are assisted by two hierarchically inferior figures: the queen’s maid (pedisequa) and the king’s arms-bearer (armiger eius), who hold secular objects that morphologically and symbolically echo the liturgical treasures above. The arms-bearer safeguards the king’s scepter, which is virtually identical to the crosier immediately above it with its silver staff and golden top; the secular scepter is 39 Oviedo, Archivo Capitular de la Catedral de Oviedo, MS 1. The most thorough study of the illuminations is Joaquín Yarza Luaces, “Las miniaturas del Libro de los Testamentos,” in Liber Testamentorum Ecclesiae Ovetensis: Libro de los Testamentos, ed. María Josefa Sanz Fuentes and Emiliano Fernández Vallina (Barcelona: Moleiro, 1995), 144–230. On the ideological motivations of the cartulary and its illustrative program, see especially Patrick Henriet and Hélène Sirantoine, “L’Église et le roi: Remarques sur les cartulaires ibériques enluminés (XIIe s.), avec une attention particulière au Liber Testamentorum de Pélage d’Oviedo,” in Chartes et cartulaires comme instruments de pouvoir: Espagne et Occident chrétien (VIIIe–XIIe siècles), ed. Julio Escalona and Hélène Sirantoine (Toulouse: Méridiennes, 2013), 165–88. 40 On this image, see Yarza, “Las miniaturas del Libro de los Testamentos,” 186–90 and 225–26. 41 Yarza (“Las miniaturas del Libro de los Testamentos,” 187) argues that this figure can be identified as a subdeacon, citing the frontispiece of the Raganaldus Sacramentary (see also 184–85). 42 The red inscription within the pictorial field identifies the queen as Teresa, but Ordoño II had no known wife by this name; the mother of his children was Elvira. On the depiction of queens in this and related manuscripts, see Shannon L. Wearing, “Holy Donors, Mighty Queens: Imaging Women in the Spanish Cathedral Cartularies of the Long Twelfth Century,” in “Me Fecit: Making Medieval Art (History),” ed. Therese Martin, special issue, Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 1 (2016): 76–106.

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Fig. 12: King Ordoño II of León offering a donation to Bishop Hermenegildo of Oviedo. Liber Testamentorum of Oviedo Cathedral. Northern Spain, first quarter of the twelfth century. Archivo Capitular de la Catedral de Oviedo, MS 1, fol. 26v. The facsimile edition, shown here, recreated the original appearance of the silver paint, which in the original has since darkened due to oxidation. Photo: Joseph Ackley, from Liber Testamentorum Ecclesiae Ovetensis (Barcelona: Moleiro, 1994), © M. Moleiro Editor (www.moleiro.com).

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distinguished only by its double volute. The queen’s maid holds in her right hand a silver bowl or cup, and in her left a white disc inscribed with a cruciform design, most likely an accompanying lid.43 In conjunction with the chalice held by the minister immediately above the maid, these objects cannily allude to the liturgical activities taking place in the upper register. The disc might be read alternately as a Eucharistic wafer or a paten, while the bowl is transformed by association into a ciborium; this sacred resonance is emphasized by the partial veiling of the maid’s left hand, echoing that of the minister’s. While these sacred and (ostensibly) secular metallic objects seem to refer to generic types rather than specific historical examples, the cross before the altar has been linked to a pair of extant medieval objects in the Oviedo treasury: the so-called Cruz de los Ángeles and Cruz de la Victoria, two jeweled golden crosses donated to the cathedral by the kings of Asturias in the early ninth and early tenth centuries, respectively.44 The illumination does not present a faithful likeness of either of these objects but rather a sort of pastiche combining elements of both. It manages to simultaneously represent a Latin cross like the Cruz de la Victoria in its full shape, and a Greek cross like the Cruz de los Ángeles through the placement of the four golden semicircles. The latter cross today retains loops from which pendants would have hung, and it is likely that these would have included an alpha and omega like that depicted in the cartulary.45 The Liber Testamentorum’s first full-page illumination (now a pastedown facing fol. 1r) includes another extraordinary portrait of a known object from the Oviedo treasury. The two-tier composition features King Alfonso II (r. 791–842), accompanied by an armsbearer and flanked by the Virgin and St. Michael, kneeling in adoration of the Christ in

43 John Williams noted the similarity between these objects and those held by the maid of Queen Sancha of León (d. 1067) in a fresco at the royal pantheon of León Cathedral, which likely predates the Liber Testamentorum; cat. entry in The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), 297. Sancha appears opposite her husband, King Fernando I (r. 1037–65), who, like Ordoño II in the Liber Testamentorum, is accompanied by a shield-bearing armiger. 44 See especially César García de Castro Valdés, ed., Signum salutis: Cruces de orfebrería de los siglos V al XII (Oviedo: Consejería de Cultura y Turismo del Principado de Asturias, 2008), 121–26 and 157–65, cat. nos. 15 and 24; and Raquel Alonso Álvarez, “The cruces gemmatae of Oviedo between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 9, no. 1 (2017): 52–71. On the cross depicted in the Liber Testamentorum, see Yarza, “Las miniaturas del Libro de los Testamentos,” 188–89; and Henriet and Sirantoine, “L’Église et le roi,” 178–79. 45 These Greek letters, evoking the End of Days (Rev. 1:8), likewise appear on the frontispiece crosses of earlier Iberian manuscripts; on the connection between these depicted crosses and their metalwork counterparts, see Kristin Böse, “Das Kreuz an der Schwelle: Strategien der Vergegenwärtigung in nordspanischen Handschriften des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 46 (2013): 373–89; and eadem, “In Between, Center, and Periphery: The Art of Illumination on the Early Medieval Iberian Peninsula,” in After the Carolingians: Re-defining Manuscript Illumination in the 10th and 11th Centuries, ed. Beatrice Kitzinger and Joshua O’Driscoll (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 400–32, at 410–16.

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Fig. 13: King Alfonso II of Asturias kneeling before Christ in Majesty. Liber Testamentorum of Oviedo Cathedral. Northern Spain, first quarter of the twelfth century. Archivo Capitular de la Catedral de Oviedo, MS 1, fol. IIIv. The reflective quality of the silver recreated by the facsimile underscores the resemblance of the miniature’s upper tier to the Arca Santa. Photo: Joseph Ackley, from Liber Testamentorum Ecclesiae Ovetensis (Barcelona: Moleiro, 1994), © M. Moleiro Editor (www.moleiro.com).

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Majesty in the upper register (Fig. 13).46 The mandorla framing Christ is supported by eight winged figures: the tetramorph, two cherubim, and two seraphim. This group is set within a round arch that is in turn flanked by arcades populated by the Twelve Apostles. The iconography, the figural arrangement, and the use of silver and gold for the framing arches explicitly refer to the most prized object of Oviedo’s treasury, the Arca Santa, a large silver-gilt casket reliquary probably dating to the late eleventh century.47 As with the depicted metalwork cross in the scene of Ordoño’s donation, here the artist has not attempted to precisely copy the reliquary, but instead translated a metallic, horizontally oriented, three-dimensional object to a polychrome, vertical, one-dimensional format. The illuminator’s evocation of this specific, highly mythologized object bridges the transcendental and the material while endowing the composition with a powerful ideological thrust: Alfonso is not only kneeling before the revelatory image of Christ —whose silver robe and golden mantle are a chromatic inversion of the king’s golden robe and silver mantle—but an invaluable treasure of which the bishop of Oviedo was guardian. The manuscript’s commissioner, Bishop Pelayo, thereby asserted his own dominion over the medieval sacred economy, promoting and prompting the continued generosity of Iberian kings and queens as a means of salvation.

Presentation/Representation In surveying treasury objects represented with the selfsame materials of gold and silver, a fundamental tension arises between metal as a physical presence and metal as a pictorial medium. This tension is repeatedly explored and exploited across multiple traditions of manuscript painting. Three examples, from the Carolingian era, trecento Italy, and late fifteenth-century France, effectively stage and chart how this relationship between the presentational and the representational plays out across a longer history of pictorial style in Western medieval book painting.48 Consider, first, the preface to the Canon of the Mass in the aforementioned Raganaldus Sacramentary from mid-ninth-century Tours (Fig. 14). At top, the words Vere dignum have been abbreviated to the initials “V” and “D,” which are fused 46 Yarza, “Las miniaturas del Libro de los Testamentos,” 162–170 and 220; Henriet and Sirantoine, “L’Église et le roi,” 176–78. 47 The literature on the Arca Santa is extensive; two especially useful recent studies are Raquel Alonso Álvarez, “Royal Power and the Episcopacy: Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Relics from Oviedo Cathedral,” in Ideology in the Middle Ages: Approaches from Southwestern Europe, ed. Flocel Sabaté (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2019), 203–34; and César García de Castro Valdés, El Arca Santa de Oviedo: Contexto de producción, iconografía y significado (Oviedo: KRK Ediciones, 2020). 48 For a recent overview of the art historical treatment of gold and Western pictoriality see Anna Degler and Iris Wenderholm, “Der Wert des Goldes – der Wert der Golde: Eine Einleitung,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 79 (2016): 443–60. See as well Ellen J. Beer, “Marginalien zum Thema Goldgrund,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 46 (1983): 271–86.

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Fig. 14: Vere dignum. Raganaldus Sacramentary. Tours, ca. 844–845. Autun, BM, Ms. S19 [19bis], fol. 8v. Photo: IHRT-CNRS.

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together and marked with a horizontal bar that produces a cross, signaling the missing letters; this abbreviation was already customary in the earliest sacramentaries. The letter forms themselves are significant: medieval liturgists, such as Joannes Belethus (fl. 1135–82) and Sicardus of Cremona (d. 1215), would allegorize the “V” (closed at the bottom, boundless at the top) as symbolizing Christ’s earthly, human nature, the “D” (a closed form, and thus endless) as his heavenly, divine nature, and the cross formed by their fusion as his suffering and Crucifixion, which linked the human and the divine.49 Throughout the page, gold and silver, applied as granular pigments and then burnished, have been pressed into a variety of forms, from the abstract to the figurative. Among the non-figurative forms are the script itself, the thin frames that further offset the “V” and “D,” the larger rectilinear frame below, and the interlace. Other elements verge toward representation, as if ornamental fragments from larger, real-world objects. These include the small leaves extending from frame and script alike, the vine scroll inhabiting the large frame, the two animal heads terminating the “V” (similar to animal-head terminals one might find on a throne), and the eight coin-like medallions, each occupied by an apostle or prophet, that stud the composition.50 Silver, tarnished with age, fills central segments of the “V” and “D” (these silver passages are further decorated with ornament, now difficult to see), as well as three more coin-like medallions studding the rectangular frame. The greatest degree of representational depiction, however, appears at bottom center, where a chalice sits within a bowl-like paten. Both objects are rendered in perspective and outlined in minium, their interiors indicated via bare parchment. Across this single folio, therefore, precious metal ranges from being present as script and frame to representing real-world objects—as such, the gold and silver become varyingly significant, with multiple semiotic strategies in play. Sometimes, the gold glaringly stands out amidst paint. A Florentine miniature dating ca. 1330–40, cut from a laudario, shows Mary Magdalene being carried by angels to receive her final Communion from St. Maximin (Fig. 15).51 The scene, stripped to the narrative essentials, is primarily conjured from paint but studded with gold, deployed only for select objects, namely, Maximin’s chalice, his vestment decorations, and, isolated atop a vested altar at right, an altar cross set into a base. Gold is therefore used for those objects that would have been made out of gold (or a gold-like substance, such as silver gilt) in the real world, as well as the figures’

49 Rudolf Suntrup, “Te igitur-Initialen und Kanonbilder in mittelalterlichen Sakramentarhandschriften,” in Text und Bild: Aspekte des Zusammenwirkens zweier Künste in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, ed. Christel Meier and Uwe Ruberg (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1980), 278–382, at 280 and 280n6. 50 These bust medallions lack inscriptions, but similar medallions elsewhere in the sacramentary are labeled with the names of prophets and apostles. See Joseph Décréaux, “Le sacramentaire de Marmoutier conservé à la Bibliothèque Municipale d’Autun,” Mémoires de la Société Éduenne 51 (1970): 237–92, at 255. 51 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.4. See Panayotova, Colour, 282–83, cat. no. 78.

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Fig. 15: Last Communion of Mary Magdalene. Cutting from the Laudario of Sant’Agnese. Pacino di Bonaguida and workshop, Florence, ca. 1330–40. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.4. Photo: Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

haloes and, external to the image, the two framing dots in the upper corners, the one at left quite abraded; such dots would have studded the rest of the folio, together with painted foliage and abstract flourishes.52 Certain elements of the image, such as the modeled flesh and blue sky, gesture toward illusionism (the illuminator, Pacino di Bonaguida, was heavily influenced by Giotto), but the artifice of the image remains evident. Such artifice is most betrayed not by the depiction of angels (who could, after all, inhabit the earthly sphere on select occasions), but by the haloes, abstracted signs made into objects of ambiguous but legible substance (they behave, consistently, like solid gold discs hovering behind heads, vertical and parallel to the picture plane, while simultaneously symbolizing an intangible light).53 At a more basic level, however, the fabrication of the image is

52 See the other folios and cuttings from the reconstructed Laudario of Sant’Agnese, attributed to Pacino di Bonaguida and the Master of the Dominican Effigies, in Christine Sciacca, ed., Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350 (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012), 219–81. 53 On haloes, perspective, and gold ground, see, among others, the classic essay by Wolfgang Braunfels, “Nimbus und Goldgrund,” Das Münster 3 (1950): 321–34.

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underlined by the simple presence of gold itself, whose substance—uniformly flat but dazzlingly lustrous—pierces, punctuates, and disrupts the surrounding painted illusionism. Amid the modeled drapery and perspectivally rendered architecture, Maximin’s gold chalice, for example, stubbornly stays radiant-flat. Whereas different shades of blue paint can indicate the overlapping folds of Maximin’s tunic, any spatial depth ascribed to the chalice must be achieved through contour and line. On the tunic, the rectangular gold patch above the extended foot (a visual abbreviation of an embroidered parura or apparel, perhaps brilliant with gold- and silver-wrapped threads) is contoured with black only on three of its four sides, all to suggest the curved folding of the garment. The fourth side of the gold parura appears to collide with the gold of the vertical orphrey running down the front of the orange chasuble, although parura and orphrey are faintly distinguished by the dark blue line of the left edge of the tunic, which continues, somewhat visibly, beneath the gold. Throughout these painterly delineations, the gold itself remains unmodulated. Indeed, the gold elements, from chalice to halo to framing dot, share in the same reflective brilliance and, quite literally, the same stuff (gold leaf laid and polished atop a spongey bole), becoming visually and perhaps even symbolically connected, as if assumed into their own plane. Thus linked, irrespective of their pictorial context, the gold passages scattered across the folio destabilize the otherwise sealed and framed integrity of the image. The gold, in sum, adamantly insists upon its own material presence, and it tugs the folio’s decoration away from the virtual space of painted representation and into the tactile, real-world existence of the viewer. It encompasses both the representational and the presentational. The rhetoric of medieval authors and modern art history alike has tended to structure this relationship between presentation and representation according to a series of contrasts. These dichotomies include matter/form, medium/image, signifier/signified, res/significatio, materiality/pictoriality, and so on, each set of terms specific to its own methodological tradition, and yet all founded on a causal coupling of a thing (matter, medium, signifier, res, materiality) and its content and meanings (form, image, signified, significatio, pictoriality).54 In the later Middle Ages, this relationship plays out as the opposition of painterly illusionism to material presence, a polarity that becomes entrenched within Western pictoriality from at least the fifteenth century onward and is famously exemplified by Leon Battista Alberti’s call, in De pictura (1435), to use yellow paint in lieu of gold, all the better to simulate persuasively while trumpeting the painter’s skill.55 Such Albertian

54 For a medieval-specific introduction to this sprawling topic see Aden Kumler and Christopher R. Lakey, “Res et significatio: The Material Sense of Things in the Middle Ages,” Gesta 51 (2012): 1–17. 55 For Alberti on gold vs. yellow paint, see, among others, Iris Wenderholm, “Himmel und Goldgrund: Konkurrierende Systeme in der Malerei um 1500,” in Paragone als Mitstreit, ed. Joris van Gastel, Yannis Hadjinicolaou, and Markus Rath (Berlin: Akademie, 2014), 119–39, at 128–34.

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viewing is a tenacious construct, but also a postmedieval one: we might ask whether medieval viewers saw any such tension between lustrous gold and modulated paint.56 Despite the stability implied by the heuristic dichotomies commonly plucked from the methodological toolkit, certain aspects of an image—in our case, the use of metallic decoration—can bridge and blur the presentational/representational divide. Objects such as Maximin’s chalice or Nebuchadnezzar’s colossus, physically depicted on a page with the same material stuff their depiction represents, do just that, collapsing signifier and signified and thereby vacillating between the material and the pictorial, between medium and image, res and significatio, and so forth, to simultaneously exist in and as both. These metallic moments—the chalices, haloes, gold grounds, and more—consistently emerge, across centuries of book painting, as key sites for negotiating the competing uses of precious materials as embodiments of luxury and as pictorial tools in the service of a legible image. Indeed, this potent dynamic of material presence and pictorial representation, and the sustained degree of scrutiny and experimentation it accrued, characterizes medieval figuration at large. In the West, the fifteenth century served as a pronounced inflection point toward illusionism. The illuminator Georges Trubert, working in Provence toward the end of the century, and therefore well within a figurative tradition that had become largely beholden to the strictures of mimetic verisimilitude, treats his gold not as a flat, inviolable substance, but as a pigment to be applied and modulated, similar to any other paint (Fig. 16). Whereas Pacino, in the trecento laudario, was content to apply gold as unmodulated leaf across the pictorial surface, Trubert utilizes shell gold (powdered gold suspended in a medium), which can be applied as a liquid paint either thinly or heavily, diluted or undiluted, and combined or layered with a variety of other pigments.57 In an Adoration painted ca. 1480–90, Trubert models the crowns and gifts of the Magi—objects that Pacino would have rendered as flat—as threedimensional objects by combining colored pigments with shell gold.58 The gold is similarly applied for garments, hair, jewelry, haloes (no longer the opaque discs of the laudario but now translucent), the star above, and even the thatching of the roof. The golden highlights indicate consistent light sources emanating from the left and from above. The gold of the image frame, by contrast, remains flat and apart. Throughout

56 We thank Erik Inglis for his valuable thoughts on this. 57 For a discussion of the gold painting techniques of Trubert’s milieu, especially Jean Bourdichon, see Nancy Turner, “The Manuscript Painting Techniques of Jean Bourdichon,” in A Masterpiece Reconstructed: The Hours of Louis XII, ed. Thomas Kren (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 63–79. 58 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 93.ML.6 (Ms. 48). For the most extensive description of this manuscript see Eberhard König, Leuchtendes Mittelalter, vol. 5, Psalter und Stundenbuch in Frankreich vom 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (Rotthalmünster: Antiquariat Heribert Tenschert, 1993), 430–53, cat. no. 26. The manuscript is partially digitized: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/ob jects/1531/georges-trubert-workshop-of-jean-H0-1490.

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Fig. 16: Adoration of the Magi. Book of hours. Georges Trubert, Provence, ca. 1480–90. Los Angeles, JPGM, 93.ML.6 (Ms. 48), fol. 59r. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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the entire miniature, as this most precious metal is thoroughly pressed into representational service, its sheer material presence is deemphasized.

Visionary Encounters Contrary to the illusionistic imperative of early modernity, medieval painters relished the diverse materialities of their images and fervently embraced the conundrum of how to represent the divine (the ineffable, the unknowable) through earthly matter. Metal was particularly instrumental on this front. As discussed at the outset of this essay, it is metallic media—especially gold paint and leaf—that put the lumen in illumination. These materials enliven the surface of parchment, endowing it with the capacity to dazzle and even disorient the viewer; gold leaps off the page, defying the two-dimensionality of the surface, even as it calls attention to the constructed nature of the medium, disrupting pictorial illusionism. These captivating perceptual effects would have been heightened by the medieval conditions of reading and viewing, especially the flickering flames of candlelight that would have animated the illuminated page, making gold and, prior to its oxidation, silver, come alive, appearing fluid and dynamic.59 For medieval audiences, the optically transcendent character of precious metals could have rich theological connotations: gold and silver’s distinctive engagement of corporeal vision easily translated to an invitation to inner, spiritual vision. Richard of Saint-Victor (d. 1173), in his commentary on the Apocalypse, theorized a hierarchy of four modes of vision ranging from the purely corporeal to the purely spiritual.60 The third of these is the ability of the “eyes of the heart” (oculis cordis) to perceive the “truth of hidden things” (occultarum veritas) through objects and images, or as he puts it, “by means of forms and figures and the similitudes of things” (formis et figuris, et similitudinibus rerum).61 The fourth and highest mode of vision, anagogy—which Richard defines as “the ascent or elevation of the mind for supernatural contemplation” (ascensio sive elevatio mentis ad superna contemplanda)—

59 On the enlivening presence of gold in the Byzantine tradition see especially Bissera V. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013). 60 Madeline H. Caviness, “Images of Divine Order and the Third Mode of Seeing,” Gesta 22, no. 2 (1983): 99–120, at 115. A useful historiography of medieval vision is Cynthia Hahn, “Vision,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 71–93. 61 Quoted and translated in Barbara Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 37. In The Twelve Patriarchs, Richard similarly speaks of “ris[ing] up by means of the quality of visible things to knowledge of invisible things”; trans. in Grover A. Zinn, Jr., “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,” in Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: A Symposium, ed. Paula Lieber Gerson (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 33–40, at 37.

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is, by contrast, wholly spiritualized and unmediated.62 About two decades before Richard articulated his taxonomy of vision, however, Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis (d. 1151) spoke of the anagogical mode as attainable through optical reception. For Suger, the gemmed precious metalwork in the Saint-Denis treasury served as a meditative aid that allowed him to “linger in some strange region of the world that exists not entirely in the dregs of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven”; he describes this ascent as “anagogical,” though, contrary to Richard’s notion of the term, it is triggered by material, real-world objects.63 Likewise, in the poem that Suger had inscribed on the abbey church’s new gilded bronze doors, he stresses that their sumptuous golden surfaces, which were cast with scenes of Christ’s Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, should be appreciated not as a gratuitous display of wealth but for their capacity to elevate and illuminate the minds of viewers. The doors’ spiritual and soteriological function is effected by the confluence of their reflective materiality, their iconography, and their function as the entrance to the church: Portarum quisquis attollere queris honorem, Aurum nec sumptus, operis mirare laborem: Nobile claret opus, sed opus quod nobile claret Clarificet mentes, ut eant per lumina vera Ad verum lumen, ubi Christus ianua vera. Quale sit intus in his determinat aurea porta: Mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit, Et demersa prius, hac visa luce resurgit.64 You who wish to extol the glory of these doors: Marvel not at the gold or the expense, but at the labor of the work. Noble shines the work, but the work that shines nobly Illuminates minds, so that they may proceed through the true lights To the true light, where Christ is the true portal. The golden door thus reveals that which is within:

62 Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective, 37. 63 “sub aliqua extranea orbis terrarum plaga, que nec tota sit in terrarum fece, nec tota in celi puritate demorari, ab hac etiam inferiori ad illam superiorem anagogico more Deo donante posse transferri.” Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 13835, fol. 53r. Manuscript digitized at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10033225f. English translation modified from Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 63–65. 64 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 13835, fols. 41v–42r. For an analysis of the verses and Suger’s sources, see Susanne Linscheid-Burdich, “Beobachtungen zu Sugers Versinschriften in De administratione,” in Abt Suger von Saint-Denis: Ausgewählte Schriften; Ordinatio, De consecratione, De administratione, ed. Andreas Speer and Günther Binding (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000), 112–46, at 120–25. On the relationship between the inscription and the doors’ iconography, see Paula Gerson, “Abbot Suger’s Central Portal Bronze Doors: A Study in Text and Image,” in Per una severa maestra: Dono a Daniela Romagnoli (Fidenza: Mattioli 1885, 2014), 19–29.

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The dull mind rises to truth through material things, And, having seen this light, resurrects from its former submersion.65

We might question whether Suger’s ecstatic accounts of aesthetic encounter were the product of genuine piety or a means of justifying the abbey’s material ostentations, which, to be sure, were a potent sign of power and wealth directed toward the congregation (and donors in particular). Either way, his words testify to the capacity of luminescent objects and images to inspire spiritual elevation. And while Suger’s intellectual sources have been debated, medieval readers and viewers of manuscripts need not have been well-versed in Neoplatonic philosophy, Dionysian light metaphysics, or Victorine theology to appreciate the transcendent potential of metal on parchment.66 Artists were surely cognizant of this potential when they illuminated books with gold and silver. In the presentation scene of the Seeon Pericopes Book, for

65 Translation by Shannon Wearing with the collaboration of Joseph Ackley. We thank Greti DinkovaBruun for her valuable advice regarding the Latin. For a review of past translations (with particular attention to lines 2 and 6), see Søren Kaspersen, “‘Quale sit intus in his’: A Note about Abbot Suger’s Bronze Doors in Saint-Denis,” Iconographisk Post: Nordic Review of Iconography 3/4 (2020): 9–26. While Panofsky translates the laborem in line 2 as “craftsmanship” (Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 23 and 47), the term is multivalent, potentially referring also to the labor that the doors perform to elevate the minds of viewers and, as Grover Zinn has posited, to Christ’s own divine works portrayed in the doors’ narrative scenes (Zinn, “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,” 34). (Note that some recent translations posit that Suger is advising his reader to marvel at the aurum as well as laborem, an interpretation not followed here; for discussion see Linscheid-Burdich, “Beobachtungen zu Sugers Versinschriften,” 122–23, and Kaspersen, “Quale sit intus in his,” 12–13). The lumina vera of line 4 can likewise be recognized as multivalent when one takes into account the diverse usages of lumina in classical and medieval Latin in conjunction with Suger’s deliberate contrast with the more abstract and idealized verum lumen of the following line (i.e., Christ): the vera in lumina vera connotes literal, real, actual light, and the lumina can therefore refer to the ambient daylight experienced prior to entering the church as well as the light reflected off the gilded doors. Moreover, the plural lumina was also used in architectural contexts to refer to openings, such as windows; lumina vera can thus additionally refer to the actual doors in and of themselves as a means of passage and of entrance, and/or to the oculus-like medallions containing the Christological scenes. Line 6 is notoriously difficult to translate. As Zinn (ibid., 35) notes: “Even Panofsky was somewhat uncertain about the proper rendering of this crucial line, but the thrust seems to be clear: the golden door defines or determines how it, the True Light, is present and understood through the vehicle of material reality.” Several scholars have identified the his as referring back to lumina vera, but Kaspersen proposes that it instead refers to mentes; Kaspersen, ibid., 15. The “thus” used in the present translation serves to leave this meaning open to interpretation. 66 Panofsky’s argument that Suger’s writings relied on the light metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite has been productively countered in recent decades. See especially Zinn, “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition”; Peter Kidson, “Panofsky, Suger and St Denis,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987): 1–17; Andreas Speer, “Is There a Theology of the Gothic Cathedral? A Re-reading of Abbot Suger’s Writings on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. J. F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (Princeton, NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 2005), 65–83; and Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Suger and the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, 1144–51,” Gesta 59, no. 1 (2020): 43–72.

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instance (see Fig. 9), the artist staged a mystical encounter between the mortal and divine by constructing a legible architectural framework but filling it with luminescent gold. Henry and Mary appear to float within amorphous heavenly spaces, rather like that “strange” liminal zone described by Suger. While the resulting effect is in some sense anti-architectural and anti-illusionistic, these glowing niches reveal a transcendental truth beyond the viewer’s sensorial reception of the real world, as the parchment page becomes a veritable gateway or tunnel into a celestial realm. The viewer’s own manipulation of the pages would result in a modulation of this golden surface, further activating the image space, mesmerizing the eye, and potentially triggering the pious impulses of the book’s user. Some three hundred years later, the Norman artist responsible for the decoration of the Cloisters Apocalypse took a similarly metaphysical approach to illumination, liberally using metals to depict—and perhaps prompt—visionary experiences.67 The narrative of John’s apocalyptic vision culminates on folio 36, where he is led by an angel to the New Jerusalem. The recto depicts the heavenly city as a fortified Gothic castle in a full spectrum of color; upon turning the page, however, the manuscript’s viewer discovers that as John approaches, the same building has entirely transformed into a shimmering, monochromatic fortress (Fig. 17). The corresponding Biblical verse describes the holy city as “pure gold, like to clear glass” (aurum mundum simile vitro mundo; Rev. 21:18); faced with this material ambiguity, the artist opted to employ not gold but silver, an apparent attempt to convey the optical effect of glass. The illuminator also deployed a dramatic array of metallic media toward the beginning of the manuscript, in the miniature illustrating John’s vision of the Son of Man (Rev. 1:12–20) on folio 3v (Fig. 18). The page displays a virtual treasury of metallic objects: the seven golden candlesticks representing the seven churches, the golden girdle worn by the Son of Man, and the sword emerging from his mouth. The artist’s literal approach to illustration extends to the body of the Christlike figure, from his white hair, which John compares to wool and to snow, to his feet, which are “like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace.”68 The figure might thus be viewed as an authentically divine counterpart to the multimedia colossus of Nebuchadnezzar (Figs. 1–2), each corporeal element rich with metaphorical resonance. To depict his brass-like feet, the illuminator appears to have combined gold paint with silver, and an identical or similar alloy was used for the

67 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 68.174. See Florens Deuchler, Jeffrey M. Hoffeld, and Helmut Nickel, The Cloisters Apocalypse: An Early Fourteenth-Century Manuscript in Facsimile (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971). The manuscript is digitized: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471869. 68 Rev. 1:15. The term for “brass” given in the Vulgate is orichalco, which the manuscript’s scribe writes as auricalco. On the medieval terminology for brass and other alloys, see Joseph Salvatore Ackley, “Copper-Alloy Substrates in Precious-Metal Treasury Objects: Concealed and Yet Excessive,” Different Visions 4 (2014): 1–34.

Preciousness on Parchment

Fig. 17: John led by the angel to the New Jerusalem. Cloisters Apocalypse. Normandy, ca. 1330. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 1968, 68.174, fol. 36v. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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candlesticks, parts of which have tarnished and produced show-through on the folio’s recto.69 Most spectacular, paradoxically, is that which cannot be seen: the face of the Son of Man, which according to John “was as the sun shineth in his power” (Rev. 1:16). In the illumination, however, his physiognomy has been transfigured beyond legibility due to the artist’s experimental approach to his materials; as with the metallic Heavenly Jerusalem, it appears that the artist was determined to use silver even when the text would seem to call for gold.70 The result, if unintended, is no less effective: the obscurity of Christ’s face conveys the ultimate ineffability of the divine.71 Even John, who is given a privileged view into transcendental, divine truth, is overcome: “And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as dead” (Rev. 1:17). He must turn his eyes away, just as our own gaze is prevented from perceiving the face of God. As centuries passed and artistic styles took an increasing turn toward mimesis, metallic media nevertheless continued to play a key role in the staging of devotion. This is exemplified by the late fifteenth-century book of hours by Georges Trubert discussed above, which includes a devotional image of the Virgin that grounds visionary impulses in pictorial illusionism (Fig. 19). The miniature centers on an image of Mary cradling the Christ child in her arms while two angels, rendered in camaïeu d’or (shades of a single hue modeled with gold), gently lower a gemmed golden crown onto her head. As in the Epiphany scene (see Fig. 16), the folds of the Virgin’s garment are speckled with gold. But whereas the Virgin and Child in the Epiphany appear as part of a conventional narrative scene against a convincing landscape background, here they are alienated from any such context and transformed into a devotional image. This is accomplished by Trubert’s deployment of a trompe-l’oeil picture frame, rendered in gold and studded with gems and pearls, an entreaty to the Virgin incised into its lower edge. The beveled frame and its ornaments cast shadows that enhance the impression of three-dimensionality. The pinnacle of Trubert’s trompe l’oeil, however, is found at the top of the composition, where the chain attached to the icon is inserted into two fictive slits in the

69 The manuscript has not yet undergone technical analysis to determine the precise pigments employed. We thank Yana van Dyke, Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for sharing her preliminary thoughts on the two folios under discussion. 70 Illuminators of the Apocalypse in this period tended to render the Son of Man’s face as white or as modeled flesh, but in the thirteenth-century Trinity Apocalypse (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.16.2), the face is fully gilded, with blood-red eyes. The Cloisters Apocalypse is closely related in style and composition to the Val-Dieu Apocalypse (London, British Library, Add. MS 17333) and the Saint-Victor Apocalypse (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 14410); in the corresponding illumination in the Paris manuscript, Christ’s face is similarly darkened. 71 On the theological implications of darkness and obscurity in depictions of Christ and God the Father, see Herbert Kessler, “Christ’s Dazzling Dark Face,” in Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI–XIV), ed. Anna Rosa Calderoni Masetti, Colette Dufour Bozzo, and Gerhard Wolf (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), 231–46.

Preciousness on Parchment

Fig. 18: John’s vision of the Son of Man. Cloisters Apocalypse. Normandy, ca. 1330. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 1968, 68.174, fol. 3v. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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parchment, allowing it to “hang”—rather unrealistically, it should be emphasized, given the presumed weight of such a frame—from the folio itself. Trubert’s commitment to the illusion is not limited to this side of the page, for he opted to continue the chain through to the verso, painting gold links and an accompanying shadow against an otherwise blank margin.72 The painted page, enhanced with precious metal, thus becomes a shrine, prompting the veneration of the viewer. Considering Trubert’s dedication to mimesis, it is perhaps surprising that he surrounds this installation with a decorative device that radically disrupts the central illusion: at the bottom of the page appears the Burning Bush, a well-known prefiguration of the Virgin, which spews forth dozens of little red flames. These tongues of fire— all highlighted with gold paint—scatter upward along the margins of the composition, imbuing it with an almost surrealist aspect, as it collides two fundamentally distinct modes of vision, the optical and the allegorical. These flames—again, unrealistically— fail to consume the frame protecting the Virgin; the artist has cleverly articulated a theological concept (Mary conceives and gives birth while retaining her virginity) in a literal fashion, positioning the golden frame as the foundation on which the exegesis rests. Meanwhile, the visual contradiction of the parchment folio being set alight and itself not burning invites the viewer to embrace the impossible, the transcendental, the divine. ***** The essays gathered in this volume, which range widely in terms of geography, chronology, and cultural context, examine illuminated metalwork from a variety of approaches, including but also exceeding those demonstrated above. As both prolegomenon and methodological intervention, Nancy K. Turner offers a technical survey of the range of metallic media, in both pigment and leaf, that were applied throughout the history of manuscript illumination, from the early Middle Ages into early modernity and across the Latin West, Byzantium, and the early Islamic East. Particularly noteworthy is Turner’s categorization of the different varieties of gold—that is, granular gold ink and pigment, gold leaf, and shell gold—a categorization that has been treated somewhat inconsistently by the previous technical and art historical literature. Turner’s historical overview establishes the working properties of the pigments and leaf at play throughout the following case studies, and she notes that, in a volume dedicated to exploring the significance and impact of such metallic media, a robust understanding of what these physical stuffs actually are is prerequisite. The section entitled “Representation” gathers essays that, among other things, explore how metalwork is depicted. These studies assess the balance struck between pictorial convention and the variable need to specify and evoke the real world. Brigitte Buettner uses the depiction of urban goldsmiths at work in thirteenth-century

72 We thank Nancy Turner for confirming the presence of the painted chain on the verso.

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Fig. 19: Madonna of the Burning Bush. Book of hours. Georges Trubert, Provence, ca. 1480–90. Los Angeles, JPGM, 93.ML.6 (Ms. 48), fol. 154r. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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Paris, as seen in an illustrated Life of St. Denis, to investigate and reconstruct what we know of the goldsmiths’ profession at that time. The resulting awareness of the lifespan of gold—from its sourcing to its translation into ingots, coinage, sheet, thread, and plate—deepens the images of chalices and tableware seen in these Parisian street scenes, as well as the user’s apprehension of the gold leaf now resting on the folio in front of them. Jacopo Gnisci reviews the pictorial evidence of Ethiopian manuscripts from the early Solomonic period to detail how, methodologically, such images can and cannot be used to reconstruct actual objects: how might one read images of censers, for example, that omit key features found in surviving real-world examples? Gnisci notes that, beyond using manuscript evidence for the attribution of extant metalwork (as has been done), current and future scholarship should approach the significance of such illuminated metalwork on its own generative terms. Roland Betancourt’s examination of an illustrated eleventh-century Byzantine treatise on siege warfare—a didactic, how-to text—reveals a manuscript in which the subtlest change of pigment, hue, or medium demonstrates a careful intentionality on the part of the book painter; such care points toward larger questions of the utility, efficacy, and knowledge-bearing weight of these depictions of siegecraft vis-à-vis their textual description. More broadly, Betancourt traces how varying hues of depicted metals potentially align, in partial yet patterned ways, with the working properties and manufacturing methods of the metal in question (in this case, iron). Such an observation applies to many of this volume’s essays: in depicting metalwork, choices of color and tone may not index specific types and degrees of metals comprehensively, but the relationship between depiction and depicted metal frequently unfolds with consideration and care, revealing meaningful correspondences between an actual object and its representation. The next section of the volume, “Material Translations,” explores manuscript decoration that evokes or explicitly simulates precious-metal media, translating that material aesthetic onto parchment. Beatrice Leal’s analysis of gilded verse markers in Abbasid Qur’ans contextualizes them, and the standardizing authority they performatively enact, in relation to contemporary jewelry, coinage, and seals, and the social and ideological significances thereof. Leal identifies material prototypes for these verse markers and relates their connotative function to the revelation, and subsequent physical recording, of the Qur’an itself. Beth Fischer positions the painted decoration of deluxe Carolingian Gospel books as a pseudo-haptic form of metalwork, one that casts these manuscripts as peers of the precious-metal objects, such as reliquaries and chalices, that would have inhabited and saturated a sacred altar space. This “haptic promise” of metal(work) on parchment, in which viewing functions in part as “touch by proxy,” opens fundamental questions regarding the phenomenology of perception, both then and today. Fischer’s historical method tactfully incorporates current scientific understandings of perception and vision. Heidi Gearhart pairs the decorative compositions of the Siegburg Lectionary, made in the twelfth-century Rhineland, with champlevé enamel, ivory, and wall painting, thereby demonstrating

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how, within a single work, the medieval aesthetic of varietas could obtain through the visual translation of other media. Such intermediality, as Gearhart analyzes, goes beyond the decorative to serve a clear and intentional devotional purpose, given the intellectual and spiritual stakes that attended the beholding of worked varietas. Sophia Rochmes investigates the intermedial entanglements of gray-gold grisailles in late fifteenth-century Flemish books of hours, demonstrating how they refer to the conventional combination of silver and gold in metalwork as well as the contemporaneous innovation of grisaille glass. This duochromatic decorative aesthetic, while seemingly severe, served as an ostentatious demonstration of elite taste as well as trompe-l’oeil illusionism, and thereby possessed a distinct political utility at the Burgundian court. Collectively, the essays of this section show how these instances of material translation, and intermediality in general, reveal the canny skill of medieval illuminators who transgressed the ostensible limitations of their medium. “Treasuries in Books, Books as Treasuries” foregrounds the depiction of identifiable treasury ensembles within specific institutions, and the essential place held by luxury manuscripts within those ensembles. Eliza Garrison’s analysis of the Uta Codex, made in early eleventh-century Regensburg, unites the canonical manuscript with its less studied book-box, approaching both as a considered and deliberately designed whole. In particular, Garrison demonstrates how the box worked in tandem with the manuscript’s miniatures to stage a series of architectures and spaces that could metaphorically figure and contain Christ’s body while visualizing a devotional space for the female viewers of the codex to inhabit. Sasha Gorjeltchan’s analysis of a ca. 1100 illustrated vita of St. Albinus made for his namesake monastery in Angers shows how the liturgically specific treasury objects and funeral rituals depicted in the manuscript serve to link past and present, thus constructing and reenacting the institutional memory of the monastic community. The illuminated metalwork serves, in Gorjeltchan’s phrasing, as a “material bridge” between the past memorialized in the manuscript and the built spaces inhabited by the twelfth-century monastic community. Julia Oswald, studying depictions of the relic treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle around the turn of the sixteenth century, deepens our understanding of the arma Christi iconography by means of a select group of manuscripts largely commissioned for an elite cadre of court administrators; Oswald thus embeds an image-type within its historically specific milieu, revealing its ideological as well as spiritual function. Indeed, the essays of this section all examine the relationship between treasury collections and their depiction while exemplifying the utility of resituating extant manuscripts within their original physical settings and historical specificities. “Phenomenology and Piety,” the final section of the volume, gathers studies that critically reexamine devotional engagements with books and the instrumentalized depiction of metalwork. Megan Foster-Campbell reconstructs the devotional efficacy and geographic specificity of trompe-l’oeil pilgrim’s badges in late medieval Flemish books of hours. In tracing the iconographies of painted badges—a

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simulation of the actual badges that were sometimes sewn into personal prayer books—Foster-Campbell demonstrates how they enabled practices of visionary and imagined pilgrimage (or “armchair pilgrimage”), and how this aspirational component also took on ideological significance in the context of Burgundian ducal politics. Susan Barahal and Elizabeth Pugliano analyze the trompe-l’oeil jewelry depicted in the borders of the Aussem Hours, an early sixteenth-century German book of hours, in terms of metalworking technique and mimetic illusionism; such illusionistic renderings would speak meaningfully to the reader fortunate enough to encounter and handle such baubles in the real world. The authors’ careful analyses further bloom into a consideration of how the painted jewelry stages a juxtaposition of corporeal and spiritual vision for the devout reader. Finally, Lynley Herbert, writing from the perspective of a museum curator, plumbs the intricacies of silver, its tendency to tarnish, and how such material mutability informs the reception of books by audiences both medieval and modern. Her study of a Carolingian Gospel book and a ca. 1200 Italian missal historically associated with St. Francis—the latter still venerated to this day as a contact relic—has dramatic implications for material iconography. Herbert shows how technical analysis can yield spiritual meaning as well as scientific insight, as when she traces artists’ creative strategies for representing electrum, a metal rich with theological significance. Illuminating Metalwork is thus bookended by essays written by museum professionals whose sustained access to manuscripts yields valuable insights for art historians more broadly, demonstrating how a determination of the specific materials and techniques employed by illuminators can richly inform our interpretations of these images. Taken together, these essays reveal how the depiction of metalwork in medieval manuscript decoration, together with the actual use of precious-metal media in the decoration itself, provides an especially instructive and significant site for medieval art history. Illuminated metalwork emerges as a key component of the physicality of the medieval book and the user’s experience alike, all thoroughly enmeshed within the external, ambient world. Further scholarship awaits.

II Technique

Nancy K. Turner

Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts Like other luxury objects, whether made for liturgical or personal use, medieval illuminated manuscripts were often adorned with gold, silver, and other metals. When given the opportunity to turn the leaves of manuscripts, we get a privileged hint of the lived visual experiences of medieval viewers and users: the subtle radiance of metallic paint, the flash and brilliance of burnished gold leaf, and the shifting glints of light that vary according to how those metals have been embellished. Illuminators were fully cognizant of the visual impact and light-inducing effects their materials had on the viewer. But what do we know of their methods? Is all that glitters really gold? This essay aims to answer these questions by investigating the physical properties and surface appearances of precious metals and their substitutes in illuminated manuscripts dating from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.1 Beginning with a query into how these substances were understood during the Middle Ages, I will outline how gold and silver were procured and how they came into the hands of illuminators. Through close looking and technical analysis, this essay will survey methods of applying gold and silver to the parchment page—as paint and as leaf—and discuss the grounds and embellishment techniques used to enliven gilded surfaces. By considering materials and methods chronologically, I will demonstrate how the nature of the materials themselves—as well as their contingencies and meanings—changed over time. While this study does not purport to be comprehensive, what will be revealed is a story of changing aesthetics, technological developments, and artistic innovations that reflect the shifting availability of materials in different geographical regions at various

Note: My sincerest thanks to Joseph Ackley and Shannon Wearing for inviting me to contribute to this volume. This essay has been improved by their keen editorial eyes and penetrating questions, along with those of the anonymous peer reviewers. I am also grateful to my colleagues Catherine Schmidt Patterson, Douglas MacLennan, and Karen Trentelman in the Technical Studies Research Group of the Getty Conservation Institute for providing macro-XRF maps and interpretation of the M6 data for four of the examples from the Getty Museum’s collection illustrated here. Notwithstanding such generosity, any errors remain my own. 1 This essay expands and corrects an earlier publication: Nancy K. Turner, “Reflecting a Heavenly Light: Gold and Other Metals in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Illumination,” in Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, ed. Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi (London: Harvey Miller, 2018), 2:80–96. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-002

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times. By bringing evidence from medieval technical treatises, historical metallurgy, and trade to bear upon visual and technical, object-based investigation, I will provide a deeper understanding of the materiality of precious metals in illuminated manuscripts.2 For a volume devoted to the meaning and agency of precious metals in illuminated manuscripts, this essay challenges the reader to join me in a project of identifying the materials themselves to the fullest extent possible before assigning meaning. The observations presented here are based on close personal study of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts under the microscope, and are complemented where possible by material identifications derived from scientific analytical methods, mainly X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF).3 With these methods, I have repeatedly tested my own a priori assumptions about what I think a material might be. Not wanting to perpetuate a positivist scheme that is solely satisfied with the identification of materials as sufficient unto itself, I will ask why a material is used in a particular manner and for what particular purpose, visual effect, or aesthetic requirement, and then, where possible, will speculate upon the meaning it conveyed. In doing so, I will highlight a number of technical developments across time, including the adulteration of precious metals during the early medieval period on account of economic necessity or limited availability; the shift toward metal leaf in twelfth-century Europe, which introduced different optical qualities to the page; the heightened desire for visual varietas and new optical effects during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, which inspired further manipulations to the surfaces of metals; and the persistence of precious metals in manuscripts during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, well after painters had been encouraged to eschew them. My aim is to demonstrate how precious metals and their substitutes were not mere matter or static physical stuff, but rather served as dynamic media in

2 Prior studies on illuminated manuscripts that focus upon precious metals include (but are not limited to) Daniel V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting (1936; New York: Dover, 1956), 190–206; Shirley M. Alexander, “Medieval Recipes Describing the Use of Metals in Manuscripts,” Marsyas 12 (1964–65): 35–51; Shirley M. Alexander, “Base and Noble Metals in Illumination,” Natural History 74, no. 10 (1965): 31–39; Ellen J. Beer, “Marginalien zum Thema Goldgrund,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 46, no. 3 (1983): 271–86; Vera Trost, Gold- und Silbertinten: Technologische Untersuchungen zur abendländischen Chrysographie und Argyrographie von der Spätantike bis zum hohen Mittelalter (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1991); Nigel Morgan, “Painting with Gold and Silver,” in Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2016), 193–99; Robert Fuchs, “Gold or Brass, Silver or Tin: The Analysis of Metals in Medieval Book Illumination,” in Panayotova and Ricciardi, Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, 2:97–106; and Turner, “Heavenly Light.” 3 Unless otherwise noted, elemental analysis using XRF point analysis was conducted by the author, using a Keymaster (Bruker Co.) Tracer II (Rhodium Tube, 40 kV, 2mA, 100 sec. collection time). This method identifies the chemical elements present, from which material identifications can be inferred.

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the hands of artisans who fully appreciated and understood their physical properties as well as their visual and hermeneutic possibilities.

I The Medieval Understanding of Gold and Silver For the early medieval viewer, the lasting and pure qualities of precious metals endowed them with the power of light and the agency of the sacred.4 Since antiquity, precious materials had been used to represent the Heavenly Jerusalem, based on Old Testament descriptions of the Temple of Solomon and on John’s Revelation.5 Like glass, crystal, and gems, gold was endowed with powers that negotiated between the material world and the spiritual realm.6 Able to transport the viewer to an embodied experience of the divine, the luminous power of these materials served as affective media that were capable of carrying the viewer toward God’s paradise.7 To the medieval scribe and illuminator, gold and silver presented material imperatives that contributed to the efficacy and meaning of sacred texts: gold and silver sanctified the words on the page and transfigured the representational image. In the Greek Church, lustrous materials like gemstones, enamel, and gold embodied the power of phôtismos, the spiritual illumination that issued forth from the body of Christ; this luminous force could be conveyed through chrysographia, as in holy texts written in gold and the golden shafts of light emitted from the garments of holy personages.8 For Christians of both the Eastern and Western Churches, this “material iconography” of precious metals in early medieval manuscripts captivated and elevated the viewer’s eye and mind to the mysteries of the Transfiguration and the Incarnation.9 In Islamic belief, the muṣḥaf—the materialized revelation of the Prophet Muhammad in the form of the written copy of the Qur’an—could be inscribed with gold letters, given that it speaks of itself as light. Yet such

4 Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 74–75. 5 See Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing, “Preciousness on Parchment: Materiality, Pictoriality, and the Decorated Book,” in this volume. 6 John Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 69–70. 7 Janes, God and Gold, 74–79. 8 Anthony Cutler, “Uses of Luxury: On the Functions of Consumption and Symbolic Capital in Byzantine Culture,” in Byzance et les images: Cycle de conférences organisé au musée du Louvre par le Service culturel du 5 octobre au 7 decémbre 1992, ed. André Guillou and Jannic Durand (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1994), 287–327, at 307–8. See also Jaroslav Folda, Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 9 The phrase “material iconography” derives from the work of Thomas Raff, Die Sprache der Materialien: Anleitung zu einer Ikonologie der Werkstoffe (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1994).

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expenditure was frequently condemned as an unnatural use of a precious metal whose natural function was to mediate commercial exchange, not to entice the worshipper’s gaze (al-naẓar).10 For Christians and Muslims, the incorruptibility of gold in particular was identified with the purity of the heavenly paradise, in which the souls of believers lived unblemished into eternity long after their earthly bodies decomposed.11 These significations were further informed by ancient and medieval understandings of the formation of metallic ores as veins or underground rivers within the earth, which were tied to planetary astrology and derived from the natural philosophy of Aristotle.12 Gold was believed to be produced within the earth by the warm radiance of the sun, while silver alternately reflected and extinguished light, two properties associated with the changeable moon.13 For millennia, such astrological associations informed the potent magical, optical, and medicinal uses of precious metals. Meanings associated with precious metals and their reflective qualities accrued over the centuries, as religious symbolism became interwoven with ideas derived from optical science (perspectiva). Given their light-producing properties, gold and silver were used as tangible visionary media that connected the viewer to the divine. Much as light enables sight, precious metals also serve a mediating function: their corporeitas or “dimensioned thing-ness,” as Christopher Lakey has outlined, facilitates the materialization of light.14 The direct association between gold, light, and vision is demonstrated in a thirteenth-century Arabic treatise on minting (Kashf al-asrār al-ᶜilmīya bidār al-darb al-Misrīya, or “Revelation of the operational secrets of the Egyptian mint,” ca. 1218–38 CE/ca. 614–35 AH), which reports that gold was used since antiquity as an ophthalmic drug to improve vision.15 Thus gold’s material identification with the immaterial, the transparent, and the metaphysics of light underpins the medieval understanding of its optical effects and ocular powers.16

10 Finbarr Barry Flood, “Bodies, Books, and Buildings: Economies of Ornament in Juridical Islam,” in Clothing Sacred Scriptures: Book Art and Book Religion in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Cultures, ed. David Ganz and Barbara Schellewald (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 49–68, at 57. See also Sabiha Al Khemir, Nur: Light in Art and Science from the Islamic World (Seville: Focus-Abengoa Foundation, 2013), 69. 11 Sergej Averincev, “L’or dans le système des symboles de la culture protobyzantine,” Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 20, no. 1 (1979): 47–67, at 62 and 66. 12 Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof, ed. and trans., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 328–31. See also R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 70–72. 13 R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 157. 14 Christopher Lakey, “The Materiality of Light in Medieval Italian Painting,” English Language Notes 53, no. 2 (2015): 119–36, at 119. 15 Martin Levey, “Chemical Aspects of Medieval Arabic Minting in a Treatise by Manṣūr ibn BaᶜRa,” Japanese Studies in the History of Science, supplement 1 (1971): 1–136, at 9 and 43–46. 16 Averincev, “L’or,” 55–59.

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In the Latin West, the benefits of gold for health and longevity were also widely accepted: its ingestion as a tincture or “quintessence”—concocted by repeatedly dipping sheets of gold leaf or gold coins into a powerful distillate—was used as a last resort for treating corruptions of the body, particularly the plague.17 Metal leaf and gold coins were added to foods prepared for the sick or infirm, supplying the therapeutic benefits of light to ailing bodies.18 Additionally, silver was appreciated for its germicidal properties: following the work of Greek and Arabic scientists, medieval European physicians recommended silver leaf and silver tinctures (“waters”) for treating ailments of the heart and mind as well as the body, including blood diseases, open wounds, broken bones, and epilepsy and other brain diseases.19 Thus, in addition to the aesthetic and spiritual allure of gold and silver, during the Middle Ages these metals were believed to have physical efficacy based upon their active material potency, astrological associations, medicinal powers, and optical agency.20 The intersection and tension between gold’s sacral significance and its use as a monetary instrument are recurrent themes in medieval sources. The high monetary value of gold bestowed heightened status and luxury upon church service books and on the patrons who desired precious metals in their personal books. But the inherent contradictions between heavenly gold and worldly gold have vexed all three religions of the book. The paradox of gold’s status as pure and incorruptible, while simultaneously an abhorrent and corrupting material, emerges in Biblical texts and the Qur’an. Whereas “gold was vitally important in sustaining the Christian God in his supremacy,” as Dominic Janes has emphasized, its heavenly associations derived from and counted upon its visual convergence with the sumptuous use of precious metals to represent and uphold imperial power and splendor, as employed in ancient Rome.21 As both institutions concurrently deployed gold for

17 Chiara Crisciani and Michela Pereira, “Black Death and Golden Remedies: Some Remarks on Alchemy and the Plague,” in The Regulation of Evil: Social and Cultural Attitudes to Epidemics in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Agostino Parvicini Bagliani and Francesco Santi (Florence: Sismel – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1998), 11–21. 18 Terence Scully, trans., Du fait de cuisine / On Cookery of Master Chiquart (1420), with the Original Text of Sion, Bibliothèque cantonale du Valais, MS Supersaxo 103 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010), at 170, 219, 248–49. See also C. M. Woolgar, “Medieval Food and Colour,” Journal of Medieval History 44, no. 1 (2018): 1–20, at 18. 19 A. G. Massey, N. R. Thompson, B. F. G. Johnson, and R. Davis, The Chemistry of Copper, Silver and Gold (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1975), 79–128, at 80; J. Wesley Anderson, “History of the Medical Use of Silver,” Surgical Infections 10, no. 3 (2009): 289–92, at 289. 20 On the cosmological understanding of precious metals, see Averincev, “L’or.” See also Spike Bucklow, “The Use of Metals in a Fourteenth-Century East Anglian Painters’ Workshop: The Thornham Parva Retable,” in New Offerings, Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. Paul Binski and William Noel (Stroud: Sutton, 2001), 445–56, at 448–52. Space prohibits discussion of optical theories made manifest in manuscript illumination: see Stella Panayotova, “Colour Theory, Optics and Manuscript Illumination,” in Panayotova, Colour, 304–44, and bibliography. 21 Janes, God and Gold, 91–92.

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distinct purposes—the Church to express anagogical meaning, the emperor or king to convey wealth and power—this most precious metal ultimately made resonant connections between the heavenly and the worldly spheres. Once gold became more ubiquitous through the circulation of locally minted coinage, its overt significance became, as Michael Camille has suggested, less sacral and more secular.22 But even as sumptuous displays began to take new forms during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Christian reformers and humanists alike reacted against gold’s ostentations,23 precious metals still retained important functions in manuscript painting.

II Precious Metals and Their Sources in the Middle Ages Incorruptible Gold By virtue of its rarity, purity, rich yellow hue, and radiant reflectivity, gold is the most precious of all metals. Appreciated by craftsmen for its malleable and versatile working properties, gold can be shaped, cast, cut, drawn into wire, hammered into thin sheets, and ground to a powder without substantially affecting its most valued aesthetic and material qualities. No matter its age or condition, gold in its purest form (24 karat, defined as 98% gold) is physically incorruptible and never appears to tarnish. Unlike other metals, gold emerges from fire unaltered; it resists corrosive reactants; and, because of its chemical stability, it retains its surface shine and material integrity even when exposed to harmful acids and vapors.24 The procurement of high-purity gold metal was not without its difficulties. Gold forms in nature as pure “native metal” or along geological veins of gold-containing ores (calaverite and sylvinite) with associated minerals such as pyrite or quartz.25 Whether mined from hard rock (vein) or removed from placer (alluvial) deposits, gold usually contains some trace amounts of silver and copper.26 New methods

22 Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 260–62. 23 Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 14–18. 24 Fabian Mohr, ed., Gold Chemistry (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2009), xiii; H.-G. Bachmann, “Gold for Coinage: History and Metallurgy,” in Gold: Progress in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Technology, ed. Hubert Schmidbaur (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1999), 3–37; Andrew Lins, “Basic Properties of Gold Leaf,” in Gilded Wood: Conservation and History, ed. Deborah Bigelow, Elisabeth Cornu, Gregory J. Landry, and Cornelis van Horne (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1991), 17–22, at 17–18. 25 Massey et al., The Chemistry of Copper, Silver and Gold, 129. 26 Bachmann, “Gold for Coinage,” 5.

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developed for separating silver from gold, called “parting,” were among the major technological innovations of medieval metallurgists. Ancient gold-refining methods were confined to the dry roasting of ores at high temperatures; medieval metallurgists continued to practice this method but also developed a second dry technique by ca. 1000 CE that involved using a mercury amalgam to remove silver and copper from gold.27 In addition to these dry, heat-based processes, a wet process was also invented, first described in the thirteenth century, by which a liquid solvent, typically nitric acid, was used to remove impurities from gold, as illustrated by Georgius Agricola in his De re metallica of 1556.28 In trace amounts, minor contaminants of silver and copper do not typically have a significant impact upon the ductility of gold metal overall.29 But quantities larger than trace amounts can affect gold’s coloration and handling properties.30 “Arabian gold” (auro Arabico) was described in the early twelfth-century De diversis artibus of Theophilus Presbyter as having a red hue, which might reflect a medieval awareness of the presence of copper in gold sourced from a specific geographical provenance.31 Substantial impurities (i.e., gold below 18 karat) can contribute to a difference in color as well as the metal’s deterioration; only gold with a purity above 22 karat can resist sul-

27 C. R. Dodwell, “Gold Metallurgy in the Twelfth Century: The De Diversis Artibus of Theophilus the Monk,” Gold Bulletin 4, no. 3 (1971): 51–55; Robert Halleux, “Methodes d’essai et d’affinage des alliages aurifères dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age,” in Cécile Morrisson, Claude Brenot, Jean-Noël Barrandon, Jean-Pierre Callu, Jacques Poirier, and Robert Halleux, L’or monnayé, vol. 1, Purification et altérations de Rome á Byzance (Paris: CNRS, 1985), 39–77, at 45–56. Foundational surveys on the history of metallurgy include Forbes, Ancient Technology, vol. 8; and R. F. Tylecote, A History of Metallurgy (London: Metals Society, 1976). See also Enrico Giannichedda, “Metal Production in Late Antiquity: From Continuity of Knowledge to Changes in Consumption,” in Technology in Transition, A.D. 300–650, ed. Luke Lavan, Enrico Zanini, and Alexander Sarantis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 187–209. 28 For the earliest recipes for parting gold from silver using nitric acid, see Jochem Wolters, “On the Noble and Illustrious Art of the Goldsmith: An 11th-Century Text,” Historical Metallurgy 40, no. 1 (2006): 68–88, at 82. See also Bachmann, “Gold for Coinage,” 22–23; and Justine Bayley, “Developments in Metalworking during the Medieval Period,” in Material Culture in Medieval Europe: Papers of the “Medieval Europe Brugge 1997” Conference, ed. Guy De Boe and Frans Verhaeghe (Zellik, Belgium: Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium, 1997), 73–76, at 75. For Agricola, see Georgius Agricola, De re metallica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (New York: Dover, 1950), 439–90; see esp. the editors’ note at 458–62n21. 29 Massey et al., The Chemistry of Copper, Silver and Gold, 130. 30 Mark Grimwade, “The Properties of Gold,” in Gold: Power and Allure, ed. Helen Clifford (London: The Goldsmiths’ Company, 2012), 31–43, at 36–39. 31 Theophilus, The Various Arts / De diversis artibus, trans. C. R. Dodwell (1961; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 96. See also Jilleen Nadolny, “Some Observations on Northern European Metalbeaters and Metal Leaf in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Materials, Technology, and Art of Conservation: Studies in Honor of Lawrence J. Majewski on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, February 10, 1999, ed. Rebecca Anne Rushfield and Mary W. Ballard (New York: Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1999), 134–59, at 136.

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fide corrosion and tarnishing.32 The purity of metals was determined by an ancient technique that used touch needles (standardized pieces of metal whose alloy compositions were known) against which unknown metals would be tested by striking them on a touchstone, allowing their color and hardness to be visually and physically compared.33 Thus the process of gold’s refinement (assaying) was understood as a process of “redemption” that reestablished its material purity and exemplified its transfigurative powers.

Brass, the Other Golden Metal Not all medieval metallic paints consisted of precious metals. More often than has been recognized, brass was also ground into a powder and used as a golden paint to be used for writing and illumination. Though potentially less expensive and more readily available, brass was also a highly desirable metal and was frequently employed by medieval craftsmen for casting three-dimensional objects, such as liturgical vessels. Brass-making required considerable technological knowledge and finesse. Manufactured in Europe since the late Roman period, the process for making brass was reinvigorated during the tenth and eleventh centuries in northern Europe, particularly in the Rhine-Meuse region and the area of the Harz Mountains in southern Saxony, where copper was mined.34 Brass is an alloy primarily of copper and zinc, alongside other metals in smaller amounts. Since zinc had yet to be identified in the Latin West as a metal, brass-making during the medieval period was not understood as a metal alloying process: rather it was seen as a method for changing the color of copper, whether from green copper ore (cuprum) or red or yellow mined ores (calamina), to yellow copper (aes and aurichalcum).35 Brass was manufactured

32 Lins, “Basic Properties of Gold Leaf,” 22. 33 Agricola, De re metallica, 253–55. 34 Jean R. Maréchal, “Petite histoire du laiton et du zinc,” Techniques et Civilisations 3, no. 4 (1954): 109–238; Nicholas Thomas, David Bourgarit, Marie Verbeek, Jean Plumier, and Bastian Asmus, “Commerce et techniques métallurgiques: Les laitons mosans dans le marché européen au Moyen Âge (XIIIe–XVIe siècles),” in L’archéologie au laboratoire, ed. Stéphanie Thiébault and Pascal Depaepe (Paris: La Découverte, 2013), 169–82, at 176–79. See also Monique de Ruette, “From Conterfei and Speauter to Zinc: The Development of the Understanding of the Nature of Zinc and Brass in Post-Medieval Europe,” in Trade and Discovery: The Scientific Study of Artefacts from Post-Medieval Europe and Beyond, ed. Duncan R. Hook and David R. M. Gaimster (London: British Museum, 1995), 195–203, at 195–96. 35 Ruette, “From Conterfei and Speauter to Zinc,” 198; Thilo Rehren, “Metal Analysis in the Middle Ages,” in De Boe and Verhaeghe, Material Culture in Medieval Europe, 9–15, at 12.

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by smelting zinc-rich ores such as calamina (zinc carbonate ore) or tutia (zinc oxide) with copper-containing minerals or copper metal by processes of cementation and sublimation.36 These methods were first developed during the Roman Empire and continued largely unchanged throughout the early and High Middle Ages,37 as evidenced by instructions given in the Theophilus text.38 Because the mineralogical components of zinc-containing ores could not be readily distinguished by medieval craftsmen as precisely as they are today, the Latin terms calamina and cuprum both denoted copper, while aurichalcum and aes could denote either bronze or brass.39 The distinction between these metals was not always clear, since medieval bronze and brass were often composed of quaternary alloys of copper with tin, zinc, and lead.40 Yet with its bright, golden sheen, brass provided the scribe and illuminator with an acceptable substitute or extender for gold, as in the Carolingian and Ottonian manuscripts discussed below (see section III).

Silver, Fickle Like the Moon Like gold, silver has long been valued for its highly reflective qualities. Silver metal reflects ninety-eight percent of any incident light across the full visual spectrum, hence its bright white and mirror-like qualities.41 Silver was seen as complementary to gold, much as water opposed fire in the Aristotelian system of four elements.42 But

36 Forbes, Ancient Technology, 8:268–69. See also Ruette, “From Conterfei and Speauter to Zinc,” 195–96. 37 Richard Newman, “Materials and Techniques of the Medieval Metalworker,” Catalogue of Medieval Objects: Metalwork, ed. Nancy Netzer (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1991), 19–44, at 22. 38 In Theophilus’s chapters on copper (chap. 63), making brass (chap. 66), and purifying copper (chap. 67), Dodwell translates aes as “brass” rather than “bronze” due to the material’s distinguishing golden color and the fact that it was not to be gilded like bronze: Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 120–21 and 124–26, esp. 125n. Regarding the confusion in terminology and the complexity of early medieval bronzes, see Joan Day, “Brass and Zinc in Europe from the Middle Ages until the 19th Century,” in 2000 Years of Zinc and Brass, ed. Paul T. Craddock (London: British Museum, 1990), 123–48, at 126–27. 39 Regarding the lack of scholarly consensus over the medieval terminology for copper-alloy metals, see the important discussion in Joseph Salvatore Ackley, “Copper-Alloy Substrates in PreciousMetal Treasury Objects: Concealed and Yet Excessive,” Different Visions 4 (2014): 1–34. 40 Ittai Weinryb, The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 5. See also Forbes, Ancient Technology, 8:283–84; and Day, “Brass and Zinc,” 123–25. Zinc metal was isolated in South Asia by perhaps 1100, but it was not imported from India to Europe until the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the process of extracting metallic zinc from ore was not fully mastered until the eighteenth century (Forbes, Ancient Technology, 8:267 and 282). 41 Grimwade, “Properties of Gold,” 33. 42 Janes, God and Gold, 86.

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Fig. 1: (a) Philosophy presenting the seven liberal arts to Boethius; silver paint (now tarnished to dark gray) depicts the moon, while gold paint depicts the sun. Boethius’s Consolation de

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unlike gold, silver is rarely found in native form, as it is often geologically complexed with lead ores.43 Removal of silver from these ores, which also might include antimony and bismuth, was a highly labor-intensive process that involved crushing, grinding, and washing the rock, followed by repeated smelting and refining (cupellation). One cannot underestimate the staggering human and environmental expenditures necessary for the hand-extraction of ore from the earth’s crust for the refining of silver metal: indeed, during the ancient and medieval eras a single ounce of refined silver metal required over three tons of raw ore to be mined and processed.44 Silver was used mainly for minting coinage and the fabrication of precious vessels and other objects. In Byzantine and Latin manuscripts, silver was frequently used for written text (argyrography) as well as for the depiction of objects and implements made from silver or other grey or black metals, like steel weaponry, armor, and iron tools.45 Silver was also appreciated for its shifting and seemingly transparent nature, and it was therefore used to depict such materials as glass vessels, window panes, and mirrors, as well as water, vapor, clouds, and the moon. Considered the material that stood between gold and base metals, silver occupied an intermediary status between body and spirit in medieval cosmology, symbolizing temporality and change. Like the shifting moon, these metaphysical associations likely derived from silver metal’s notorious chemical instability.

Fig. 1 (continued) philosophie. Coëtivy Master (Henri de Vulcop?), Paris, ca. 1460–70. Los Angeles, JPGM, 91.MS.11.2 (Ms. 42), leaf 2, verso (detail). Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Initial E: Mattathias killing Jews; oxidized silver leaf has affected the adjacent gold leaf, causing dark brown discoloration in the gold leaf to the right of the sword and its hilt. Marquette Bible. FrancoFlemish (probably Lille), ca. 1270. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MA.57 (Ms. Ludwig I.8), vol. 3, fol. 269v (detail). Photo: author. (c) Decorated initial D; particles of silver paint have migrated onto the parchment and into adjacent areas of gold paint. Sacramentary. France (probably Beauvais or Fleury), first quarter of the eleventh century. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MF.76 (Ms. Ludwig V.1), fol. 9r (detail). Photo: author. (d) Text page; show-through from the silver leaf initial on the folio obverse appears as dark gray stains on the verso. Sacramentary. France (probably Beauvais or Fleury), first quarter of the eleventh century. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MF.76 (Ms. Ludwig V.1), fol. 7v (detail). Photo: author. (e) Decorated text page; detail of silver leaf tarnishing, exacerbated by the vermilion pigment on the facing page (fol. 84v), with which the silver metal comes into direct contact when the manuscript is closed. Stammheim Missal. Hildesheim, probably 1170s. Los Angeles, JPGM, 97. MG.21 (Ms. 64), fol. 85r (detail). Photo: author.

43 Forbes, Ancient Technology, 8:158. 44 This approximate ratio was derived from the tonnages given in C. C. Patterson, “Silver Stocks and Losses in Ancient and Medieval Times,” Economic History Review 25, no. 2 (1972): 205–35, at 231. 45 Herbert L. Kessler, “The Eloquence of Silver: More on the Allegorization of Matter,” in L’allégorie dans l’art du Moyen Âge. Formes et fonctions. Héritages, créations, mutations, ed. Christian Heck (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 49–64, at 51.

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The tarnishing of silver metal has long been a well-known phenomenon, but one not always recognized as affecting illuminated manuscripts, where it is sometimes mistaken for black or grey paint.46 Silver darkens upon direct contact with or exposure to sulfur-containing pigments, sulfurous vapors in the air, and traces of chlorine in the parchment.47 In addition, silver can react to the sulfur present in egg white, which if used as a paint medium may account for some proportion of the darkening of silver leaf and ink in manuscripts (Fig. 1a). As silver metal reacts and deteriorates, soluble reaction products can spread, creating indistinct perimeter edges to the silver leaf or paint, and can affect and discolor adjacent areas of gold leaf (Fig. 1b). When used as a granular paint or ink, loose particles of silver can even migrate into the adjacent areas, leaving dark spots on the parchment or in nearby areas of gold (Fig. 1c). Furthermore, silver often affects the parchment support with dark stains, resulting in “show-through” on the reverse side of the folio (Fig. 1d). Silver’s reaction to sulfur can also manifest as a mottled darkening of the metal, if a sulfur-containing pigment (like orpiment yellow or vermilion red) is in direct contact with areas of silver: such reactions can occur either if these pigments are directly adjacent to silver, or if they come into contact with silver metal on a facing folio when the manuscript is closed (Fig. 1e). Awareness of silver’s oxidation is well documented in medieval technical literature: in fact, the metal’s reaction with sulfur was sometimes purposely exploited, as attested by the recipes in the Theophilus text for parting silver from gold and for the intentional darkening of silver for niello work.48 In certain cases, the oxidation of silver may have been used intentionally by illuminators to contrast the shimmering brightness of silver with its dark, tarnished counterpart, as has been recognized only recently.49

46 See Lynley Herbert, “A Curator’s Note: The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts,” in this volume. 47 Rita Araújo, Paula Nabais, Isabel Pombo Cardoso, Conceição Casanova, Ana Lemos, and Maria J. Melo, “Silver Paints in Medieval Manuscripts: A First Molecular Survey into Their Degradation,” Heritage Science 6, no. 8 (2018): 1–13, at 10–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-018-0172-7. 48 See Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 128 (chap. 80) and 80 (chap. 28), respectively. For Agricola’s recognition of the phenomenon see Agricola, De re metallica, 273. 49 See, for example, the silver paint used to depict a glass orb grasped by the Salvator Mundi in a sixteenth-century book of hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 1058–1975, fol. 13v): silver paint was intentionally darkened prior to painting the glints off the pale, translucent side of the orb, while reflective silver highlights shine brightly on its opposite side. See Panayotova, Colour, 342–43, cat. no. 108; and the discussion in Paola Ricciardi and Kristine Rose Beers, “The Illuminators’ Palette,” in ibid., 27–39, at 37.

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Electrum Alloy: Intentional or Unintentional? When silver was combined with gold, the resultant alloy, called electrum, could range in hue from pale yellow to silvery white. Called by Herodotus the “white gold” (lefkos crysόs) of King Croesus, the earliest minted Greek coins in Lydia and Ionia were struck from native alluvial electrum found in Anatolia.50 Pliny the Elder defined electrum at 80% gold, while Isidore of Seville later characterized the metal at 75% gold.51 The actual content could range widely, anywhere from 30% to 80% gold.52 In such gold-silver alloys, the degree of tarnishing decreases as the proportional gold content increases.53 Electrum was allegorized by early Christian theologians, such as Gregory the Great, who saw the material as the perfect metaphor for the dual nature of Christ by signifying the fusion of his (golden) divinity and his (silver) humanity.54 Like the ancient Greeks, medieval metallurgists fully understood electrum to be a metal alloy, whether it was intentionally manufactured or found in nature.55 In order to verify the intentional use of an electrum alloy today, destructive sampling is required, as elemental analysis by XRF alone cannot provide exact percentages.56 Metallic inks found in early medieval manuscripts can sometimes have the appearance of a bimetallic white gold that can beguile the researcher, as in the case of a late Carolingian Gospel book from Lorsch (Fig. 2a).57 Its incipits are inscribed with a granular gold ink that seems to have a variegated appearance, somewhere between gold and silver (Fig. 2b). Could this ink consist of electrum? When analyzed non-invasively with XRF (no samples removed), the metallic substance was found to contain predominantly gold with some copper; only a trace of silver was detected.

50 Robert W. Wallace, “The Origin of Electrum Coinage,” Journal of the American Archaeological Association, 91, no. 3 (1987): 385–97; H. A. Das and J. Zonderhuis, “The Analysis of Electrum Coins,” Archaeometry 7 (1964): 90–97. 51 G. K. Jenkins and R. B. Lewis, Carthaginian Gold and Electrum Coins (London: Spink and Son, 1963). 52 Although the higher the silver content the paler the metal, ancient electrum coins were often visually indistinguishable from gold coins due to surface enrichment by cementation: see Jenkins and Lewis, Carthaginian Gold, 133. 53 David A. Scott, “The Deterioration of Gold Alloys and Some Aspects of their Conservation,” Studies in Conservation 28 (1983): 194–203, at 195. 54 Kessler, “Eloquence of Silver,” 54. See also Jennifer P. Kingsley, “VT CERNIS and the Materiality of Bernwardian Art,” in 1000 Jahre St. Michael in Hildesheim: Kirche, Kloster, Stifter, ed. Gerhard Lutz and Angela Weyer (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2012), 171–84. 55 Rozelle Parker Johnson, “Compositiones Variae, from Codex 490, Biblioteca Capitolare, Lucca, Italy,” Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 23, no. 3 (1939): 9–116, at 58–60. 56 For an explication of the methods used to determine alloy compositions in coinage, see Matthew J. Ponting, “The Substance of Coinage: The Role of Scientific Analysis in Ancient Numismatics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, ed. William E. Metcalf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 12–30. 57 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MB.65 (Ms. Ludwig II.1). Anton von Euw and Joachim Plotzek, Die Handschriften der Sammlung Ludwig (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1979–85), 1:147–49.

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Fig. 2: (a) Incipit to Matthew. Gospel book. Lorsch, ca. 825–838. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MB.65 (Ms. Ludwig II.1), fol. 13v. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 2a, showing the granular gold ink’s off-gold coloration due to the presence of copper and trace silver. Photo: author.

The presence of silver can be particularly difficult to identify with XRF, given the instrument’s detection limits; thus one cannot make a quantitative determination of percentage values of the ink’s constituent metals. In this instance, it appears that gold was stretched with small amounts of copper and silver, and that these adulterations have become oxidized, resulting in an off-golden color and reduced sheen.

Documentary Evidence for Coinage as Source Metal for Gold We have thus far considered source metals obtained by mining precious metals like gold and silver, and also the production of alloyed metals, like brass, that were sometimes used as a substitute or adulterant for precious metals. Yet we must be reminded that it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the true source for gold in a medieval artifact. As Rebecca Zorach has noted: “How many shapes any single bit of gold has passed through is impossible to calculate; its malleability also means a capacity to erase its history entirely.”58 But generally, the sources for medieval

58 Rebecca Zorach, “Everything Swims with Excess: Gold and Its Fashioning in Sixteenth-Century France,” Res 36 (1999): 125–37, at 130.

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gold fashioned into gold leaf, ink, or paint were most often derived from recycled objects, particularly circulating coinage.59 During the late Roman period and before the ninth century, the gold available in northern Europe largely derived from Byzantine tribute moneys and booty—in the form of coinage, medallions, objects, or ingots—obtained by Germanic mercenaries.60 The highest-purity gold coins that circulated throughout the Mediterranean and the Latin West from the eighth to the twelfth centuries were minted in Byzantine and Islamic regions, as evidenced by English and continental European coin hoards.61 These coins were long minted at a consistently high degree of purity, compared to the significantly lower percentages of gold found in metal currency struck in northern Europe, such as Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian coinage.62 In fact, the pseudoimperial gold tremissis minted by the Merovingians (and based on the Byzantine gold tremissis) became so debased over the course of the seventh century that by 670 it consisted entirely of silver, which later inspired Charlemagne to institute the silver denier as a replacement for it, along with a copper-based penny, as part of his monetary reforms.63 Like the Byzantine tremissis, the Islamic dinar (also called a mancus) was so familiar across Latin Christendom that it maintained a stable rate of exchange with the local coinage.64 Thus gold’s relative scarcity in Europe up until the twelfth century did not imply its total absence.65

59 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 191; Nadolny, “Some Observations,” 137–38; Lucia Travaini, “Monete, battiloro e pittori: L’uso dell’oro nella pittura murale e i dati della Cappella degli Scrovegni,” in “Giotto nella Cappella Scrovegni: Materiali per la tecnica pittorica,” ed. Giuseppe Basile, special issue, Bollettino d’Arte (2005), 145–52; Irma Passeri, “Gold Coins and Gold Leaf in Early Italian Paintings,” in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. Christy Smith, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 97–115. 60 Charlotte Behr, “The Working of Gold and Its Symbolic Significance,” in Goldsmith Mysteries: Archaeological, Pictorial and Documentary Evidence from the 1st Millennium AD in Northern Europe, ed. Alexandra Pesch and Ruth Blankenfeldt (Neumünster: Wachholtz, 2012), 51–58, at 56. See also Sam Moorhead, “The Coinage of the Late Roman Empire, 364–598,” in Metcalf, Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage, 601–32, at 605–6; and Alan M. Stahl, “The Transformation of the West,” in ibid., 633–54, at 645–52. 61 Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, AD 300–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 815–51. See also W. A. Oddy, “The Analysis of Four Hoards of Merovingian Gold Coins,” in Methods of Chemical and Metallurgical Investigation of Ancient Coinage: A Symposium Held by the Royal Numismatic Society at Burlington House, London, 9–11 December 1970, ed. E. T. Hall and D. M. Metcalf (London: Royal Numismatic Society, 1972), 111–25. 62 Oddy, “Analysis of Four Hoards,” 122–23, table III. 63 Stahl, “Transformation,” 641–42. See also Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, vol. 1, The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th centuries) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 326. 64 Marc Bloch, “The Problem of Gold in the Middle Ages,” in idem, Land and Work in Medieval Europe: Selected Papers, trans. J. E. Anderson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 186–230, at 200. 65 Bloch, “The Problem of Gold,” 223.

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Documentary sources provide significant evidence for the use of high-percentage gold coinage as source metal for goldbeaters in the making of gold leaf. For example, the Compositiones variae—a compilation of technical instructions believed to date from the late eighth century and derived from earlier Greek sources—recommends making gold leaf from a one-ounce ingot of “Byzantine gold” (aurum Bizantium) or from a Byzantine tremissis (worth one-third of a solidus), which was the thinnest available coin with the highest gold content (approx. 98% or 24 karat).66 It is thus evident that goldbeaters deliberately sought out the highest-purity gold coins that were available. Goldbeating was an ancient craft, practiced throughout the late antique period in regions across the Mediterranean.67 As a material that is hammered flat and cut, gold leaf is characterized by its planar surface, highly reflective quality (especially when burnished), and knife-cut edges. The technology for goldbeating likely continued uninterrupted in Egypt, Byzantium, and the Near East well into the early medieval period, as gold leaf was used in the manufacture of gold tesserae for Byzantine and Islamic mosaics,68 for cut-gold designs in late antique glass,69 and in Coptic leatherwork, such as bookbindings and shoes.70 Gold-wrapped threads for use in luxury textiles were manufactured in Italy and across the Eastern Mediterranean, including in Syria, since at least the fifth century.71 In manuscript illuminations as early as ca. 400, strips of gold leaf were used to depict golden highlights on draperies and other details, for example in the Vatican Virgil, made in Rome.72 As Robert Fuchs has ascertained, the width of these chrysographic highlights in the Vatican Virgil is “nearly identical to that of the common gold lan,” a strip of metal leaf that

66 Adriano Caffaro, Scrivere in oro: Ricettari medievali d’arte e artigianato (secoli IX–XI); Codici di Lucca e Ivrea (Naples: Liguori, 2003), 99–102 (chap. 64). On Byzantine tremisses see Philip Grierson, Byzantine Coins (London: Methuen and Co., 1982), 100. For analytical results on specific coinage see Oddy, “Analysis of Four Hoards,” 122–23, table III. 67 Eric D. Nicholson, “The Ancient Craft of Gold Beating,” Gold Bulletin 12, no. 4 (1979): 161–66. 68 Liz James, “Byzantine Glass Mosaic Tesserae: Some Material Considerations,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 30, no 1 (2006): 29–47, at 45–46. 69 See for example the fragments of a gold glass bowl made ca. 300–350, depicting a Torah ark, a shofar, and two menorahs (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 18.145.1a, b). On the cutgold technique, see Hidetoshi Namiki and Yasuko Fujii, “A Study of the Cut Gold Leaf Decoration Techniques on Ancient Gold Sandwich Glass, with Emphasis on the Hellenistic ‘Kirikane’ Technique,” in Annales du 20e Congrès de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre, ed. Sophie Wolfe and Anne de Pury-Gysel (Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 2017), 68–72. I thank Marie Svoboda for alerting me to this source. 70 Georgios Boudalis, The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2018), 98 and 115. 71 Brigitte Haas-Gebhard, “Dieci tombe di inizio VI secolo a Unterhaching (Monaco di Baviera): I corredi, i committenti, gli artigiani e le tecniche di manifattura,” in I Maestri del metallo: L’Intelligenza nelle mani, ed. Michelle Beghelli and P. Marina De Marchi (Rome: BraDypUS, 2017), 90–101, at 94–96. 72 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3225.

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ranged in width from 100 to 800 micrometers and was wrapped around threads for use in textiles.73 Very little gold coinage was minted in Europe after the Merovingians ceased producing it in the seventh century.74 Alongside the circulation of the Byzantine solidus and tremissis, Islamic currency made from Nubian gold (minted into Faṭimid Egyptian dinars) and West African gold (struck as Almoravid dinars) also entered Europe through Andalusi, Amalfitan, Maghrebi, and Cairene trade.75 During the eleventh century, western Europe began to gain renewed access to greater quantities of true gold, as sub-Saharan gold sourced from the inner Niger delta region of Ghana and the Bilād al-Sūdān began to serve as the major source. Regional fragmentation across northern and western Africa caused periods of interruption, so that during the twelfth century the flow of gold to certain parts of Europe again slowed.76 Genoese seafarers and traders were among the earliest to trade European copper in exchange for gold and other goods from Africa.77 Due to their extended reach across the Mediterranean during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, traders from the Italian peninsula imported substantial quantities of gold (as coinage, ingots, and untreated gold dust) from the West African Sahel, transported by caravan across the Sahara to Sijilmasa and Tunis and then across the Mediterranean to Genoa, Amalfi, and Norman Sicily.78 As Pierre Vilar has noted, “Gold came back to

73 Fuchs, “Gold or Brass,” 97–98. 74 Rory Naismith, “Gold Coinage and Its Use in the Post-Roman West,” Speculum 89, no. 2 (2014): 273–306, at 294–97. I thank Kristen Collins for this reference. See also Stahl, “Transformation,” 641–48. 75 Of the most accessible and important works on medieval mining and monetary history, see John F. Richards, ed., Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983); Peter Spufford, Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1988); and the monumental work of Ian Blanchard, Mining, Metallurgy and Minting in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001–5). 76 Thomas Walker, “The Italian Gold Revolution of 1252: Shifting Currents in the Pan-Mediterranean Flow of Gold,” in Richards, Precious Metals, 29–53, at 35–37. See also Ronald A. Messier, “The Almoravids: West African Gold and the Gold Currency of the Mediterranean Basin,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, no. 1 (1974): 31–47, at 32–33. 77 Paul T. Craddock and Duncan R. Hook, “Copper to Africa: Evidence for the International Trade in Metal with Africa,” in Hook and Gaimster, Trade and Discovery, 181–89. Sarah Guérin traces the medieval Saharan trade of ivory, which followed the same routes as those for gold and salt, as well as enslaved people: Sarah M. Guérin, “Forgotten Routes? Italy, Ifrīqiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade,” Al-Masāq 25, no. 1 (2013): 70–91, at 71–73. 78 J. Devisse, “Trade and Trade Routes in West Africa,” in General History of Africa, vol. 3, Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, ed. M. El Fasi (Paris: UNESCO, 1988; repr. London: Heinemann, 1995), 367–435, at 396–400 and 422. See also Walker, “The Italian Gold Revolution,” 45–46; and Spufford, Money, 163–86.

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Europe, in fact, when there was a trade surplus to attract it, or more simply, when Europe began selling more than it bought.”79 Only in 1252 did European city-states like Florence and Genoa begin minting high-karat gold coins of their own, spurred by increased trade across the Mediterranean and an influx of West African source gold.80 Any mining of gold within Europe prior to the fourteenth century depended upon alluvial deposits along the Rhine (what the Theophilus text calls auro arenario, or “sand gold”), much of which had been exhausted during the Roman period.81 By the mid-thirteenth century, gold coinage minted in Europe from West African gold supplanted Byzantine coins as source metal, as evidenced by artists’ contracts and payment records specifying the need to obtain florins or ducats from which to manufacture gold leaf. For example, the gilding of Queen Eleanor of Castile’s effigy was made with 350 gold florins procured from Lucchese merchants between 1291–93.82 In Canterbury, documents from 1324–25 note that four florins were beaten to create five hundred gold leaves (making 125 leaves per florin), presumably to regild Thomas Becket’s shrine.83 Thus the influx of African gold that was minted into coinage during the thirteenth century helped increased the overall availability of gold across Europe. Starting in the 1320s, gold extraction from the mines in Slovakia (Kremnitz), Hungary, and Bohemia increased dramatically, perhaps because this region had lain beyond the borders of Roman control.84 The seeming abundance of the precious metal from these sources may have provided the impetus for the rise of gold leaf manufacture in urban centers, as an increased supply of gold coinage likely served as a convenient source for illuminators and other artisans from the mid-thirteenth through the fourteenth century.85

79 Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450 to 1920, trans. Judith White (London: Verso Books, 1991), 35. 80 See Walker, “The Italian Gold Revolution of 1252.” See also Peter Spufford, “The First Century of the Florentine Florin,” Rivista Italiana di Numismatica e Scienze Affini 108 (2006): 421–36, at 423–26. 81 Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 98–99 (chap. 49). 82 Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski, eds., Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400 (London: Royal Academy of Art, 1987), 364. 83 Marian Campbell, “Gold, Silver and Precious Stones,” in English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. John Blair and Nigel Ramsay (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 107–66, at 131–32. Given the high number of gold leaves obtained from a single florin, presumably the gold leaf for Becket’s shrine was not heavy gold sheet but gold leaf of a similar thinness to that used by illuminators and panel painters. The Florentine guild standard was one hundred gold leaves per florin: see Lara Broecke, Cennino Cennini’s Il Libro dell’arte: A New English Translation and Commentary with Italian Transcription (London: Archetype, 2015), 174 (chap. 139). 84 Spufford, Money, 267–71, 286–88; John U. Nef, “Mining and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilization,” in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2, Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Postan and E. E. Rich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 429–92, at 437–38. 85 For a similar argument made for the gold florin and Italian panel painting see Passeri, “Gold Coins and Gold Leaf,” 100–3.

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III Methods of Application: Metallic Paint and Leaf Having established the medieval sources for precious metals and their occasional substitutes, we now turn to the methods that scribes and illuminators used to apply these materials to the pages of manuscripts. Metals could be applied in two forms: as paint or as leaf. In the first instance, they were ground into powder, mixed with a sticky medium, and applied with a pen or brush; in the second, they were hammered into thin sheets, adhered to a sticky adhesive or ground layer (which could be either flat or raised), and then left unburnished or burnished to a brilliant sheen. Over the centuries, illuminators switched between the use of metal paint and metal leaf, or chose to use them simultaneously, depending upon material availability and the aesthetic effects desired.

Granular Gold Some of the most lavish and precious medieval manuscripts are those in which the entirety of the text is written in a powdered gold ink. Chrysographia, literally “golden writing,” was frequently reserved for the most important Church service books, such as Gospel lectionaries.86 Such a book, often called a codex aureus—like the sumptuous Codex Theodosianus made in Constantinople ca. 1000—was exceedingly costly to produce (Fig. 3a).87 When viewed under a microscope, granular gold ink chrysography can be discerned by its individual grains and the relatively

86 The earliest extant usage of the word chrysographia is likely in the Leyden Papyrus, dating to the third century: Mark Clarke, The Art of All Colours: Mediaeval Recipe Books for Painters and Illuminators (London: Archetype, 2001), 7 and 107. Various fifth-century Church Fathers refer to chrysography, notably John Chrysostom, who describes “writing Christ in Gold” (Christon chrusographia): see Marc Shell, Money, Language and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies Medieval to Modern (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 193. It should be noted that the term “chrysography” is also used today to designate the gold drapery highlights in Byzantine and Italian painting: see Cutler, “Uses of Luxury,” 307–8; and Folda, Byzantine Art. 87 The Latin words aureum and aurea were used in the Latin West to indicate the high status and importance of a text, for example the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine; related terms are found in church inventories to describe books with texts or images in gold (aureis literis decoratis or cum auro pictum), as noted in Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: The British Library, 2001), 65–66. The phrase codex aureus appears not to have been a medieval phrase but may date to the era of antiquarian interest in manuscripts. To use Google Ngram Viewer as a guide, its usage in print appears to have begun at the turn of the nineteenth century; I thank Johanna Drucker and Shane Butler for their advice in addressing this question. For the Codex Theodosianus (Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, cod. 204), see Robert S. Nelson and Kristen M. Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006), 136–39, cat. no. 7. I am grateful to Father Justin Sinaites for generously providing me the opportunity to study this manuscript in 2006.

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Fig. 3: Codex Theodosianus. Constantinople, ca. 1000. Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, cod. 204. (a) Text page. (b) Detail of script, showing the individual grains of granular gold ink. (c) Raking light detail of script showing marks on the surface of the parchment from the burnishing tool. (d) St. Peter (fol. 5r), with background consisting of gold leaf on a flat adhesive ground. Photos: author, by permission of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai.

amorphous edges of the letterforms (Fig. 3b). In this deluxe manuscript, the lustrous reflective quality has been achieved by burnishing the text after writing, made evident by horizontal and vertical burnishing marks visible on the parchment; when viewed with raking light the parchment has a glossier surface where it has been burnished (Fig. 3c). The fields of gold surrounding the holy personages in the manuscript’s prefatory cycle consist of gold leaf rather than paint, which seems to elevate the divine figures within a heavenly, light-filled space (Fig. 3d).88 I prefer to use the term “granular gold” to distinguish the powdered gold material employed by illuminators during the early and High Middle Ages prior to ca. 1200 (Fig. 4a) from another powdered gold that is found in late medieval and

88 For additional images and discussion of the full-page imagery, see Father Justin Sinaites, “The Sinai Codex Theodosianus: Manuscript as Icon,” in Nelson and Collins, Holy Image, Hallowed Ground, 57–77.

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Fig. 3 (continued)

Renaissance manuscripts and panel paintings (Fig. 4b: see section V). Both types of powdered gold paint were made by grinding up gold leaf, and both have been called “shell gold” after the receptacle in which they were decanted for use. Yet, when viewed under the microscope, their morphologies differ substantially, and likewise their respective uses by manuscript illuminators diverged. Notably, granular gold can be seen to consist of large particles that range in shape and size from irregular chunks to flat flakes. When a light source falls upon the micro-faceted surface of granular paint or ink, the light is reflected multi-directionally due to the surface’s variable specular reflectance.89 When burnished, that reflectance is changed, decreasing its diffuse effects and heightening its brightness. Manuscripts written entirely in granular gold chrysography, like the glorious Codex Theodosianus, were extraordinarily precious given the greater amount of metal required than for gold leaf. As Daniel Varney

89 See Beth Fischer, “Manuscript as Metalwork: Haptic Vision in Early Carolingian Gospel Books,” in this volume.

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Fig. 4: (a) Microscope detail (150x) of Fig. 1d, showing the chunky grains of granular gold ink; note how the edges and flat surfaces of ground up gold leaf are visible. (b) Microscope detail (150x) of Fig. 19d, showing the minutely fine grains of shell gold, which are as small as the pigment with which it is mixed. Photos: author.

Thompson estimated, “a whole word could be written and gilded with leaf with the amount of metal needed for the dot on an ‘i’ if it were done with powdered gold.”90

The Adulteration of Granular Gold Recipes for powdered gold inks and paints abound in medieval treatises and technical compendia, and in them appear multiple variant instructions for the adulteration of gold with other metals or pigments. Among the numerous recipes for golden paints in the tenth-century Mappae clavicula, for example, is one for “making the most gold” (aurum plurimum facere) by grinding together mercury, orpiment, or alum with filings of gold, silver, copper, and brass, or by mixing gold and copper filings with rock salt and sulfur.91 Early medieval European illuminators using adulterated gold and golden substitutes may have sought to imitate late antique and Byzantine manuscripts written in chrysography. Godescalc, a scribe and cleric at Charlemagne’s court, echoed Byzantine notions of phôtismos in his famous image-laden dedicatory colophon, which provides one of the most evocative explications of a material consciousness by an early medieval Christian scribe: “So the doctrine of God, written in precious metals, leads those following the light of the Gospels with a pure heart into the shining halls of the

90 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 202. 91 Sandro Baroni, Giuseppe Pizzigoni, and Paola Travaglio, Mappae clavicula: Alle origini dell’alchimia in Occidente; Testo, traduzione, note (Saonara: Il Prato, 2013), 60. See also Cyril Stanley Smith and John G. Hawthorne, “Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval Techniques,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 64, no. 4 (1974): 1–128, at 28–38.

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kingdom flowing with light.”92 Yet, a recent scientific study of the Godescalc Lectionary, in which this colophon appears, has revealed that pure gold was used only for the depiction of Christ in Majesty (fol. 3r), while the remaining golden pages were painted and inscribed with a less refined or adulterated gold containing silver and/or copper.93 The exclusive use of pure gold for the Christ in Majesty is significant and bears further interpretive scrutiny, especially if a similar pattern of use can be identified in other Carolingian treasure manuscripts. But what the Godescalc Lectionary demonstrates is that, even for religious texts written in chrysography, the presence of adulterants in their golden inks did not undermine the visual resonance of these manuscripts, and may have added further levels of nuance to their material iconography. The relative scarcity of gold coinage in the Carolingian Empire, where the predominant circulating currencies were instead silver- and copper-based, may help explain the presence of copper, silver, and brass in the golden inks and paints in early Carolingian manuscripts, like the Gospel book from Lorsch discussed above (see Fig. 2b). As the availability of gold to craftsmen across Europe contracted during the early medieval era, the temptation (and perhaps pressure) to stretch available gold with other metals would have been significant. It has been posited that gold in Carolingian manuscripts was adulterated with base metals in order to vary intentionally the hue of gold.94 Beyond this aesthetic argument, we must also consider how the inclusion of small or trace amounts of other metals might be due either to incomplete refining or the intentional stretching of what scant gold was available, along with any material iconographic considerations. A Gospel lectionary made at the Aachen scriptorium of Charlemagne’s court further attests to these practices (Fig. 5a).95 Written entirely in a granular golden ink chrysography on undyed parchment (except for three purple-dyed leaves inscribed with a silver ink), this manuscript would have glistened brightly when first made. But today, the brilliance of the golden ink is much reduced, marked by a green corrosion product and show-through (Fig. 5b). These characteristics suggest the presence of copper in the ink. When analyzed with XRF, only the elements copper and zinc were found, the constituents of brass, with no trace of gold at all. The identification of this golden ink as powdered brass perhaps should not be surprising given the manuscript’s origin in the Rhine-Meuse region, an important center for copper mining and brass

92 Translation by David M. Ganz, “The Preconditions for Caroline Minuscule,” Viator 18 (1987): 24–44, at 30. The Godescalc Lectionary (ca. 781–783) is Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1203. 93 Charlotte Denoël, Patricia Roger Puyo, Anne-Marie Brunet, and Nathalie Poulain Siloe, “Illuminating the Carolingian Era: New Discoveries as a Result of Scientific Analyses,” Heritage Science 6, no. 28 (2018): 1–19, at 10, 15, and table 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-018-0194-1. 94 Alexander, “Base and Noble Metals,” 31–39. 95 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MD.73 (Ms. Ludwig IV.1). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 1:203–5.

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Fig. 5: (a) Text page with detail of granular brass ink; the green staining of the parchment surrounding the letterform is due to the presence of copper in the brass. Gospel lectionary. Carolingian (Rhine-Meuse region), early ninth century. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MD.73 (Ms. Ludwig IV.1), fol. 5r (detail). (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 5a, showing the irregularly sized grains of granular brass ink and the green staining of the parchment. Photos: author.

production during the ninth century. The discovery of brass ink also reminds us that all that glitters as gold may not contain even a trace of that precious metal. Golden inks consisting of base metals have largely remained undetected until relatively recent scientific investigations using XRF, as in these last two examples. In fact, a growing number of richly inscribed and painted manuscripts from the seventh to the twelfth centuries continue to be identified as having been written and illuminated with brass ink and paint.96 But if medieval craftsmen did not fully recognize brass as an alloy that combined two different metals, then we ought to consider that brass perhaps served as an effective simulacrum for gold. Given that the medieval viewer understood color as the outward manifestation of the inner nature or spirit (pneuma) of the material,97 brass may have been seen as an appropriate surrogate for gold. Yellow like gold, brass was valued for its brilliant luster.98 Harder than gold, brass could be rasped into a powder to make a paint that, to the painter and scribe, may have conveyed a degree of immutability of its own. The inherently corrosive nature of copper and the eventual dulling of brass’s golden sheen would not have occurred immediately. Whether or not its use was determined by an economic choice or by a lack of gold, brass may have been, for some medieval viewers, visually indistinguishable from gold, “performing” just as successfully as the more precious metal.99 96 Denoël et al., “Illuminating the Carolingian Era,” 10 and 15; Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 84; Fuchs, “Gold and Brass,” 103. 97 Liz James, Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 46. 98 Ruette, “From Conterfei and Speauter to Zinc,” 195. 99 For an important discussion of material “performance” and apposite identities of copper alloys and gold (which is especially relevant for cases like the Godescalc Lectionary noted above), see Ackley, “Copper-Alloy Substrates,” 19.

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Illuminators of the tenth and eleventh centuries appear to have carried on the Carolingian technical tradition of utilizing granular gold ink and paint for chrysography and illuminations. In a late Ottonian benedictional from Regensburg of ca. 1030–40, a rich reflective effect was achieved by burnishing the granular gold ink for initials as well as for broad background areas in the full-page miniatures (Fig. 6a).100 The burnishing of the gold paint compressed and flattened the metal grains, creating a crust on the surface. In some places this compacted surface of gold paint has cracked and flaked away, revealing (under binocular magnification) the uncompacted grains of the ink beneath (Fig. 6b). Using XRF, this metallic paint was found to contain gold as well as some copper (with no zinc or tin detected). Yet the presence of copper can also be ascertained by the naked eye, given the green show-through on the reverse sides of the folios (Fig. 6c).101 Even with copper added as an adulterant, the burnished surface of the gold paint has retained its radiant glow. The technique for burnishing gold paint seen in the Regensburg Benedictional corresponds to a recipe for making a golden ink or paint to be “applied in books” (in libris ponatur) given in the De diversis artibus, which recommends polishing it with a tooth or stone in order to achieve a lustrous surface.102 That instruction is similar to recipes given in the Mappae clavicula in its recommendation for grinding gold leaf with a hand-milling device along with filings of brass, copper, and tin in order to adulterate the precious metal.103 Thus within the historical context of the fluctuating availability of gold, discussions surrounding the use of metals in European manuscripts during the period from the ninth to the early twelfth century must also consider the adulteration of gold with base metals and the not-so-uncommon use of brass as a viable substitute for the pure precious metal.

The Transition to Metal Leaf in Europe An early instruction for applying gold leaf onto the leaves of manuscripts is given in an Arabic treatise on book-making, the “Book of the Staff of the Scribes” (Umdat alkuttāb wa’uddat dhawī al-albāb) of Al-Muᶜizz ibn Bādīs, written ca. 1025 CE (ca. 416

100 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MI.90 (Ms. Ludwig VII.1). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 1:293–96. 101 By comparison, the golden ink of a contemporary Bavarian Gospel book (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 20) exhibits a dark hue and dulled luster, along with a telltale green show-through on the parchment: when analyzed with XRF, no gold was found, only copper and zinc (i.e., brass). See Panayotova, Colour, 37, cat. no. 56; and Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 81–82. 102 Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 28 (chap. 29). 103 Ibid. See also the illustration in Theophilus, On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking and Metalwork, trans. John G. Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith, rev. ed. (New York: Dover, 1979), 35, fig. 1.

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Fig. 6: Benedictional. Regensburg, ca. 1030–40. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MI.90 (Ms. Ludwig VII.1). (a) Fol. 16r: Bishop Engilmar celebrating Mass. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Detail of Fig. 6a, showing the burnished, flattened crust of the granular gold paint, as well as areas of cracking and flake loss within the surface crust; note the unburnished grains of granular gold within the loss to the surface crust. Photo: author. (c) Fol. 16v: text page; note green show-through evident from the recto due to the presence of copper impurities in the granular gold paint. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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Fig. 6 (continued)

AH) in North Africa. Its author suggests adhering gold leaf to the page with fish glue or snail glue.104 A set of bifolia from a disbound Qur’an dating to the tenth century CE (third century AH) provides an example of Kufic chrysography (Fig. 7a).105 Letterforms in the Getty Qur’an leaves were constructed from carefully cut pieces of gold leaf laid onto a pale orange ground (found by XRF to contain an iron oxide) and outlined with an iron-gall ink, which aims to conceal the cut edges of the gold leaf and to define the shapes of the letters (Fig. 7b). A similar technique, also involving an iron-based ground, has been identified in the gold-leaf chrysography of a

104 Martin Levey, “Medieval Arabic Bookmaking and Its Relation to Early Chemistry and Pharmacology,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 52, no. 4 (1962): 1–79, at 37. Note that the identification of organic binding media in inks and grounds often requires sampling, and the presence of snail mucilage has never been identified in a manuscript. 105 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MM.118 (Ludwig X.1). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 3:15–18. See a related leaf described in the online catalog of the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (AKM480): https://www.agakhanmuseum.org/collection/artifact/quran-leaf-akm480.

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Fig. 7: (a) Decorated text page (Sūrat al–An’ām 6:119–121). Fragmentary Qur’an. North Africa (Tunisia?), ninth century CE / third century AH. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MM.118.4.8 (Ms. Ludwig X.1), fol. 8v. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 7a, showing gold leaf applied to the pale pink, ocher-containing flat ground layer. Photo: author.

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folio from the famous Blue Qur’an.106 Together, these examples challenge our assumptions about script being written with anything other than pen and liquid ink. They also provide the basis for a wider understanding of chrysography, demonstrating how gold leaf could be cut and shaped into letterforms and employed for fine details, as in mordant gilding (discussed in section IV below). The transition away from granular gold paint to gold leaf in European manuscripts began during the first decades of the twelfth century.107 This shift likely resulted from an increased availability of gold from sub-Saharan sources, imported into Europe for the minting of coinage and the fashioning of luxury goods, including goldwrapped threads. Leaf was first used in the form of narrow strips applied end-to-end to create linear details, such as garment edgings and outlines of initial letters.108 By the second half of the twelfth century, broader swathes of gold leaf became the norm in Latin manuscripts. Gilded surfaces were often constructed with small, irregularly shaped pieces of gold leaf, which overlapped at their edges as they were adhered to a ground layer (for a discussion of grounds, see section IV below). This pieced method may not be visible immediately to the naked eye, but it can be made evident by XRF mapping, which, for example, revealed a “patchwork” technique of variously shaped pieces of gold leaf in the background of a miniature by Giovanni di Paolo (Fig. 8a–b).109 Whereas full sheets of gold leaf were often utilized to gild large areas on panel,110 the use of small pieces of leaf appears to have been fairly common for gilding the backgrounds of illuminations. An unusual use of a presumably full sheet of gold leaf was identified in one Byzantine illumination of ca. 1325–45 depicting St. Mark (Fig. 9a).111 Elemental

106 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, 33.686; see Marcus Fraser, “The Origins and Modifications of the Blue Qur’an,” in Panayotova and Ricciardi, Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, 1:199–213, at note 50. See also Cheryl Porter, “The Materiality of the Blue Qur’an: A Physical and Technological Study,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, ed. Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 575–86, at 582–83 and fig. 28.4. 107 First noted by Alexander, “Medieval Recipes,” 51. 108 Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 83–84. See also Peter Kidd and Nancy K. Turner, “Materiality and Collaborative Enterprise in the Making of the St. Albans Psalter,” in Kristen Collins, Peter Kidd, and Nancy K. Turner, The St. Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013), 65–95, at 74–78. 109 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 87.MS.133 (Ms. 29). 110 Douglas MacLennan, Laura Llewellyn, John K. Delaney, Kathryn A. Dooley, Catherine Schmidt Patterson, Yvonne Szafran, and Karen Trentelman, “Visualizing and Measuring Gold Leaf in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Italian Gold Ground Paintings Using Scanning Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy: A New Tool for Advancing Art Historical Research,” Heritage Science 7, no. 25 (2019): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0271-0. 111 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002.23 (Ms. 70).

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Fig. 8: (a) Initial A with Christ appearing to David. Cutting from a gradual. Giovanni di Paolo, Siena, ca. 1440. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 87.MS.133 (Ms. 29), recto. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) XRF gold map, showing pieced, patchwork application of gold leaf in the background of Fig. 8a. Image: Courtesy of the Getty Conservation Institute.

mapping with macro-XRF scanning revealed that the majority of the background was gilded with a single, large sheet of gold leaf, with areas occupied by the figure, footstool, and desk held in reserve (Fig. 9b).112 By contrast, narrow spaces on either side of and below the seated evangelist were gilded with small, partially overlapping pieces of leaf in a fairly haphazard manner.113 The full sheet of gold leaf was at least 86 mm wide (the full width of the gilded background), considerably larger than the 68 x 68 mm gold leaf that was to be standardized by the Florentine painters’ guild during the early fifteenth century.114 Attaching a large piece of gold

112 Macro-XRF scans were collected using a Bruker M6 Jetstream, an open-architecture spatially resolving scanning XRF spectrometer (Rh-tube, 40–50 kV/500-600 µA, 40 keV spectral range, 30 mm2 active area Peltier-cooled XFlash silicon drift detector), which employs polycapillary optics to focus X-rays onto the manuscript under study. The measurement head is moved over (and away from) the surface to be analyzed by means of a programmable, motorized x,y translation stage. Element distribution maps are generated for individual elements detected. Brighter areas of each map represent higher signal from the given element within the area examined. Select element maps were overlaid using typical image processing software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop®) to aid interpretation. My sincere thanks to Douglas MacLennan, GCI scientist, for conducting this analysis and discussing the results with me. 113 Note how the overlapping areas of gold leaf appear white in the gold (Au) map, due to the higher density of gold in those areas. 114 See MacLennan et al., “Visualizing and Measuring Gold Leaf.”

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Fig. 9: (a) St. Mark. Leaf from a Gospel book. Constantinople, ca. 1325–45. Los Angeles, JPGM, 2002.23 (Ms. 70), verso. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) XRF gold map of Fig. 9a, showing full width of the gold leaf in the upper half of the background, with pieced application in the lower half of the design. Image: Courtesy of the Getty Conservation Institute.

leaf to the page can be tricky, as splits, called faulting, easily occur.115 It is therefore no surprise to find faulting in the background in the St. Mark leaf: the vertical split above the seated figure was repaired with a narrow strip of gold leaf that appears as a light patch in the XRF map, while flattened folds and wrinkles in the gold leaf appear as thinner white lines. Byzantine manuscripts and icons especially made lavish use of broad, gilded backgrounds, which functioned as a kind of formless medium or “intervallic space,” like air, especially when such gilding

115 A method of repairing splits in gold was described in the early fifteenth-century Italian treatise by Cennino Cennini: see Broecke, Cennini, 168 (chap. 134). Byzantine recipes pertaining to gold preparation and gilding are given in Peter Schreiner and Doris Oltrogge, Byzantinische Tinten-, Tuschen- und Farbrezepte (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2011).

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surrounded holy personages (as seen in Fig. 3d). 116 As gold leaf was used to animate the divine image of the evangelist Mark and to activate an icon’s transformative powers, faults in the gold leaf potentially interrupted these qualities, thus requiring repairs by the artist at the time of production.

Part-Gold, a Hybrid Metal Leaf Medieval metal-beaters produced not only gold and silver leaf but a laminate of the two precious metals. This hybrid material is called today part-gold or half-gold in English, and Zwischgold, oro di metà, and or de moitié, in German, Italian, and French, respectively.117 A recipe given in the Theophilus treatise describes a process for manufacturing thin strips of metal leaf for this purpose: narrow pieces of silver and gold measuring “half the length of the little finger” (longitudine dimidii digiti minoris) are hammered together until a very thin plate is made.118 From this, fine strips could be cut with a knife and “twisted around silk in spinning” (Inde etiam inciduntur subtiles corrigiae, et in serico filando circumtorquentur).119 Part-gold can have a surface appearance that is very similar to pure gold leaf. And like electrum, its coloration can sometimes tend toward a cooler tonality overall, on account of the thinness of the gold relative to the silver substrate (Fig. 10a). For example, when part-gold from a late thirteenth-century crucifix by Giotto was sampled, the thin layer of gold leaf was found to be one-sixth the thickness of the silver leaf onto which it had been hammered.120 In some cases a yellow transparent glaze was painted on top of part-gold to compensate for the hybrid metal’s cool hue; in others part-gold was applied onto a dark yellow ground layer.121 Part-gold was also used

116 Roland Betancourt, “The Icon’s Gold: A Medium of Light, Air, and Space,” West 86th 23, no. 2 (2016): 252–80, at 260. See also Bissera Pentcheva, “The Power of Glittering Materiality: Mirror Reflections between Poetry and Architecture in Greek and Arabic Medieval Culture,” in Istanbul and Water, ed. Paul Magdalino and Nina Ergin (Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 241–74, at 249. 117 Myriam Eveno and Elisabeth Martin, “Les feuilles mixtes or-argent en peinture de chevalet,” in 11th Triennial Meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland 1–6 September 1996: Preprints, ICOM Committee for Conservation, ed. Janet Bridgland (London: James and James, 1996), 355–59. I thank Laura Rivers for this reference. 118 Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 139 (chap. 77). 119 Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 139 (Latin); Theophilus, On Divers Arts, trans. Hawthorne and Smith, 156 (English). 120 Myriam Eveno, Elisabeth Ravaud, Thomas Calligaro, Laurent Pichon, and Eric Laval, “The Louvre Crucifix by Giotto: Unveiling the Original Decoration by 2D-XRF, X-ray Radiography, Emissiography and SEM-EDX Analysis,” Heritage Science 2, no. 17 (2014): 1–9, at 3–4. https://doi.org/10. 1186/s40494-014-0017-y. For the use of part-gold on polychrome sculpture, see Jean D. Purtell, “Altered Silver Gilding,” in Bigelow et al., Gilded Wood, 205–16. 121 Broecke, Cennini, 130–31n2. See example given in Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 86.

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extensively in the textile industry to wrap threads, much as gold leaf was. In the endband of a late-thirteenth-century Byzantine binding, for example, part-gold was wrapped around a yellow core thread to impart a more golden hue to the metal, not unlike the use of a yellow ground in painting (Fig. 10b).122 By the early fourteenth century, major centers for goldbeating and the production of metallic threads flourished in support of luxury textile manufacturing in a number of European cities, including Cologne, Paris, and London, as well as Milan, the city that lent its name to a common term for thread wrapped with part-gold (called oro di Milano or oro mezzano in Italian, and or de Milan in French).123 When sold in packets of square metal leaf, part-gold leaf was distinguished from gold leaf by its larger size and lower cost.124 While part-gold was substantially less expensive than pure gold, it can be unclear whether this alternative was employed for economic reasons or for a particular aesthetic appearance, or whether it was appreciated for its intermediary status as a hybrid material. Part-gold could be employed to depict metalwork that itself consisted of multiple metals, as identified in T‘oros Roslin’s innovative use of part-gold to imitate the appearance of contemporary Islamic brass metalwork with characteristic engraved and silver inlay designs (Fig. 10c–d).125 By around 1400, part-gold was used widely across Germany, where it seems to have had a particular vogue in manuscript illumination and panel painting.126 For example, in a Bavarian copy of Jans der

122 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MB.69 (Ms. Ludwig II.5). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 1:164–70. For scientific analysis of metal-wrapped thread, see Tamás G. Weiszburg, Katalin Gherdán, Kitti Ratter, Norbert Zajzon, Zsolt Bendő, György Radnóczi, Ágnes Takács, Tamás Váczi, Gábor Varga, and György Szakmány, “Medieval Gilding Technology of Historical Metal Threads Revealed by Electron Optical and Micro-Raman Spectroscopic Study of Focused Ion Beam-Milled Cross Sections,” Analytical Chemistry 89, no. 20 (2017): 10753–60. I thank Catherine Patterson for this reference. 123 Maria Paola Zanoboni, “Female Labour in the Silk Industry,” in Silk, Gold, Crimson: Secrets and Technology at the Visconti and Sforza Courts, ed. Chiara Buss (Milan: Silvana, 2009), 33–36, at 35. See also Margret Wensky, “Women’s Guilds in Cologne in the Later Middle Ages,” Journal of European Economic History 11, no. 3 (1982): 631–50. 124 Suzanne Kubersky-Piredda, “The Market for Painters’ Materials in Renaissance Florence,” in Trade in Artists’ Materials: Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700, ed. Jo Kirby, Susie Nash, and Joanna Cannon (London: Archetype, 2010), 223–43, at 226, 228, and table 5 (see also Appendix tables A-17 to A-19, at 239–41). 125 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 94.MB.71 (Ms. 59). 126 Recent technical study of Cologne panel painting of the early fifteenth century, for instance, has found part-gold (Zwischgold) used for specific aesthetic reasons, not just as an economic choice: see Katja von Baum, Theresa Neuhoff, Caroline von Saint-George, and Iris Schaefer, “Blattmetallauflagen, Verzierungstechniken und Farbauftrag: Die künstlerische Handschrift aus technologischer Sicht / Metal-Leaf Applications, Decorative Techniques and Paint: The Artistic ‘Handwriting’ from the Technological Point of View,” Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung 26, no. 1 (2012): 33–53 / 268–74, at 41–42 / 270.

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Fig. 10 (a) Microscope details of sample part-gold (left) and pure gold leaf (right). Photo: author. (b) Detail of part-gold thread from endband of binding; the silver has tarnished to dark gray while the gold retains its bright hue in places. Gospel book. Nicaea or Nicomedia, late thirteenth century. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MB.69 (Ms. Ludwig II.5). Photo: author. (c) Vase from a canon table; partgold was used to imitate contemporary brass metalwork with silver inlay. Zeyt’un Gospels. T‘oros Roslin, Hromklay, Armenia, 1256. Los Angeles, JPGM, 94.MB.71 (Ms. 59), fol. 7v (detail). Gift of the

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Fig. 10 (continued) Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia. Photo: author. (d) Candlestick. Iran, thirteenth century, brass, engraved and inlaid with silver, 17.8 x 16.3 cm. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, gift of Joan Palesky, M.73.5.123. Photo: www.lacma.org. (e) Adoration of the Golden Image. Weltchronik of Jans der Enikel. Regensburg, ca. 1400–10. Los Angeles, JPGM, 88.MP.70 (Ms. 33), fol. 212r (detail). Photo: Courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program. (f) Microscope detail of Fig. 10e, showing the double-sided nature of the part-gold in an area on the column where the metal leaf has folded back upon itself, revealing the silver side of the hybrid metal leaf; note the dark yellow ground layer, which lends a more golden color to the partgold. Photo: author.

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Enikel’s Weltchronik made ca. 1400–10, part-gold was used in the depiction of the false idol erected by King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel (fols. 212r and 213v) and in many other gilded features throughout the manuscript (Fig. 10e).127 When analyzed with macro-XRF mapping, the material constituents of the metal leaf were found to be consistent from the seated idol down the full length of the column.128 The double-sided nature of the part-gold is clearly visible when viewed under the microscope (Fig. 10f). Thus instead of depicting the idol with pure gold, as the text described, the idol and its column seem to consist entirely of part-gold, its inconsistent and variegated surface appearance perhaps meant to visualize the “falseness” of the idol. Even as part-gold was used throughout much of the manuscript’s pages, either for aesthetic or economic reasons, the material iconography of part-gold conveyed in this instance may indicate the impure status of the idol and its profane connotations.

IV Gold Leaf Embellishments: Controlling Brilliance and Creating Varietas As illuminators in the twelfth century and after utilized burnished gold leaf, silver leaf, and part-gold for larger areas of their designs, a taste for embellishing gilded surfaces quickly followed. Such embellishments did not aim to add ornamentation for its own sake but served to alter the optical reflectance of the material by manipulating its surface. This predilection took hold by the turn of the thirteenth century and persisted well into the fifteenth. Illuminators developed a range of techniques to enhance or modify the brilliance of gold leaf, including the use of raised and colored grounds, mordant gilding, tooling (impressed designs), and the application of color to its surface. The introduction of such methods to create nuance and variation in metallic surfaces can be related to the growing interest in medieval scientific and Scholastic ideas about light, reflection, perception, and vision, exemplified by Thomas

127 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 88.MP.70 (Ms. 33). For a comprehensive discussion of the various strategies (material and iconographic) used to depict the idols, see Nina Rowe, “Devotion and Dissent in Late-Medieval Illuminated World Chronicles,” Art History 41, no. 1 (2018): 13–41. 128 I am grateful to Catherine Patterson, GCI scientist, for conducting the XRF line scan of this region of the image on fol. 212r. Although XRF analysis was unable to account for the more silver appearance of the idol compared to the more golden column, this discrepancy might be on account of the use of an organic glaze painted on the metal leaf of the column (although no glaze could be detected under the microscope or when examined with ultraviolet light).

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Aquinas’s description, given in both theological and metaphysical terms, of the refulgent shine (refulgere) of the Transfigured Christ.129 Aristotelian and Neoplatonic theories of light, color, and optics began to take center stage at the universities of Paris and Oxford and in royal court circles in France and England during the thirteenth century, developments that came to affect how illuminators handled color modeling.130 This interest in optical science—particularly in how light enters the eye and in the perception of the reflective properties of materials—likewise began to affect how illuminators varied the visual effects of metallic surfaces in manuscripts. By adjusting and modifying the reflective qualities of metals, illuminators introduced a wide range of scintillating effects that provided new sensory experiences of the page. These developments should also be seen within the context of the notion of varietas as outlined by Mary Carruthers, who has demonstrated how this term of rhetoric conveys a “continuum” between “too little” and “too much” and “expresses the essence of what is fit and worthy, of that adornment which is one of . . . persuasion.”131 Although illuminators were not likely to have read texts on optics (perspectiva) or rhetoric themselves, they may have been exposed to perspectivist ideas from vernacular poetry, mendicant sermons, and other popular discourse.132 As craftsmen came to be viewed as “artificers” who could improve and transform the materials of nature, their art can readily be seen as one of persuasion. Likewise, as late medieval attitudes regarding the mechanical arts (artes mechanicae) began to shift, a growing appreciation for the manual skill of artisans and their inventive workmanship (ars et ingenium) took hold.133 Simultaneously, during the thirteenth century, gold became “a focused site for the display of wealth,” as Michael Camille noted regarding the increasing sensitivity of medieval viewers to gold’s symbolism as a signifier of wealth and power.134 Together, these factors contributed to an explosion in the varied uses and forms of precious metals in manuscript illumination as sites of optical engagement and material display. Their visual effectiveness depended upon the ground materials onto which the metal leaf was applied.

129 Lakey, “Materiality of Light,” 123. 130 Panayotova, “Colour Theory,” 306–7. 131 Mary J. Carruthers, “Varietas: A Word of Many Colours,” Poetica 41, nos. 1–2 (2009): 11–32, at 11 and 14. For a discussion of varietas in twelfth-century manuscripts, see Heidi Gearhart, “A “Multimedia” Manuscript: Metalwork and the Siegburg Lectionary,” in this volume. 132 Lakey, “Materiality of Light,” 126–27; Panayotova, “Colour Theory,” 312. 133 Gage, Colour and Culture, 75–76. See also Elspeth Whitney, “Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thirteenth Century,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 80, no. 1 (1990): 1–169, at 82–86. 134 Camille, Gothic Idol, 261.

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Grounds for Metal Leaf In illuminated manuscripts, grounds for metal leaf consist of a water-soluble adhesive mixed with a coloring agent.135 The liquid ground material would be brushed onto the support and typically be left to dry. Just prior to the application of metal leaf, the adhesive would be reactivated with moisture, making the surface slightly tacky to ensure the adherence of the leaf. Given the fact that metal leaf is microns thin (so thin that light can be transmitted through it), the color of the ground layer imparts a tonality to the metal. Prior to 1150 or so, grounds for metal leaf in manuscript illumination were either a thin, translucent glue layer or a thinly applied opaque ground layer, and hence were typically flat (see Fig. 7b). The metal leaf might be left unburnished, giving it a more matte effect, or it could be lightly burnished to create a moderate sheen, depending upon the thinness of the glue or ground layer and the napped texture of the parchment.136 Beginning in the latter decades of the twelfth century, the visual and tactile possibilities for gold leaf were explored in ways that gave it a more reflective surface sheen.137 Raised, often colored, grounds containing bulking agents (clays, silicates) were introduced, providing a more three-dimensional base layer onto which metal leaf could be adhered (Fig. 11a). A thicker, raised ground layer allowed for more effective burnishing: to achieve the greatest degree of surface reflectance possible, the artist would polish the ground material with a smooth hard stone (hematite) or dog’s tooth to create a completely smooth, uninterrupted surface before laying down the metal leaf (Fig. 11b).138 Once adhered to the polished ground layer, the metal leaf was burnished to a mirror-bright shine (Fig. 11c).139 Burnished gold leaf on a raised ground provided a luxuriously rich surface effect that deceived the eye into thinking that the full thickness

135 When gold is applied to wood (e.g., panel paintings or polychrome sculpture), the ground can be either water-based (“water gilding”) or oil-based (“oil gilding”). In manuscripts, however, oilbased media are considered incompatible with parchment and paper substrates (unless those supports are mounted on a secondary support, such as a wood panel). For an incisive analysis of grounds in panel paintings and their varied terminologies, see Jilleen Nadolny, “All That’s Burnished Isn’t Bole: Reflections on Medieval Water Gilding. Part 1: Early Medieval to 1300,” in Medieval Painting in Northern Europe: Techniques, Analysis, Art History; Studies in Commemoration of the 70th Birthday of Unn Plahter, ed. Jilleen Nadolny (London: Archetype, 2006), 148–62. 136 For panel paintings, Nadolny uses the terms “matte gilding” and “mordant gilding” synonymously for unburnished gold on a flat ground: Nadolny, “All That’s Burnished,” 149. On mordant gilding in manuscripts, see below. 137 Nadolny locates the introduction of grounds in panel painting (what she terms “poliment gilding”) to ca. 1250: Nadolny, “All That’s Burnished,” 155. 138 Broecke, Cennini, 170 (chap. 135). 139 The late medieval example illustrated here is Cambridge, MA, Houghton Library, MS Lat 395. The full digitized manuscript can be found at: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:10470924$8i.

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Fig. 11: Antiphons and prayers for Marian feasts. Medingen, ca. 1480–1500. Cambridge, MA, Houghton Library, MS Lat 395. (a) Fol. 93v (detail): un-gilded initial letter consisting of a pink ground layer. (b) Fol. 23v (detail): un-gilded initial letter; pink ground was burnished to a high gloss (with possible adhesive layer added to receive gold leaf but left incomplete). (c) Fol. 25r (detail): gilded initial letter; gold leaf was burnished to a reflective sheen, shown here at an angle to convey thickness of the ground. Photos: author, by permission of the Houghton Library.

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of the raised material consisted of solid precious metal, not a microns-thin foil layer adhered atop a ground. Grounds for medieval illumination vary greatly in color, consisting of carbon black, lead white, copper green, green earth, azurite blue, orpiment yellow, yellow or red ocher, vermilion red, or calcium-based white grounds (gypsum), sometimes tinted with organic colorants like indigo.140 Variants between ground materials within an illuminated codex might signal a division of labor according to the book’s codicological divisions or hierarchy of decoration. For instance, the scribe might use one type of ground for the initial letters and line fillers, while the illuminator might use another for gilding the major pictorial elements.141 Or, perhaps the illuminator might choose a particular ground color in order to “create a more consistent visual field” between the tonality of the metal and the surrounding paint colors, as Harvey Stahl noted in the case of the Saint Louis Psalter.142 The use of differently colored ground materials within a single illumination, such as within a gilded background, might suggest the presence of later interventions or repairs.143 For example, some areas of the gold-leaf background in the twelfthcentury illuminations of a Vita Christi manuscript appear to have been carefully repaired (Fig. 12a). Made initially evident when viewed in transmitted light (i.e., lit from behind), macro-XRF mapping revealed a white, calcium-based ground that was used in isolated areas within the losses in the original red/brown (iron- and calciumbased) ground (Fig. 12b).144 The white ground material used for the repairs is identical to the ground used for the gilded backgrounds of a group of miniatures that were

Fig. 12: (a) Raising of Lazarus. Illustrated Vita Christi. Northern England (perhaps York), ca. 1190–1200; with devotional supplements, East Anglia (perhaps Norfolk), ca. 1480–90. Los Angeles, JPGM, 2008.3 (Ms.101), fol. 61r. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) XRF element maps (details) for background of Fig. 12a (⊘=~175 µm; d=25 ms; s=150 µm). Left: Gold (Au) map showing application method for gold leaf. Center: Iron (Fe) map showing extent of original bole ground for the gold leaf, as well as iron-ocher pigment used for Christ’s hair and outlines of hands. Right: Calcium (Ca) map showing highest density (shown as brightest areas of white) of the calcium ground used within repaired areas of loss that were regilded in the fifteenth century. Image: Courtesy of the Getty Conservation Institute.

140 Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 88–90, ill. 7. 141 Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 90. 142 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10525. See Harvey Stahl, Picturing Kingship: History and Painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 37. 143 Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 88, ill. 7a–e. 144 I am grateful to Catherine Patterson for conducting the macro-XRF scanning of the Vita Christi manuscript and for her helpful interpretation of the element maps.

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added to the manuscript at the end of the fifteenth century, suggesting that the repair campaign was concomitant with the renovation of the Romanesque picture cycle, when it was supplemented with new devotional images and texts.145

Mordant Gilding The term “mordant gilding” is typically used to describe linear or curvilinear elements created by applying gold leaf to a painted surface. Mordant gilding was employed for golden highlights on draperies, imitation gold brocades, gilded letterforms (when metallic ink was not used), and other details. The word “mordant” derives from the craft of textile dyeing, denoting the chemical added to a dyebath (usually an inorganic salt) that fixes a colored dyestuff to textile fibers. In the context of techniques used for panel painting, Cennini used the term mordente to describe a sticky oil-based medium brushed onto the pigmented surface so delicately that the leaf “bites” (morda) or adheres only where the tacky adhesive has been applied; the gilding thus appears “like fine hairs” (chome capelli sottili).146 Although the composition of the mordant is different from that used in panel painting, mordant gilding is also found in manuscript illuminations, in the form of lattice designs, repeated linear patterns, hem edgings on garments, or pictorial elements where a more matte effect is desired. Calling all gilding in manuscripts “mordant gilding,” Daniel V. Thompson considered illuminators’ use of water-based mordant gilding as the equivalent to oil-based mordant gilding in panel paintings.147 But since all grounds for gold leaf in manuscripts are presumably waterbased, I choose to distinguish between burnished gold leaf on a raised ground and mordant gilding. Mordant gilding is gold leaf that is applied to a flat ground and left relatively matte. It is used for details atop painted surfaces and achieves similar visual effects to the mordant gilding used in tempera painting on panel. In manuscript illuminations, flat mordant gilding is often juxtaposed and contrasted with more reflective burnished gold on a raised ground, as the former typically has a duller, more matte surface appearance, and it is usually left unburnished. A fifteenth-century Bolognese recipe for mordant gilding in manuscripts, entitled “A mectere oro senza lustro in suso

145 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008.3 (Ms. 101). On the repurposing of the manuscript’s twelfth-century picture cycle, see Kristen Collins, “Resonance and Reuse: The Fifteenth-Century Transformation of a Late Romanesque Vita Christi,” British Art Studies 6 (2017), https://doi.org/10. 17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-06/kcollins. 146 Broecke, Cennini, 195. See also David Bomford, Jill Dunkerton, Dillian Gordon, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400 (London: National Gallery of Art, 1989), 43–47. 147 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 204–5. See additional examples in Turner, “Heavenly Light,” 87, ill. 6.

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Fig. 13: (a) Job derided by his wife and friends. Book of hours. Paris, ca. 1410. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.101 (Ms. Ludwig IX.5), fol. 155r (detail). Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 13a, showing mordant-gilded tracery lines on background color and edges of gold leaf over a white adhesive mordant. Photo: author.

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li collore” (to put gold without luster on colors), emphasizes the reduced luster or deadening of gold that was flatter (due to the thin adhesive layer) and left unburnished.148 One frequent use for mordant gilding in manuscript illuminations from the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was to create thin tracery lines and textilelike patterns on colored backgrounds. For example, in an early fifteenth-century Parisian book of hours, a fine grid with interspersed scrollwork motifs was painted with narrow lines of an opaque white adhesive mordant on top of a deep red background (Fig. 13a).149 The gold leaf would have been applied while the mordant was still tacky so that it would adhere only to the linear details and not the background pigment.150 Such finely gilt tracery lines can often be mistaken for powdered gold ink or paint (“shell gold”). Yet when closely inspected under the microscope, no grains of powdered gold paint are evident, only the wrinkles and splits that formed when the gold leaf was adhered (Fig. 13b). Mordant gilding provides varying contrasts of light intensity, especially when made figural, as in the griffins and eagles that fill the half-quatrefoils between paired scenes in the Lewis Psalter (Fig. 14a).151 The visual effects of this technique contrast with the bright mirror shine of the highly burnished gold leaf on a raised ground that surrounds the figures in the central roundels; this distinction is most impactful in the Transfiguration scene, where Christ’s head and hand have been rendered with unburnished mordant gilding (Fig. 14b).152 Emitting a refulgent glow, Christ’s transfigured and glorified body, manifested in his face, dynamically shifts and oscillates between dark and dazzling. The use of mordant gilding in this example effectively envisions an inventive alternative to the “dazzling dark face” of miraculous Mandylion and Sacro Volto images, which were typically rendered with deep red, dark gray-brown, or black pigments.153 In another thirteenth-century example, dragons and scrolling leaf designs were mordant gilded (and left unburnished) on top of highly reflective, burnished gold leaf on a raised ground, creating a contrast in intensities within a Bible initial

148 The chapter title is translated as “To lay dead gold upon colors” in Mary P. Merrifield, Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting (1849; Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999), 462–63, recipe 148. 149 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.ML.101 (Ms. Ludwig IX.5). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 2:92–102. 150 Merrifield, Treatises, 462–63, recipe 149. 151 Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E 185. See James R. Tanis, ed., Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), 51–53, cat. no. 10. For the fully digitized manuscript, see https:// libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/5654. 152 I thank Peter Kidd for alerting me to this illumination, and I am indebted to Caitlin Goodwin, Curator of Rare Books at the Free Library, for the opportunity to study the manuscript. 153 Herbert L. Kessler, “Christ’s Dazzling Dark Face,” in Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI–XIV), ed. Anna Rosa Calderoni Masetti, Colette Dufour Bozzo, and Gerhard Wolf (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), 231–46.

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Fig. 14: Lewis Psalter. Paris, ca. 1225–40. Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E 185. (a) Fol. 11r (detail): mordant-gilded eagle. (b) Fol. 10v (detail): Transfiguration; the flat, unburnished mordant-gilded face of Christ contrasts with the reflective gold-leaf background surrounding the figures. Photos: author, by permission of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

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Fig. 15: (a) Initial V: Job derided by his wife. Marquette Bible, vol. 3. Franco-Flemish (probably Lille), ca. 1270. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MA.57.3 (Ms. Ludwig I.8), fol. 238v (detail). Photo: author. (b) Detail of Fig. 15a, showing the mordant-gilded dragon and scrolling leaf designs applied on top of the burnished gold leaf of the initial letter V; note the striations from the burnishing tool on the first layer of gold leaf, beneath the mordant-gilded dragon. Photo: author. (c) Composite XRF element map of Fig. 15b, rendered in false color, combining the map for copper (Cu), shown in blue, which is unique to the gold leaf of the dragon and scrollwork, and the map for gold (Au), shown in red, denoting the burnished gold leaf of the initial letter V. Image: Courtesy of the Getty Conservation Institute.

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(Fig. 15a–b).154 To disentangle the steps involved to create this inventive variant on mordant gilding, XRF mapping was used to visualize and distinguish the materials present (Fig. 15c).155 First, a white, calcium-containing, raised ground layer was applied to the bare parchment, onto which gold leaf was adhered and burnished to a high sheen. Next, a textured dark red/brown (iron- and lead-containing) mordant was painted on top of the burnished gold leaf layer to create the dragon and foliate designs. Onto these designs, a differently sourced gold (with trace copper present) was adhered and left unburnished to heighten the contrasting effect between the two gilded layers. The final effect is a shifting figure-ground relationship of dark and light, dull and reflective, contrasting effects that invite greater scrutiny of the initial.

Tooled Gold Leaf: The Introduction of “Dichotomous” Light Effects Like a blank page, uninterrupted metallic surfaces invited ornamentation. And the ground layer onto which gold leaf was applied was highly receptive to the incised and tooled designs that were employed to enhance and vary the gilded surface. Called en pointillé in French and granare in Italian, this stippling technique, which likely derived from goldsmith work, was frequently used to create designs impressed or hammered into metallic surfaces. As Norman Muller has argued for panel painting, tooling of gold leaf was intended by artists to vary its reflective qualities; tooling reduces gold’s reflectivity by creating what Muller calls “dichotomous” effects, by which the tooled design appears dark against the brightness of the burnished gold-leaf surface, or vice versa, depending upon the viewer’s position relative to the surface.156 Like the varied reflectance between mordant gilding and burnished gold on a raised ground, tooled designs serve an important optical function, as they introduce shifting figure-ground relationships within areas of reflective gold leaf. The resulting visual instability can be related to what Mary Carruthers has called “polyfocal perspective,” which she defines as a feature that can be appreciated in multiple sensory modes, like musical harmonies or contrasts in taste and smell.157 Although scholars have debated the primacy of gold’s tactility versus

154 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MA.57.3 (Ms. Ludwig I.8, vol. 3). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 1:85–92. 155 I thank Douglas MacLennan for conducting the macro-XRF scanning and for his skillful interpretation of the results. 156 Norman Muller, “In a New Light: The Origins of Reflective Halo Tooling in Siena,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 72, no. 2 (2012): 153–87, at 153 and 156. 157 Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 155 and 160–61.

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its visuality, I suggest that the tooled embellishment of metal leaf appealed “polyfocally” to both of these senses. The most common methods used during the High and late medieval periods to “embellish,” or rather, vary gold-leaf surfaces in manuscripts involved incising patterned designs with an implement with a dulled point to create repeated clusters or rows of indented dots (Fig. 16a). A more sharply pointed tool could also be used to incise hand-drawn designs like scrolls and swirls. In addition, motif punches— metal hand tools with a single carved motif or design—could be impressed repeatedly into metal-leaf surfaces to create rows or patterns of the motif (also called tooled designs). When all three methods are combined, new figurations are introduced to the otherwise uninterrupted gold-leaf surface that change and vary its reflectance (Fig. 16b). The introduction of simple motif punches to manuscript illumination appears to have begun sometime around the mid-twelfth century, nearly a century prior to the use of motif punches in the tooling of gold ground panel paintings.158 For example, in both the Ratmann Sacramentary, which is dated 1159, and its sister manuscript, the Stammheim Missal (made within a decade or so later), gold leaf was adhered to a thinly applied, iron-containing ground and then decorated with small circles impressed with a simple motif punch (see Fig. 16a).159 On such a thin, flat ground layer, the visual impact of this type of design is subtle, but it increases as the page is turned. Simple motif punches like the circle and pentarosette were fairly ubiquitous from the mid-twelfth century onward, and become far more eye-catching when pressed into a raised ground rather than a flat ground, as light reflects in multiple directions off of a curved surface, whether or not the folio is in motion. More intricate motif punches may have been specific to a particular illuminator, such as the unusual scroll motif punch used by the early fifteenth-century illuminator Cristoforo Cortese (Fig. 16c).160 A tool may indicate the

158 Muller, “In a New Light,” 148. See also Susanne Moebus-Bergeron, “Tooling Techniques in Romanesque Illumination: Appearance, Transmission, and Implications,” PhD diss., Boston University, 2013. 159 The Ratmann Sacramentary is Hildesheim, Dommuseum, DS 37; the Stammheim Missal is Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 97.MG.21 (Ms. 64). Notably, the small circle motif punch used in these books was found to correspond precisely in dimension to the circular punch used for the granulation of background fields in contemporary metalwork: see Nancy K. Turner, “Die Materialien und Techniken des Stammheimer Missales / Materials and Techniques of the Stammheim Missal,” in Das Stammheimer Missale / The Stammheim Missal: Commentary Volume to the Facsimile, ed. Kristen Collins (Lucerne: Quaternio, 2020), 93–105, at 96–98 / 285–95, at 288–89, and figs. 3.9 and 3.11. 160 Digital surrogates for this manuscript leaf are available online: https://openn.library.upenn. edu/Data/0023/html/lewis_e_m_068_012.html.

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Fig. 16: (a) Creation of the World; microscope detail of the repeated tooling around perimeter of roundels, impressed into the gold leaf using an implement with a blunted point, and the repeated use of a small, circular motif punch. Stammheim Missal. Hildesheim, probably 1170s. Los Angeles, JPGM, 97.MG.21 (Ms. 64), fol. 10v (detail). Photo: author. (b) Initial B: David in prayer; detail of gold leaf on a raised ground embellished with incised scrolling lines, dotted patterns (both made with a pointed implement), and designs from a rosette-shaped motif punch. Diurnal. Probably the Workshop of Ulrich Schreier, Vienna or Salzburg, ca. 1485. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.110 (Ms. Ludwig IX.14), fol. 17v (detail). Photo: author. (c) Initial A: Prophet Daniel; detail of the artist’s characteristic scroll-shape motif punch. Leaf from an antiphonal. Cristoforo Cortese, Venice, ca. 1425–50. Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E M 68:12 (detail). Photo: author, by permission of the Free Library of Philadelphia. (d) Initial L: Baptism of St. Augustine; detail of the oval scalloped-edge motif punch used in illuminations and panel paintings by the artist and his workshop. Cutting from a choir book. Master of the Osservanza, Siena, ca. 1430. Los Angeles, JPGM, 90.MS.41 (Ms. 39) (detail). Photo: author.

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hand of the master, or it may have been shared across his workshop, like the Master of the Osservanza’s oblong tetra-lobe punch, found on both his illuminations and his panel paintings (Fig. 16d).161 Undoubtedly inspired by goldsmiths, illuminators used every available tooling method possible during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, often combining motif punches and incised tooling to make complex designs on the surface of gold leaf. Much like their panel-painting contemporaries, book painters utilized tooling to affect the optical qualities of gold leaf, to introduce a greater visual varietas, and to craft more complex figure-ground relationships that engage the viewer’s eye and mind.

Colored Glazes and Painted Designs on Metal Leaf Metal leaf, whether on a raised or flat ground, could also be enhanced with painted designs and transparent colored glazes. This technique is most often associated with the application of a translucent yellow colorant painted over silver leaf to imitate the hue of real gold (Fig. 17a–b). A fourteenth-century recipe in the treatise of Petrus de St. Audemar suggests using brilliant saffron yellow over silver leaf “in the absence of gold” (ex carentia auri).162 Yet the colored glazes painted onto silver leaf were not always intended to mimic gold: silver leaf could be enlivened by glazes of other colors as well, often in combination. A miniature in the aforementioned Parisian book of hours, for instance, has a silver-leaf background ornamented with an elaborate foliate design colored with transparent red, green, and yellow glazes (likely derived from organic dyestuffs) that impart a rich and glowing enamel-like effect (Fig. 17c–d). More naturalistic effects could be achieved by this technique, as in the shading of silver armor with a transparent blue glaze to model the flatness of the silver leaf into three dimensions (Fig. 17e–f).163 Colored glazes on metals could thus heighten an illumination’s sumptuousness or its pictorial illusionism.

161 Mojmir S. Frinta, Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting (Prague: Maxdorf, 1998), 190 and 424. It should be noted that the most comprehensive studies on motif punches published to date are focused on their use in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian panel paintings. 162 Merrifield, Treatises, 160–61, recipe 205: note that Merrifield erroneously translates the phrase as “on account of the high price of gold.” 163 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 91.MS.5 (Ms. 41).

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Fig. 17: (a) Initial A: Alexander the Great defeating Darius. Cistercian antiphonal. Franco-Flemish, ca. 1260–70. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MH.88.20 (Ms. Ludwig VI.5, leaf 20). Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 17a, showing the yellow and orangered glaze painted on top of silver leaf, visible at edges of shield. Photo: author. (c) Job pointing to a corpse. Book of hours. Paris, ca. 1410. Los Angeles, JPGM, Ms. Ludwig IX.5 (83.ML.101), fol. 147r. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (d) Detail of Fig. 17c, showing foliate design painted with yellow, green, and red transparent glazes on a silver-leaf background. Photo: author.

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Fig. 17 (continued) (e) Conversion of St. Paul. Cutting from a gradual. Attributed to Pisanello and the Master of Antiphonal Q of San Giorgio Maggiore, probably the Veneto (possibly Verona), ca. 1440–50. Los Angeles, JPGM, 91.MS.5 (Ms. 41). Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (f) Detail of Fig. 17e, showing the transparent blue glaze applied to the silver leaf of Paul’s armor. Photo: author.

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V Later Developments: Expanding the Golden Palette The illuminator’s golden palette continued to expand with the introduction of other sparkly golden materials that were used alongside metal leaf. These included two new pigments: mosaic gold, called either aurum musicum or purpurinus in various technical treatises, and a powdered gold finer than the granular gold paint of earlier centuries. The first of these, mosaic gold, contains no true gold: the pigment was synthesized chemically by combining tin and sulfur with mercury roasted at high heat; the mercury sublimates, leaving behind a chunky and sparkling goldenyellow compound, tin disulfide (SnS₂), which has a hue similar to yellow ocher pigment (Fig. 18a–b).164 Cennino Cennini associated mosaic gold specifically with the art of illumination, but remarked that it was also suitable for painting on panel.165 Introduced at least by the mid-thirteenth century, this pigment was a desirable golden alternative that fascinated illuminators (and some panel painters) throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, even when they had true gold at their disposal. In addition, a powdered gold paint again entered the illuminator’s palette around the turn of the fifteenth century. Often called “shell gold” today by calligraphers and art historians after the container in which it was sometimes prepared during the Middle Ages, this material was much more finely ground than the granular gold discussed above (see section III).166 Cennini supplies a recipe for a powdered gold paint made by grinding gold leaf with salt or alum to create a fine powder, and often mixing it with a colored pigment (in Cennini’s example, with green), and adding an easy-flowing binding medium to create a paint that flowed easily from a quill or small brush.167 The author of another fifteenth-century recipe suggests grinding gold leaf with sulfur, salt, and saffron yellow to make a very finely divided gold pigment with an enhanced yellow tonality.168 These and other early fifteenth-century French instructions for “powdered gold” (pouldre dor) or “milled gold” (or mouler) emphasize the need to grind the gold to a very fine powder, so that it can be mixed with another pigment or colorant, or used by itself as a

164 Daniel V. Thompson and George Heard Hamilton, An Anonymous Fourteenth-Century Treatise: De arte illuminandi; The Technique of Manuscript Illumination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1933), 4–5 and 57–58n50. For published references to recipes for mosaic gold, see Janet L. Ross, “A Note on the Use of Mosaic Gold,” Studies in Conservation 18 (1973): 174–76, at 176n5. 165 Broecke, Cennini, 205 (chap. 173). 166 Again, if Google Ngram Viewer is any guide, the term “shell gold” might be a mid-nineteenthcentury introduction to the vocabulary found in printed guides for art practitioners. 167 Broecke, Cennini, 206–7 (chap. 174). 168 Merrifield, Treatises, 46.

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Fig. 18: (a) Laboratory sample of mosaic gold (tin disulfide) pigment. (b) Initial B: David in prayer; microscope detail of mosaic gold. Diurnal. Probably the Workshop of Ulrich Schreier, Vienna or Salzburg, ca. 1485. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.110 (Ms. Ludwig IX.14), fol. 17v (detail). Photos: author.

delicate paint.169 Importantly, these recipes rarely if ever recommend burnishing it as Theophilus does for granular gold.170 In fact, according to Matteo de’ Pasti’s letter of 1441 to his Florentine patron Piero de’ Medici, this “powdered gold” (oro masinato) was intended to be used “like any other color” (como ogni altro collore) and creates an effect “that you never saw in this way before” (che mai a questo modo non la vedisti).171 De’ Pasti considers this powdered gold pigment to be a new innovation, which he attests to seeing in Venice. Yet by the time he wrote his missive, the material had already been in use for several decades in northern Europe and northern Italy, as evidenced by the recipe provided by Cennini, who recommends its versatility for doing “any work that you want with it” (puoi fare ogni lavoro che vuoi).172 I prefer to reserve the modern term “shell gold” for this more finely ground, powdered gold pigment because it differed substantially from the granular gold paint of earlier eras (i.e. Carolingian, Ottonian, Byzantine, and Romanesque).

169 Ibid., 297 and 303. 170 Theophilus, The Various Arts, trans. Dodwell, 25–27 (chap. 28). 171 My translation. For full transcription, see Gaetano Milanesi, Lettere d’artisti italiani dei secoli XIV e XV (Rome: Tipografia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche, 1869), 5–6; for discussion, see Francis Ames-Lewis, “Matteo de’ Pasti and the Use of Powdered Gold,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 28, no. 3 (1984): 351–62, at 352. 172 Broecke, Cennini, 206–7 (chap. 174).

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And although Theophilus’s text refers to shells as receptacles for milled gold (de molendo auro), neither that text nor any of the late fourteenth/early fifteenth-century sources like Cennini, de’ Pasti, nor the French recipes just cited, employ any term that translates to “shell gold.” Whether used undiluted or mixed with another pigment, the particles of powdered shell gold are so fine that, even when viewed under a microscope, they cannot be differentiated, in contrast with the evident chunks and platelets of granular gold viewed at the same level of magnification (see Fig. 4a–b). Thus, I would argue that Thompson’s observation that “the powder of gold which in the hands of the Middle Ages had been a trumpet became a sort of piccolo in the hands of the early Renaissance book factories of the North” reflects the marked difference between these two milled gold paints.173 The effects achieved by shell gold— whether used by itself or mixed with other pigments—differ substantially from the dense, opaque effect of granular gold in manuscripts of the early and High Middle Ages. What distinguishes the new powdered gold from the earlier granular gold is that its intensity could be intentionally modified: it could be diluted to reduce its strength and opacity or to create a semi-transparent wash, or it could be mixed with other pigments to modulate its hue. By itself, finely powdered shell gold was often employed to depict highlights on draperies, objects, and hair, as well as golden brocaded garments, monochromatic golden architectural features, and many other luminescent and coloristic effects. For example, in a depiction of the enthroned Virgin and Child in the Hours of Simon de Varie, Jean Fouquet used powdered gold in varying dilutions to create fine calligraphic tracery lines, delicate chrysographic highlights, and stippled dotted effects that denote the variable play of light across the Virgin’s blue robe (Fig. 19a).174 Under the microscope, the fine particles of the shell gold are even finer than the grains of the ultramarine blue pigment onto which it was painted (Fig. 19b). Diluted gold paint was also applied as a thin wash, as in the Virgin’s golden throne, and mixed with a yellow or red pigment for the tiled floor. Finely powdered gold paint was also frequently used for the golden diaphanous backgrounds of strewn-flower borders of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century French and Flemish manuscripts (Fig. 19c–d).

173 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 200. Thompson’s association of powdered gold with the “book factories” that produced large numbers of books of hours in fifteenth-century France, Flanders, and the Netherlands inspires his comment regarding the overuse of powdered gold paint, such that “its significance was lost, and its point dulled by vain, empty repetition.” Nevertheless, Thompson’s distinction between the earlier versus late incarnations of milled gold paints is valid and noteworthy. 174 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.ML.27 (Ms. 7). See Nancy Turner, “The Manuscript Painting Techniques of Jean Bourdichon,” in A Masterpiece Reconstructed: The Hours of Louis XII, ed. Thomas Kren (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 63–79, at 71–72.

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Fig. 19: (a) Virgin and Child Enthroned. Hours of Simon de Varie. Jean Fouquet, Tours, 1455. Los Angeles, JPGM, 85.ML.27 (Ms. 7), fol. 1v. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 19a, showing the range of intensities of the shell-gold highlights on the Virgin’s blue robe. Photo: author. (c) Leaf from a book of hours. Franco-Flemish, ca. 1480–90. Los Angeles, JPGM, 92.MS.34 (Ms. 45), recto. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (d) Microscope detail of Fig. 19c, showing diluted shell-gold background in the margin, with a more concentrated shell gold used for the small flecks and dots. Photo: author.

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And the pigment was often employed to create dramatic fictive bronze relief effects, camaïeu d’or, grisaille, and contre jour (nocturnal) effects.175 The versatility of this pigment gave gold a new function and purpose for illuminators, as it provided a subtlety to colored pigments and could be used to suggest a more naturalistic play of light across various surfaces. Similarly, metals other than gold were also ground more finely than before, such as powdered silver paint, which was used for highlights on certain substances, such as the rippling surface of water in Jean Bourdichon’s depiction of Bathsheba bathing from the Hours of Louis XII (Fig. 20a); although it is now tarnished, a sense of the silver’s original evanescent appearance can be evoked through “digital restoration” (Fig. 20b).176 Powdered brass was reintroduced during the fifteenth century, now more finely ground with an olive-brown sparkle.177 Shell gold and shell brass were often used together to create more subdued metallic and coloristic effects, as in the acanthus leaf forms of an initial letter and its surrounding background that were also modeled with blue and red pigment (Fig. 21a–b).178 Leon Battista Alberti, in his Della pittura (ca. 1435–36), famously disparaged the use of metals, especially gold, in panel paintings for the depiction of golden objects and the effects of light, because it distracted from and diminished the illusionistic aims of mimetic painting.179 He instead encouraged painters to showcase their skills by adding white or black to their colors to create light and shadow, and to render golden objects by only using yellow and brown paints. 180 Understood as a response to the nuovo stile from Flanders imported to Italian court circles during the first half of the fifteenth century, this approach to painting has been associated with the early humanistic views favored by Alberti’s milieu. 181 Yet even as painting methods and aesthetic tastes shifted toward greater naturalism, gold was not completely rejected by Italian Renaissance easel painters and 175 Bettina Preiswerk, “Darkness in Illumination: Painting Techniques for Rendering Atmospheric Darkness in 15th-Century French and Burgundian Manuscripts,” in Manipulating Light in Premodern Times: Architectural, Artistic, and Philosophical Aspects, ed. Daniela Mondini and Vladimir Ivanovici (Mendrisio: Mendrisio Academy Press, 2014), 217–33. 176 Turner, “Techniques of Jean Bourdichon,” 66–67. 177 See Debora D. Mayer, Hope Mayo, Erin Mysak, Theresa J. Smith, and Katherine Eremin, “Technical Examination of the Emerson-White Book of Hours: Observations on Pigment Preferences and Media Application in a Flemish Manuscript,” Heritage Science 6, no. 48 (2018): 1–29, at 23–26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-018-0211-4. 178 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.ML.114 (Ms. Ludwig IX.18). Euw and Plotzek, Sammlung Ludwig, 2:256–85. Elliot Adam, “Le camaïeu d’or dans l’enluminure en France au XVe siècle: Une technique de réduction du coloris,” PhD diss., Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), 2016. 179 Baxandall, Painting and Experience, 15. 180 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spencer, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 85. 181 Paula Nuttall, From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting, 1400–1500 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press: 2004), 180–81.

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Fig. 20: (a) Bathsheba bathing; shell silver (now tarnished) was used to depict the reflections off the water’s surface. Leaf from the Hours of Louis XII. Jean Bourdichon, Tours, ca. 1498–99. Los Angeles, JPGM, 2003.105 (Ms. 79), recto. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Digital “restoration” of the shell silver in Fig. 20a, indicating a sense of the original appearance of the metallic paint. Image: Courtesy of the Getty Imaging Services Department.

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Fig. 21: (a) Virgin Saints. Spinola Hours. Workshop of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian, Bruges and Ghent, ca. 1510–20. Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.114 (Ms. Ludwig IX.18), fol. 269v. Photo: Courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. (b) Microscope detail of Fig. 21a, detail of the initial O, showing shell brass mixed with shell gold in the background of the initial, with pure shell-gold highlights on the acanthus leaves that form the initial letter. Photo: author.

illuminators. A number of easel painters continued to use powdered gold paint and gold leaf in the fifteenth century, including Giovanni and Jacopo Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Carlo Crivelli, Andrea Mantegna, and Cosmè Tura, as did numerous manuscript painters. And even as heightened mimetic effects became more important to painters, precious metals sustained their symbolic meanings. When not used as meta-materials to depict metallic objects, gold and silver leaf contributed to the sumptuousness of the page while signaling their costliness and luxury. While illuminators both north and south of the Alps continued to embrace gold and silver leaf, they also expanded their palette to include powdered gold, silver, and brass paints, as well as mosaic gold pigment. They persisted in their technical innovations by modulating gold’s reflectance to reduce the “disruption” to illusionistic pictorial space, while maintaining a refulgent glow. As media that perpetually engaged the eye, precious metals never entirely fell away from the illuminator’s palette. Gold in particular, an enduring and precious metal that emitted light from the surface of the page, was the material that fundamentally defined the art of manuscript illumination. Its significance was deeply rooted in its association with light and its resulting power to negotiate between the material

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and immaterial worlds. The agencies and material iconographies ascribed to gold, as well as silver, part-gold, brass, and other metals in manuscripts, derived not only from their respective material meanings, but also from their physical manipulation by illuminators to create optical varietas. Over the centuries, book painters achieved a stunning array of visual effects by shifting the optical properties of metals. Through technical analysis, visual observation, and close readings of contemporary sources, we gain a deeper appreciation of the sophisticated artistic methods that ultimately served complex anagogical readings and dynamic material aesthetic performance. As the leaves of manuscripts were turned, whether in ambient daylight or by flickering candlelight, precious metals generated light, engaging the medieval viewer’s eye, body, mind, and spirit. These metallic substances activated potent religious and even healing powers while conveying a persistently undeniable aura and luxury.

III Representation

Brigitte Buettner

Metal Labor, Material Conversions: Goldsmiths in the Life of St. Denis and in Parisian Life, ca. 1300 A seated man raises a hammer to strike a metal cup placed on an anvil: these are the basic bodily gestures and material signifiers that identify metalworkers in medieval visual representation (Fig. 1). The present essay examines the labor performed by goldsmiths and the use of gold in a selection of Gothic miniatures, specifically those found in a lavishly illustrated Life of St. Denis created around 1300 for the French king Philip IV the Fair.1 As a composite portrait of a group of professionals and a type of material, my discussion asks how manuscript painters reflected—and reflected on—the creations of colleagues who, like them, were among the few artisans who handled substances of exceptional social prestige: silver and, above all, gold. To what extent did the painters’ and smiths’ enterprises coincide physically and coexist conceptually in the conversion of gold into two-dimensional images and three-dimensional objects? And how did those material transpositions echo with the conversion of currencies controlled by the money changers who were the chief purveyors of the noble metals? Finally, can such secular transmutations be associated with a central concern of the Life of St. Denis, namely the recasting of Parisians from pagans into Christians?

Picturing Goldsmiths A high point of Gothic book production, the Life of St. Denis was the fruit of a collaborative effort between the royal abbey of Saint-Denis and a Parisian workshop.2 In word and image, the sumptuous book chronicles salient episodes of the saint’s missionary activity in third-century Paris. Along with his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, Denis (Lat. Dionysius) was a cephalophoric saint, meaning one who carries his severed head to a final resting place of his choosing. In this case, the

1 For additional examples, see Marian Campbell, “Gold, Silver and Precious Stones,” in English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. John Blair and Nigel Ramsay (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 107–66; John Cherry, Goldsmiths (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 24–29; and Peter Cornelius Claussen, “Goldschmiede des Mittelalters,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 32 (1978): 46–86. 2 The manuscript has elicited numerous studies, the most detailed of which is Charlotte Lacaze, The “Vie de St. Denis” Manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 2090–92) (New York: Garland, 1979). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-003

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Fig. 1: A money changer, goldsmith, and a man on horseback with a falcon and his servant. Life of St. Denis. Paris, ca. 1318. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 2091, fol. 99r (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

self-translation brought the martyrial body from Montmartre to the location of the future sanctuary that preserves his memory to this day.3 Commissioned by Philip IV (d. 1314), the book was presented sometime between October 1318 and the fall of the following year by the abbot of Saint-Denis, Gilles de Pontoise, to the king’s son and successor Philip V (d. 1322).4 So integral to the overall experience of this state-of-theart manuscript is its superb pictorial cycle that a titulus, inserted below the opening presentation scene, expressly encourages readers to turn into viewers: “And after the writing, take note of the care of the painter.”5 Brief as the note may be, it is a remarkable acknowledgment of the authority of the image and, as such, consistent with the efflorescence of things visual in Gothic Europe.

3 In the Carolingian era, this Dionysius was (con)fused with two other personages carrying the same name, one a disciple of St. Paul mentioned in the Gospels, the other an influential Neoplatonic Greek philosopher. The textual tradition is summarized by Lacaze, Vie de St. Denis, 4–20. 4 Lacaze, Vie de St. Denis, 57–81, convincingly argues that the manuscript was not finished by 1317, the year indicated in the colophon. 5 “Et post scripturam pictoris percipe curam,” and, in the French translation on the facing page, “Et aprez toute l’escripture aparçoit du paintre la cure.” Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. fr. 2090, fols. 4v and 5r.

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The once single codex is now divided into three volumes (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Mss. fr. 2090–2092), each measuring about 24 x 15 cm.6 The visual program consists of seventy-seven full-page miniatures headed by a caption. Of the thirty pictures centered on the saint’s preaching activity and martyrdom in Paris, eight accommodate a hardworking goldsmith. The general organization is always the same, as in Ms. fr. 2091, folio 99r (Fig. 2): a hagiographic main narrative unfolds in the upper register while contemporary secular activities crowd the lower half. Elaborate architectural borders, which mimic the Gothic architectural language of compound piers, crocketed pinnacles, arches, and galleries, unite the discontinuous spaces and discrete temporalities. In addition to bright vermilion, lapis lazuli blue, light blue, pale pink, and mauve, substantial amounts of scintillating gold animate the pages of the Life of St. Denis. The highly burnished, vibrantly reflective metallic color is the only one, however, which functions at once denotatively and connotatively. In the first case, it invokes golden and gilded objects; in the second, it identifies things of value to the images’ internal logic. Importantly, gold also acts as a unifying optical device. On this folio, it ties the borders and ivy scrolls to the diamond grid that enlivens the salmon-colored background, then converges on the scaly conical roofs that simultaneously separate and stitch together the two spheres—past and present, religious and secular—into a symbiotic whole. The manuscript’s emphasis on human labor has elicited numerous comments. Understandably, explanations for its unprecedented promotion of mundane pursuits have varied. For some scholars, the lower scenes perform a visual celebration of Paris’s prosperity and reputation under the Capetian dynasty; for others, the inclusion of a few paupers insinuates a realistic note, even a social critique (however unlikely in an official commission). Others yet have commented on the dialectical bond that interlaces urban ordinariness with hagiographic extraordinariness.7 At a minimum, everyone agrees that the images underscore how the city flourishes under the tutelage of a saint whose blood is etched into its history and, by extension, under the religious authority of the institution that represents him physically, legally, and symbolically. In Ms. fr. 2091, folio 99r, St. Denis is seen preaching to a closely packed group of city dwellers: “Through the blessings of faith, heavenly life is offered,” reads his

6 The three volumes are available in digital format on Gallica: Ms. fr. 2090, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btv1b8447296x; Ms. fr. 2091, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452762k; Ms. fr. 2092, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84478804. 7 Respectively, Lacaze, Vie de St. Denis, 126–38; Virginia Wylie Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris: A Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974); Camille Serchuk, “Paris and the Rhetoric of Town Praise in the Vie de St. Denis Manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 2090–2),” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 57 (1999): 35–47; and Wolfgang Brückle, Civitas Terrena: Staatsrepräsentation und politischer Aristotelismus in der französischen Kunst, 1270–1380 (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2005), 90–123.

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Fig. 2: St. Denis preaches to the Parisians. Life of St. Denis. Paris, ca. 1318. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 2091, fol. 99r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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scroll. Headed by one Lisbius, who proclaims, “Already now I believe in Christ, already now I give myself to his teachings,” those seated in the front rows have received the new Gospel while those clustered in the back continue to debate and puzzle.8 The toppling of pagan idols was the conventional visual shortcut to convey the idea that effective preaching ends in conversion.9 No less than their kinetic precariousness, the sculptures’ golden complexion serves as an allegory for a doomed belief system. Compared to these deities’ crassly materialistic identity, the Christian god reverberates aureate brightness as a salvific luminosity, one that surfaces (literally) in the proselytizing speaker’s ornately Gothic platform, the triumphantly upright cruciform staff, and the close-set ranks of gilded haloes. Whether in bono or in malo, gold is abundantly present. Though consonant with a royal commission, the visual opulence it imparts to the Life of St. Denis must also have conveyed notions of spiritual plenty and material wealth. The lower scenes across the entire cycle are noticeably less glittery. But even if a loss of gloss signals descent into the here and now, that same sparseness helps to position our gaze on the things that matter: the heap of coins a money changer is handing over to a client (the empty scroll serving as a signifier of the transaction) and the chalice displayed in the adjoining booth. In line with the representational trope with which I started, this goldsmith is busy at work on a second cup. Surprisingly, the anvil, humble piece of equipment if there ever was, is painted in silver, and so too is the hammer’s oversized head. One wonders if the metallic pigment, rarely used in the Life of St. Denis, was meant to ennoble the goldsmith’s tools while maintaining a semantic distinction with the finished products.10 Both professions appear on the left, and are balanced, on the opposite side, by a more varied cast of characters. The right-most compartment shelters a customer who is shopping for a knife while more dangle from near-invisible pegs. With blades painted in silver and handles in gold, they join the two gilded purses to complete the wares the female mercer has on offer. Her trade specialized in selling rather than in making; it was in the ascendant in our period thanks to a more robust consumer culture and increased demand for manufactured goods. As is the case here, the manuscript’s rhythm-conscious illuminators liked to extend commercial transactions—exchanging, selling, purchasing— into purely physical actions. Hence the young falconer who is holding his beaky bird aloft in such a way that it reproduces the smith’s determined arm motion; hence, too, the porter, weighted down by a heavy sack, who prolongs the mounted man’s charge and left-to-right movement. Add to this continuous narrative the gesticulating watchman and the singing students in the boat to come away with a

8 “Per fidei merita prebetur celica vita” and “Iam Christum credo, iam disciplinis suis me do.” Slightly modified from Lacaze, Vie de St. Denis, 288. 9 Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 115–28. 10 I thank the anonymous reader for this and other helpful suggestions.

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feeling of restlessness—the energy produced by a city as densely packed with people and things as are the carefully framed images that memorialize it. Separated from and yet complementing the social ranks featured in the main narrative—ecclesiastics, nobles, soldiers, and well-to-do burghers—the bridge scenes run the gamut of what we would call the middle class, the lower class, and the frankly disenfranchised. Among various professionals, tradespeople, merchants, peddlers, students, and travelers, one recognizes a doctor, a bird dealer, a cutler, a mason, a ragpicker, a shepherd, a spinner of wool, a bear tamer, and more. Some poor and some disabled folk as well as a leper complete a social panorama that encompasses the sedentary, the permanently mobile, and the impaired; that embraces the old no less than the young, women and men. Many citizens travel on foot, but others do so on horseback and in fancy coaches. And they walk, talk, haul, ride, sit, swim, sing, perform, sleep, fish, fight, haggle, sell, and buy. An incessant flow of goods further bolsters the impression of a thriving urban economy—portable organs, bird cages, dogs, falcons, a bear, pet monkeys, fruit, bread (already a Parisian specialty), pastries, wheat, lumber, coal, building stones, and lots of wine, all destined for the visual pleasure of the king and his entourage. The encyclopedic stamina with which the Life of St. Denis surveys people, things, and actions was a strategic move, and so was its topographical realism. The lower scenes always take us to the heart of Parisius, the central island bookended by the cathedral of Notre-Dame and the sprawling episcopal precinct on the east side and the royal palace with the Sainte-Chapelle and the stately great hall (modernized by Philip IV) on the west (Fig. 3). Before the erection of new bridges later in the fourteenth century, one would access the Île-de-la-Cité via the Grand Pont from the Right Bank (on the miniatures’ left) and via the Petit Pont from the Left Bank. For all their persuasiveness, the pictures misleadingly suggest that the two bridges were aligned when, in reality, people, animals, and all manner of conveyances had to zigzag through the congested streets to cross from one side to the other. Most dramatically, they hide the fact that in 1280 and again in December 1296, the Grand Pont was taken down by floods, its strength compromised by the weight of houses, booths, forges, and perhaps even goldsmiths’ nonstop pounding and hammering. Instead of showing the timber bridge that would be finished two years later—set a little to the east and at a slight diagonal—the makers of the manuscript opted for a condensed stone structure resting on four arches. In fact, there were sixteen arches, thirteen of which were equipped with a mill and one of which was used for navigation.11 In this ideal and timeless staging of the city, it is surely not accidental that

11 Miron Mislin, “Zur Baugeschichte des Grand-Pont im Mittelalter,” Alte und Moderne Kunst 25, no. 171 (1980): 16–20, at 17–18.

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Fig. 3: Map of central Paris, ca. 1300. Republished with permission of Princeton University Press, from Virginia Wylie Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris: A Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life (1974), fig. 33; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

the bridges are carefully paved nor that a paver is among the island-crossing Parisians. Moved by the noisome miasmas that infected the palace area, King Philip took particular pride in having initiated that improvement to the urban fabric. Regardless, an official gift from the royal abbey would not want to reveal, underneath the soothing palette of light-absorbing colors and the dazzling brilliance of light-

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reflecting gold, the grim reality: stench, dirt, and debris accumulating in the hectic core of what was then the largest city in Europe.12

Goldsmiths in Gothic Paris In this expansive “mirror of the city,” no one is more predictably present than the money changer and the goldsmith.13 Included eleven and eight times respectively, the high-status occupations added luster to city and book alike. A second example, Ms. fr. 2901, folio 111r (Fig. 4), confirms both the standardization of the compositional scheme (down to the fallen golden idols) and the systematic variation of individual elements. Note how the goldsmith’s hammer is here slender and gilded whereas it appears as a heavy, pitch-black tool in other images. Such granular attention to things and gestures effectively highlights the embodied nature of work. Additionally, it might be interpreted as a kind of meta-commentary, a way for illuminators to implicate their own expert handling of different brushes, pigments, glues, and binders—a reflection, in sum, on the techne that sustains any act of material conversion. The knife seller on the Petit Pont to the right introduces a different type of work. Rather than selling goods, this woman trades material riches for spiritual assets as she offers a coin to one of the manuscript’s best-known figures: a beggar, his unsteady body half-covered under a red hooded cape and a baby poignantly slung on his back. As opposed to the shiny metals handled by the changers, the goldsmiths, and the more upscale mercer on folio 99r, this coin’s surface is white. In its bareness, it accords with the shopkeeper’s stool, her wares, the alms bowl, the man’s braies, and the heavy sacks on the other side of the portal—a fair inventory of the ordinary. After all, people like this tradeswoman, let alone the beggar, would never finger gold species and rarely set their eyes on gilded objects. As handlers of expensive, socially prestigious, and symbolically auratic substances, goldsmiths and money changers operated directly under the vigilant eyes of royal officials. To cut down on malpractice and keep fraud in check, a royal ordinance of 1141 had mandated that changers ply their trade on the Grand Pont in the stretch between the navigation arch and the Right Bank.14 On the island side, the

12 On the ideological disjunction between text and image in this manuscript, see Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 129–32. 13 Lacaze, Vie de St. Denis, 129, speaks of speculum urbis to echo Vincent of Beauvais’s encyclopedia Speculum maius (The Great Mirror). 14 Mislin, “Zur Baugeschichte,” 19, table 1, and 20. For a comprehensive social portrait of Paris in our period, see Raymond Cazelles, Nouvelle histoire de Paris: De la fin du règne de Philippe Auguste à la mort de Charles V, 1223–1380 (Paris: Hachette, 1972).

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Fig. 4: St. Denis continues his preaching activity. Life of St. Denis. Paris, ca. 1318. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 2091, fol. 111r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Grand Pont abutted the northeast corner of the Palais de la Cité. The articulated palace housed, besides the king’s official residence and various administrative offices, the royal mint, which regulated the price of metals and employed goldsmiths as engravers of coins and seals. Fortified gates on both banks provided ready-made surveillance, a function the Life of St. Denis pointedly translates into a lexicon of fortified towers, spiky portcullises, and alert watchmen observing the comings and goings of their fellow citizens from windows and crenellations. Pulsating at the center of Paris, the safe-like Grand Pont was prime real estate. It offered easy access to water, an imperative for activities needing fire; better yet, it guaranteed a constant flow of customers. That the services and goods provided by the goldsmiths and changers were vital to the city’s economic well-being is confirmed by the decision to equip the wooden replacement bridge right away with new houses, booths, and workshops where those professions could continue to exert their activities. Even if the Grand Pont would be renamed Pont au Change (or Pont aux Changeurs) in the fifteenth century, goldsmiths were, in fact, more numerous in our period than the changers. Though caution is in order with tax rolls, which are easily skewed by under- and overreporting, they represented about sixty percent of the individuals counted for the Grand Pont in the late thirteenth century.15 Descriptive sources corroborate that result. Written around 1323, Jean de Jandun’s Tractatus de laudibus Parisius celebrates Parisius as an earthly Paradisus. Often described as a textual counterpart to the Life of St. Denis’s visual encomium, it too identifies artifices manuales as essential cogs in a well-oiled urban machinery. Summing up the activity of metalsmiths with the same combination of products, tools, and actions as coeval visual representations, the Tractatus notes that those artisans “are excellent fashioners (figuratores optimi) of metal vases, chiefly of gold and silver, pewter and copper,” that they are “found on the Grand Pont,” and that “their hammers on the anvils resound in a harmonious cadence.”16 Unlike the diminutive gabled structures pictured in the Life of St. Denis, a mix of booths called fenestrae (windows), usually equipped with crawl spaces for storage, and multistoried houses transformed the Grand Pont into a crowded, corridorlike space.17 When houses proper, the upper floor(s) were reserved for the living quarters while street-level workspaces doubled as retail shops. Passersby were at

15 Such trade clusters were standard in medieval cities. For a comparable Italian example, see Glyn Davies, “The Organisation of the Goldsmiths’ Trade in Trecento Siena: Families, Workshops, Compagnie and Artistic Identity,” in Orfèvrerie gothique en Europe: Production et réception, ed. Élisabeth Antoine-König and Michele Tomasi (Rome: Viella, 2016), 13–27. 16 Translation in Egbert, On the Bridges, 28; original in Le Roux de Lincy and L. M. Tisserand, Paris et ses historiens au XIVe et XVe siècles (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1867), 54. 17 Egbert, On the Bridges, 22; Mislin, “Zur Baugeschichte,” 17–18 and ills. 7–8. See also the older but still informative study by Paul Lacroix and Ferdinand Seré, Histoire de l’Orfèvrerie-Joaillerie (Paris: Librairie de Seré, 1850), 42.

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leisure to sample wares displayed on the lowered shutters and through the front openings. The obligation to work in broad daylight had another purpose than stimulating the visual appetite of the Gothic flâneur: curbing dishonest professional behavior and, at the same time, encouraging ocular competition. By decree, goldsmiths had to occupy the west side of the Grand Pont so that their fire-prone, smoke-emitting, and polluting forges faced downstream. Their workshops, being private, were much simpler than the one described in the early twelfth century by Theophilus. His famous treatise De diversis artibus (On Diverse Arts) envisions a spacious monastic atelier divided into different sections, one for each metal.18 In contrast, John of Garland’s Dictionary pictures our Parisian goldsmiths as sitting “in front of their furnaces and little tables” to forge “chalices of gold and silver” by spreading “with their delicate little hammers . . . thin sheets of gold and silver over forged iron.” Since goldsmiths and jewelers were not yet separate professions, the text goes on to explain that the same artisans also create brooches, necklaces, pins, and buttons, and set rings with “pearls and jasper, sapphires and emeralds.”19 John of Garland, who was English but lived in Paris in the first decades of the thirteenth century, found a way to enliven an otherwise dry Latin and Old French wordlist with references to nearly fifty trades.20 The resulting typology is sufficiently fine-grained to distinguish the goldsmiths (aurifabri) from the artisans (cipharii) who merely sheet wooden cups with gold leaf or add metallic feet and rims to make them more durable and attractive. A parallel, slightly earlier description adds further detail. Alexander Neckam (d. 1217) was, like John of Garland, an English expatriate in Paris. A multitalented master of the grammatical arts, philosophy, natural sciences, and theology, he is believed to have dispensed his learning on the Petit Pont after having put in some years as a student in a school located on the same bridge, which was always more intellectually inclined than the neighboring “manual bridge.” In the De nominibus utensilium (On the names of utensils), composed around 1175–85, Neckam observes that a smith’s workshop must be outfitted with “a forge pierced at the top so that

18 Theophilus, De diversis artibus/The Various Arts, ed. and trans. C. R. Dodwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 64–66. 19 John of Garland, The Dictionarius of John de Garlande, trans. Barbara Blatt Rubin (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1981), 38–39. 20 See Martha Carlin, “Shops and Shopping in the Early Thirteenth Century: Three Texts,” in Money, Markets, and Trade in Late Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of John H.A. Munro, ed. Lawrin Armstrong, Ivana Elbl, and Martin M. Elbl (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 491–537; and Lisa H. Cooper, Artisans and Narrative Craft in Late Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), for a contextual reading of Latin word-books.

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Fig. 5: Seal of the Parisian confraternity of goldsmiths. Photo: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo.

the smoke may evaporate by a sure road.”21 In terms of equipment, Neckam recommends an anvil of “unassailable hardness,” and two whetstones, one to assay the metals, the other to sharpen iron tools.22 Then come the hammers, bellows, tongs, sharp chisels (to carve gemstones), toothed saws, files, and a supply of twisted gold and silver wires for soldering new pieces and repairing broken ones. A pouch to collect precious filings and a hare’s foot “to smooth and polish and wipe clean the surface of gold and silver” complete the list.23 It bears noting that Neckam ends with an observation of an epistemic nature. Implicitly recognizing the competitive environment of the rapidly expanding Gothic city, he warns against wily merchants who pass the cheap for the expensive and recommends strengthening manual knowhow with material expertise. Thus armed, one is able to distinguish between genuine gold and its look-alikes, including copper and brass. From a tax roll redacted in 1300, we learn that goldsmithing was among the most commonplace professions. The 251 taxed practitioners of that craft formed a significantly larger group than those belonging to more useful occupations, such as

21 Quoted in Lightbown, Secular Goldsmiths’ Work, 4. The same text usefully comments on other documents and surviving evidence. On goldsmiths’ work practices more generally, see Johann Michael Fritz, Goldschmiedekunst der Gotik in Mitteleuropa (Munich: Beck, 1982), 37–58; and Elisabeth Vavra, “‘Ich Goldtschmid mach köstliche ding’: Organisation, Arbeitsbedingungen, Produkte,” Das Mittelalter 21, no. 1 (2016): 273–94. 22 Quoted in Lightbown, Secular Goldsmiths’ Work, 4. 23 Quoted in ibid., 5.

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the building trades, the garment industry, and the food purveyors. Only weavers (360), fur makers (338), and cobblers (267) surpassed the number of goldsmiths then operating in Paris.24 The statutes of all these professions are included in Étienne Boileau’s wonderfully informative Livre des métiers. Boileau was the prévôt des marchands, a powerful administrative position that combined some of the roles of a modern mayor with those of a secretary of commerce. He compiled the “Book of Trades” in the 1260s at the behest of King Louis IX (d. 1270), and this work proved of such fundamental importance that it remained the basis for trade regulations down to the modern era.25 It enshrined goldsmithing as an independent creative endeavor, separating its practitioners from those who use the noble metals as accessories, on the one hand, and those who work with base metals, on the other.26 The same text tells us that the apprenticeship for goldsmithing was, at ten years, among the longest of the 101 registered trades, and that only one apprentice could be hired from outside the family. No limit was placed on assistants related to either the goldsmith or his wife, a provision amended in 1355 when the total number of assistants was restricted to three. Like other high-status professions, goldsmiths were exempted from the obligation of contributing to the city watch (guet) and from paying sales taxes. More unusual was the permission to work after sunset on ecclesiastic and royal commissions. Moreover, the rule of reserving Sundays and feast days (jours d’apostele) for rest and religious activities was, if not lifted, made less stringent. One goldsmith at a time was granted permission to operate on those days, undoubtedly to take advantage of the increased church-bound traffic. To compensate for this loosening of the boundaries between worldly and spiritual economies, the proceeds were to be collected in the money box of the goldsmiths’ confraternity. And that little treasure was to be spent at Easter on meals for the poor and the sick living in the Hôtel Dieu, the vast hospital complex situated next to Notre-Dame within a stone’s throw from the Grand Pont. The Parisian goldsmiths’ confraternity was one of the earliest such charitable organizations. Though the Livre des métiers omits mention of it, we know that its patron saint was Eloi (Eligius) (d. 660). Many other cities would make Eligius their patron, honoring a saint who had been a skilled metalworker before being appointed by King

24 Gustave Fagniez, Études sur l’industrie et la classe industrielle à Paris au XIIIème et XIVème siècle (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1877), 6–19 (also 251–70, for a detailed description of goldsmiths’ work practices based on Theophilus’s account). 25 Étienne Boileau, Le Livre des métiers, ed. René de Lespinasse and François Bonnardot (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1879), 32–34. For a layered contextual analysis, see Elizabeth Sears, “Craft Ethics and the Critical Eye in Medieval Paris,” Gesta 45, no. 2 (2006): 221–38. 26 As observed by Lacroix and Seré, Histoire de l’Orfèvrerie-Joaillerie, 40.

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Dagobert to the post of Master of the Mint, royal counselor, and bishop of NoyonTournai. One of the few canonized artists,27 Eligius appears in the hagiographic record as someone who spent his life collecting relics, founding monasteries, ransoming slaves, and converting pagans in Flanders and barbarians in Frisia. Amazingly, he still found time to run a large workshop that manufactured tombs, thrones, jewelry, and other status-creating objects for the Merovingian elite. On the Parisian goldsmiths’ seal, officially adopted in the fifteenth century, a mitered St. Eloi stands in a gabled structure flanked by two schematically rendered Gothic reliquary shrines (Fig. 5). Of note is the fact that he clutches a muscular hammer with no less pride than a crosier, the attributes of his two professional identities.28 For a less formulaic version, we can turn to the Images de la vie du Christ et des saints (Fig. 6). Alison Stones has ascribed this superb Flemish devotional picturebook to the patronage of a laywoman, Marie of Rethel (d. 1315), hence the alternate title of Livre de Madame Marie.29 In juxtaposing Eloi with a kneeling youth, hands raised in praise, the image draws on the saint’s dossier of miracles. For legend holds that the saintly bishop shod the mutilated leg stump of the young man’s horse, which is why he became the patron saint of horses, farriers, and blacksmiths too. The strange form that sprouts from the equine forehead is a trindle. Typically cast from copper or tin (here rendered in ochre, suggesting the former), this was a mold used for the production of coiled candles. Wrapped around a sick body or diseased limb, such candles were burned at shrines in the belief, derived from ancient sympathetic magic, that the illness would likewise melt away. Executed not long after the Life of St. Denis, Madame Marie’s book is notable for its intensely saturated blues and reds, the preferred Gothic palette. Gold leaf is sparse, but its function remains the same, namely to throw the most precious objects into sharp optical relief. Bridging the iconic and the indexical, it extends from the border to the saint’s halo, the trimmings on his miter and stole, and his crosier’s foliated top. Gilding the head of the hammer and having it overlap with the staff are visual devices to upgrade a simple tool into a saintly attribute. As a consequence, they communicate a certain commensurability between the work of spiritual regeneration and the work of material conversion.

27 Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury in the late tenth century, is the patron saint of goldsmiths in England. 28 For a complete survey of the iconography of St. Eloi and ritual practices at his shrines, see JeanChristophe Masmonteil, Iconographie et culte de saint Éloi dans l’Occident médiéval (Orléans: Rencontre avec le Patrimoine Religieux, 2012). 29 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. fr. 16251, fol. 88r. Digitized at: https:// gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b72000827. See Alison Stones, Le Livre d’images de Madame Marie (Paris: Cerf, 1997).

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Fig. 6: A young man thanks St. Eloi. Images de la vie du Christ et des saints (Livre de Madame Marie). Northern France, ca. 1300. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. fr. 16251, fol. 88r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Metal in the City But what was the material relationship between the gold leaf of the illuminator and the weightier leaf used by the smith? To answer this question, we must dig deeper into the matter of gold itself. A primary objective of all medieval guild regulations was quality control, a task entrusted to two or three sworn wardens (preud’omes) in the case of the Parisian goldsmiths’ trade.30 Those experienced artisans verified that no one adulterated gold and silver with cheaper metals beyond the authorized standards for alloys (gold, too soft to hold its shape, has to be alloyed). Silver had to be at least equivalent to a sterling (92.5% pure) whereas the benchmark for gold was the “touch of Paris,” equal to 19.2 karats. Since that standard was even adopted outside of France, Boileau’s contention that this gold was the “best in the world” seems more than an expression of Gallic chauvinism.31 Goldsmiths who tampered with the quality of materials or committed infractions to what we would call labor laws were fined; those guilty of repeated frauds could expect the destruction of the stock in their possession and banishment from the guild. While silver was abundantly present in Europe, domestic sources for gold were minimal. Until the industrial exploitation of deposits discovered in eastern Europe from the 1320s onward, placer gold panned from rivers augmented by meager quantities of mined gold represented the extent of local resources. What, then, went into a goldsmith’s crucible on the Grand Pont? What was the origin of the bits and pieces of precious metal that were forged and cast? Recycling certainly provided a significant share of the metals (and gems) required to craft new cups, jewels, crowns, reliquaries, and other high-status objects. Together with dismembered objects, coins constituted another reliable supply of gold; they could be either bought from money changers or received from patrons.32 A great variety of currencies was the norm on a Parisian changer’s table around 1300.33 In addition to the occasional Roman, GalloRoman, and early medieval archaeological species, one could find a plethora of new coins, French deniers, Florentine florins, Venetian ducats, Byzantine solidi and hyperpera, south Italian taris, Castilian anfusi, and the especially plentiful dinars

30 Boileau, Livre des métiers, 34 (11.11). 31 Ibid., 33 (11.2–3). 32 Irma Passeri, “Gold Coins and Gold Leaf in Early Italian Paintings,” in The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750, ed. Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 97–115. On the procurement of gold across the Middle Ages with additional bibliography, see Nancy K. Turner, “Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts,” in this volume. 33 For much of what follows, I rely on Peter Spufford, Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 163–86.

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brought back from the Islamic world by returning crusaders and long-distance merchants. One common feature of this decidedly transnational mix was the provenance of the raw material: the bulk of the differently minted gold had originated in West Africa. Before the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese gained a foothold along the so-called Gold Coast and developed maritime trade colonialism, huge trans-Saharan caravans transported coveted rarities from the historic empires of Ghana and Mali northward. In exchange for gold and ivory, as well as slaves taken from the heart of Africa as human commodities, they received silver, copper, horses, and manufactured goods.34 Whether in dust, nuggets, or bars, substantial amounts of gold of a high level of purity (at a standard of 20.5 karats) made it to the Maghreb, where the initial rough minting took place. From there, the shiny, prestige-laden coins trickled across the Mediterranean to be adapted for local usage. A handful of Italian cities, led by Florence and Genoa, accumulated enough surplus by the mid-thirteenth century to issue the first European golden coinage. In France, after several short-lived attempts, Philip the Fair managed to produce as many as six different gold coins. The intended recipient of the Life of St. Denis had them stamped with a distinctly royalist iconography borrowed from official seals. As can be seen on the obverse of the stately denier d’or à la masse issued in 1296 (the same year that the Grand Pont collapsed), an enthroned, crowned, and scepter-holding king dominates the composition (Fig. 7). Enlarging on the political message, the reverse fuses a large cross with heraldic fleur-de-lis to stress the realm’s Christian credentials.35 Such high-end coins were not intended for daily use. When not accumulating in the royal coffers as a handy cash reserve, they were earmarked for diplomatic transactions and religious donations, presumably in the hopes of commensurate political rewards and spiritual paybacks. Though impossible to quantify, a sizable number of gold coins must also have found their way into the goldsmiths’ furnaces to be transfigured into enticing artistic creations. Gold minting exacerbated the chronic shortage of gold. Contrary to the carefully curated picture of a well-ordered polity as advertised by the Life of St. Denis, Philip’s reign was chaotic, rattled by ongoing expansionist wars and short-term fiscal policies enacted to shore up the realm’s precarious finances. In 1306, for example, 34 Most relevant for the present discussion are Sarah M. Guérin, “Gold, Ivory, and Copper: Materials and Arts of Trans-Saharan Trade,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzok (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 174–201; and Thomas Walker, “The Italian Gold Revolution of 1252: Shifting Currents in the Pan-Mediterranean Flow of Gold,” in Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, ed. J. F. Richards (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), 29–52. 35 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, ed., L’Art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils, 1285–1328 (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998), 348–65; Yves Coativy, “Les Monnaies de Philippe le Bel et leurs avatars,” in Monnaie, fiscalité et finances au temps de Philippe le Bel, ed. Philippe Contamine, Jean Kerhervé, and Albert Rigaudière (Paris: Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France, 2007), 141–56.

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Fig. 7: Denier d’or à la masse issued by Philip IV the Fair in 1296, 7 gr. Paris, BnF, Cabinet des Médailles, Monnaie Royale Beistegui 247. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

social unrest caused by severe inflation culminated in urban riots. One answer was the expulsion from Paris of all Jews, scapegoated, as usual, for empty coffers and accused of profiteering from the repeated debasement of the currencies in addition to other assorted public ills. (The Lombards, that is, Italian merchants and bankers, would experience the same fate a few years later.)36 Philip’s most notorious act remains the brutal suppression of the Knights Templar and the ensuing all-out assault on the order’s overflowing coffers. In an effort to limit the dispersal of the two fine metals, the royal administration resorted to other, less draconian measures. Homes were searched for old gold and silver coins, and although the despoiled owners were promised compensation in new money, that value hardly equaled what was taken from them. Add to this the interdiction to import foreign currencies and stricter control over nonmonetary uses, and you have a recipe for a measurable decline in available gold. That scarcity appears to have forced goldsmiths to reduce both the net volume of their output and the size of their products.37

36 A complete account of Philippe IV’s erratic monetary policies is found in Edgard Boutaric, La France sous Philippe le Bel: Étude sur les institutions politiques et administratives du Moyen Âge (Paris: Plon, 1861), 306–27. For anxieties regarding the fluctuating value of gold and gilded objects in early modern France, see Rebecca Zorach, Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold: Abundance and Excess in the French Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 189–208. 37 Lacroix and Seré, Histoire de l’Orfèvrerie-Joaillerie, 45–46.

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Few contemporaries were aware of the African origin of their gold. Medieval sources speak of Arabian gold instead, praising it for its pleasing reddish hue and warning against imitations made of regular gold alloyed with red copper.38 Without giving a specific geographic indication, Thomas of Cantimpré (d. 1270/71) is one of many authors who maintains that the redder the gold, the better it is. The observation appears in the Liber de natura rerum (Book on the nature of things), a work the Brabantine author started to redact in the 1230s when he was completing his theological training at the Dominican studium in Paris. It is a concise encyclopedia (a genre much in vogue in the thirteenth century) that introduces readers to an extensive archive of things-of-nature: humans and animals, plants and planets, minerals and metals (gold, electrum, silver, bronze/copper, tin, lead, and iron).39 Gold is described as durable, malleable, ductile, untarnishable, and weighing twice as much as any other metal (we call this density). The text credits these outstanding qualities to the equal distribution of the four elements because that causes the primary qualities—hot and cold, dry and moist—to be uniformly balanced. It goes on to acknowledge that mined gold is rare and that the retrieval of river gold is a labor-intensive process, involving purification through intense washing. Leftover gold dust (aurum molitum) and dross (palea) should be used for gilding (opus aureolum). Finally, readers of the Liber de natura rerum learned that gold could lessen skin rashes, prevent wounds from festering into tumors, fortify the heart, and cure leprosy (that is, the symptoms thereof). Baffling as such references to therapeutic uses may seem, they were key to the medieval understanding of minerals and metals as active substances, not inert inorganic stuff. Thomas of Cantimpré’s target audience was the rank-and-file preachers of his order, but his intellectually user-friendly compendium quickly gained him a broader readership. Several of the 150-odd surviving copies of the Liber de natura rerum received illustrations, including a medium-sized volume presently housed in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, which shows quite a bit of wear and tear (Ms. Hamilton 114). While the patron remains unknown, the colophon gives a date of 1295 and mentions a Brabantine artist.40 Two smiths appear in the bas-de-page of folio 164 (Fig. 8).41 On the left, a metalsmith greets his customers from behind a legless table.

38 Theophilus, Various Arts, 96–98. According to this author, genuine Arabian gold is recycled from ancient vases. It counts as one of the four varieties of gold he retains, the others being gold from the biblical land of Havilah, Spanish gold, and “sand” or placer gold. 39 Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum, ed. Helmut Boese (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973), 375–78. As of yet, there is no modern translation of this text. 40 Helmut Boese, Die lateinischen Handschriften der Sammlung Hamilton zu Berlin (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966), 64–65. I thank Alison Stones for discussing this manuscript with me. 41 In an initial of another early illustrated copy of the same work, a man is shown pointing toward vessels of different shapes and colors, including one in gold and one in silver. See Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 320, fol. 176r, digitized at: https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/sommaire/somm aire.php?reproductionId=11606.

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Fig. 8: A metalsmith and goldsmith selling wares. Thomas de Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum, Bk. 15, “De metallis.” Flemish, 1295. Berlin, SB, Ms. Hamilton 140, fol. 164r (detail). Photo: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

The tiered silver vessels (now oxidized) have been enlarged for the benefit of the viewer and perhaps as a way to maintain fair optical competition with other metallic artifacts. Those comprise two monumental grey-bluish bells (in tin?), a stout vessel of a coppery tint posed on a tripod (of which only a fragment is visible in this reproduction), and the outsized matte black iron horseshoes. The artist let two of them drift across the parchment while he attached the other two, like the bells, to the framing baguette, thereby playfully alternating between a representational and ornamental modality. As a result of this scrupulous material mimesis, the visual catalog of metals’ looks and uses produces encyclopedic knowledge in its own right. Equally innovative was the decision to depict the smith as a relaxed shop owner rather than a toiling laborer, an iconographic reframing that speaks to the nascent uncoupling of manufacture and retail. We find all these aspects reiterated in the posh world of the goldsmith to the right. Foreshadowing Petrus Christus’s famous 1449 panel painting of an aristocratic couple visiting a goldsmith’s shop (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975.1.110), this mini-shopkeeper welcomes a similarly smartly dressed man and woman. In both compositions, the woman’s outstretched hand demonstrates that she is taking the lead. Here she selects from among a profusion of desirable wares laid out on the ornate table. We recognize three golden cups, two of which are lidded; three rings; a large silver drinking vessel; and an even larger spoon made of the same material. Some of these objects are captured from above and some from the side. By contrast, the serried rows of gold coins, stored in a separate compartment, beckon the customers—and

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solicit the beholder’s eye—from a single point of view. It might be observed that these multiple perspectives not only improve visual legibility but mimic the changing ways in which we perceive metallic pigments. For those tend to look dull when viewed headon but come into their shimmering selves when our hands manipulate an illuminated book, allowing the surfaces to refract light at ever new angles. One could say that this, too, is an experience of conversion, albeit of a perceptual nature. The fact that money is here depicted in a goldsmith’s shop indicates that the changers’ monopolistic claim over the handling of coins was not observed in practice. Indeed, contrary to the vision of industrious harmony championed by the Life of St. Denis, the boundaries between trades profiting from precious metals were porous and relations chronically strained. In 1303, for example, ongoing quarrels came to a head, prompting a royal ruling that debarred goldsmiths, always eager to nibble on the lucrative currency trade, from using a tapetum (the rug or heavy cloth that we see on the changers’ tables in the Life of St. Denis).42 If goldsmiths encroached on the changers’ territory, they, in turn, felt the pressure of competition from the mercers who needed gilded and silver trimmings to accessorize paternosters, hats, purses, girdles, buttons, and other accoutrements proper to a fashionable Gothic lifestyle. Another dispute recorded in the fourteenth century led the goldsmiths to make a case for a whole range of objects needing to be classified as their work and taxed accordingly. Did they not shape the gold and silver parts that the mercers merely applied?43

Transformational Aesthetics “Pass through the hammer and forge” is the literal wording the goldsmiths used to define and defend their profession.44 Only goldbeaters approximated such a formaltering, corporeal engagement with metallic substances. In Boileau’s Livre des métiers, the beaters are recorded as among the smallest guilds, one divided into those who make metallic threads and those who manufacture gold and silver foil. Both were expected to do “good and loyal work,” and they lobbied for some of the same privileges granted to their more prominent and powerful smithing colleagues, such as release from watch duties and exemption from sales taxes.45 Their products, they argued, were essential to adorn the things that catered to elite buyers. The goldbeaters’ primary clientele were other artisans. Illuminators would buy the quasi-transparent and yet assertively material leaves obtained from flattened-out coins, glue them to the parchment, and burnish and tool them to create backgrounds

42 43 44 45

Lacroix and Seré, Histoire de l’Orfèvrerie-Joaillerie, 42. Fagniez, Études sur l’industrie, 383 (article 2). Ibid. Boileau, Livre des métiers, 65–66.

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of a jewel-like reflective force.46 On folio 111r of Ms. fr. 2901 (see Fig. 4), the bridge’s arches are filled with gold leaf tooled with a diamond grid containing impressed dots, as is clearly seen in a photograph taken at an oblique angle (Fig. 9). One also catches a glimpse of a different use of gold in the upper right. The foliate swirls, executed in raised mordant gilding, join other decorative patterns and objects to imbue such a deluxe manuscript as the Life of St. Denis with an extra degree of luminous physical presence.47 Another miniature, showing St. Denis tied to a cross (Ms. fr. 2902, fol. 30r), puts this scrollwork to great effect. Appearing behind both the hagiographic narrative above and the quotidian scenes below, it enacts gold’s signifying potential from the indexical (gold as gold) to the iconic (gold representing gilded objects) (Fig. 10). Phrased like an imitatio Christi, the affecting scene draws our attention to the grotesquely distorted torturers sporting hooked noses and a paganizing winged headgear. These attributes belonged to the conventional arsenal of anti-Semitic imagery, although the specific historical context would perforce have intensified their accusatory charge.48 The chained companions of the superbly rendered St. Denis already acknowledge the salvific hand of God that announces their acceptance into the kingdom of heaven. Below, and at the other end of the emotional spectrum, a man is napping in a boat tethered to the rightmost arch, seemingly unaware of the drama unfolding above his head. Considering that the team of illuminators established visual connections between the upper and lower zones throughout the pictorial cycle, this man’s shut eyes—his emphatic unseeing-ness—may well have been intended as a metaphor for spiritual blindness.49 Meanwhile, the golden cup with matching ewer has migrated from the stall of the goldsmith (who is left with a silver dish) into a wine crier’s hands. Criers were familiar faces in medieval towns, whether their task was to broadcast news or publish the daily prices of wine served in local taverns. In the image, the gleaming chalice and cruet that the upward-looking figure is holding are headed for a liturgical use. They are ready to collect, if not the martyr’s blood, then the sublimated byproduct of his suffering: gold scrollwork.

46 Although focused on later materials, see the informative discussion of gold leaf supply by Susie Nash, “‘Pour couleurs et autres choses prise de lui . . .’: The Supply, Acquisition, Cost and Employment of Painters’ Materials at the Burgundian Court, c. 1375–1419,” in Trade in Artists’ Materials: Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700, ed. Jo Kirby, Susie Nash, and Joanna Cannon (London: Archetype, 2010), 97–182, at 133–37. 47 I am indebted to Nancy Turner for having pointed out that the background motifs are in mordant gilding rather than painted metallic ink. See her description in “Surface Effect and Substance,” in this volume. 48 On the anti-Semitic implications of such imagery, see Ruth Mellinkoff, “Demonic Winged Headgear,” Viator 16 (1985): 367–81 (at 369 for the Life of St. Denis). 49 A theme developed by Cornelia Logemann, “Heilsräume – Lebensräume: Vom Martyrium des heiligen Dyonisius und einem paradiesischen Paris (Paris, BN, Ms. fr. 2090–92, Ms. lat. 13836),” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 30 (2003): 53–91, at 62–63.

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Fig. 9: A money changer, goldsmith, and two youths in a boat. Life of St. Denis. Paris, ca. 1318. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 2091, fol. 111r (detail). Photo: author, with the permission of the BnF.

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Fig. 10: Crucifixion of St. Denis. Life of St. Denis. Paris, ca. 1318. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 2092, fol. 30r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Gold, in other words, weaves together otherworldly treasures and worldly riches, spiritual transcendence and embodied facticity. While other colors play an aesthetically unifying role, gold alone mediates between contemporary Paris and its founding moments by blending transitive meanings with self-referential materiality. Echoing this representational multivalence based on a series of formal transpositions, the crier’s vessels were themselves products of a long chain of operationes—dust recast into coins, coins into sheets, sheets into objects, and, at long last, objects into pictures. In her study of the Life of St. Denis, Elizabeth Brown observes that “the changer converts one currency to another and the goldsmith fashions raw metal into a beautiful and precious object.”50 Rightly insisting on the labor of conversion, she further comments on the parallelism between St. Denis’s persuasive rhetorical skills in “refining” pagans into Christians and the artisans’ production of things of value. Medieval hagiographic literature sometimes explicitly linked spiritual conversion to the bending of matter. Rooted in several biblical passages, such as Proverbs 17:3 (“As silver is tried by fire, and gold in the furnace: so the Lord trieth the hearts”), the comparison implies that the flesh must suffer—must “pass through the hammer and forge”—for the soul to be cleansed. A German poem composed around 1080, for example, allegorizes the trials deployed by the divine artifex to perfect (the very imperfect) Archbishop Anno of Cologne (d. 1075) in terms of an artisan whose skilled interventions create a fine brooch.51 In like fashion, the Life of St. Denis told the king that goldsmiths (and changers) are key to perfecting his city and vital to burnishing his rule. Sadly, their creations have all but vanished, sacrificed to the perpetual demand for gold. We are left with shimmering ghosts of their labor in the work of those whose task it was to perfect books by illuminating them.

50 Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Paris and Paradise: The View from Saint-Denis,” in The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, ed. Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 419–61, at 439. 51 Opitz’s Anno: The Middle High German “Annolied” in the 1639 Edition of Martin Opitz, ed. R. Graeme Dunphy (Glasgow: Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies, 2003), 136–37.

Jacopo Gnisci

Copying, Imitation, and Intermediality in Illuminated Ethiopic Manuscripts from the Early Solomonic Period Nowadays, the Orthodox churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea use numerous “sacred vessels” (nǝwayä qǝddǝsat) made of metal—such as censers, crosses, ewers, and chalices—for liturgical purposes.1 But how old is this practice? Since Christianity reached these areas during the Aksumite period, toward the mid-fourth century,2 it stands to reason that local churches started employing metal utensils and vessels in liturgical settings from late antiquity onward.3 Unfortunately, however, archaeologists have not yet been able to identify examples of paraphernalia from this early period, so remarks about it are bound to remain largely speculative.4 The situation is not much better for the period from the decline of the Aksumite Empire around the eighth century to the deposition of the last ruler of the Zagwe dynasty in 1270. Our knowledge of the use of metal vessels in Christian liturgical contexts in Ethiopia improves for the period following 1270—a year marked by the advent of a new line of rulers known as the Solomonic dynasty because they presented themselves as

Note: I would like to thank Dr. Bea Leal and the editors for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper, and Dr. Michael Gervers and Dr. Alessandro Bausi for allowing me to use their photographs. This paper was made possible through the financial support of the Beta maṣāḥǝft project; the European Research Council (agreement No. 694105); a Getty/ACLS Fellowship; the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme at the British Museum; and an AHRC-DFG Grant (AH/V002910/1). 1 Emmanuel Fritsch, “Paraphernalia,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig and Alessandro Bausi, vol. 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 275–78. Henceforth, when speaking of these churches in the period before the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia, I use the term “Ethiopian Church” for the sake of convenience. 2 Steven Kaplan, “Ezana’s Conversion Reconsidered,” Journal of Religion in Africa 13, no. 2 (1982): 101–9. 3 For an attempt to reconstruct the architectural setting of the liturgy in Ethiopia prior to the rise of the Solomonic dynasty, see Emmanuel Fritsch and Michael Gervers, “Pastophoria and Altars: Interaction in Ethiopian Liturgy and Church Architecture,” Aethiopica 10, no. 1 (2012): 7–51. For an overview of the liturgy, calendar and readings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, see Marsie Hazen, ed., The Liturgy of the Ethiopian Church, trans. Marcos Daoud (Addis Ababa: Berhanenna Selam Printing Press, 1954); Ernst Hammerschmidt, Studies in the Ethiopic Anaphoras (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1987); Emmanuel Fritsch, The Liturgical Year of the Ethiopian Church (Addis Ababa: Master Printing Press, 2001); Emmanuel Fritsch, “Qǝddase,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig and Alessandro Bausi (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 4:271–75. 4 The function of a recently discovered Aksumite stone pendant with a cross and an inscription remains to be determined. See Alessandro Bausi, Michael Harrower, and Ioana A. Dumitru, “The Gǝʿǝz Inscriptions from Beta Samāʿti (Beta Samati),” Bibliotheca Orientalis 77, no. 1 (2020): 34–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-004

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descendants of the biblical King Solomon. Scholars tend to divide the seven-centurieslong history of this dynasty into a series of shorter periods, of which the first, generally referred to as the early Solomonic period, goes from 1270 to 1527. This period saw a flowering in the production of metal objects and in the illustration of manuscripts, where such objects were often represented, under the patronage of prominent religious figures, nobles, and the Solomonic emperors themselves. With the exception of an illuminated late antique Gospel book kept at the monastery of Ǝnda Abba Gärima (discussed below), the earliest depictions of metal objects in Ethiopic manuscripts are found in early Solomonic examples. So it is on this latter period that the present essay focuses, in an effort to start outlining a history of the Ethiopian Church’s use of metal objects and of the representation of such objects in illustrated codices.5 Before reviewing the available data, it is worth observing that little has been published on the various types of metal objects used by the Ethiopian Church, and that most of what has been written on the topic focuses on the morphology of Ethiopian crosses as a tool for dating them.6 Likewise, scholars have looked at the rendering of metal objects in other media, such as manuscript illumination, principally to identify criteria for dating the various types of crosses used by Christian Ethiopians, whereas the significance of such depictions has not attracted much interest. To complicate matters further, there have been no systematic studies on the other types of metalwork used by the Ethiopian Church; on their symbolism, function, and social dimension; or on their visual and semantic relation to the Church and to the constellation of other items that would have been used during the liturgical service (e.g., textiles, manuscripts, baskets, and—at least from the fifteenth century— icons).7 This disinterest in the sociocultural dimension of Ethiopian art is part of a

5 For a detailed overview of the history of metalworking in this period with further bibliography, see Jacopo Gnisci, “Christian Metalwork in Early Solomonic Ethiopia: Production, Function, and Symbolism,” in Peace, Power and Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, ed. Susan Cooksey (Gainesville, FL: Harn Museum of Art, 2020), 254–65. 6 For an overview of existing research, see Eine Moore, Ethiopian Processional Crosses (Addis Ababa: The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, 1971); Bent Juel-Jensen, “The Evolution of the Ethiopian Cross,” in Aspects of Ethiopian Art from Ancient Axum to the Twentieth Century, ed. Paul B. Henze (London: The Jed Press, 1993), 17–27; Mario Di Salvo, Croci d’Etiopia: Il segno della fede; Evoluzione e forma (Milan: Skira, 2006); Stanislaw Chojnacki, Ethiopian Crosses: A Cultural History and Chronology (Milan: Skira, 2006); Jon Abbink, “The Cross in Ethiopian Christianity: Ecclesial Symbolism and Religious Experience,” in Routledge Companion to Christianity in Africa, ed. Elias Kifon Bongmba (London: Routledge, 2015), 122–40; Jacopo Gnisci, “Crosses from Ethiopia at the Dallas Museum of Art: An Overview,” African Arts 51, no. 4 (2018): 48–55. The methodological considerations about the dating of Ethiopian crosses outlined in these studies can also be applied to the study of other types of Ethiopian metal objects. 7 One of the few studies that examines the sociocultural dimension of Ethiopian art during the early Solomonic period is Steven Kaplan, “Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Visual Culture in the Religious World of Aşe Zärʿa Yaʿeqob of Ethiopia (1434–1468),” Journal of Religion in Africa 32, no. 4 (2002): 403–21.

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Eurocentric tendency to ignore the communicative intentions of Ethiopian artists and their patrons that is open to criticism.8 This essay, by contrast, culls evidence of metal objects from illustrated manuscripts and written sources to further our understanding of their symbolism and use in Ethiopian devotional and liturgical contexts. In analyzing the visual data in the light of Ethiopian texts, which are mainly hagiographical in nature, it is necessary to bear in mind that these strands of evidence present different methodological challenges.9 Nevertheless, by adopting this approach I hope to shed some light on the artistic practices, strategies, and concerns of image-makers during the early Solomonic period and to explore the attitude of the Ethiopian clergy toward materiality and precious metals such as gold. Another point that deserves attention is that gold appears to have been rarely used to embellish Ethiopic manuscripts. In fact, gold ink, which was probably made by mixing gold powder with an aqueous solution of gum arabic, is found only in a manuscript containing a collection of the Miracles of Mary kept in the church of Amba Gǝšän Maryam produced for Emperor Dawit II (r. ca. 1382–1411).10 The procedure for making the gold ink seemed so exceptional at the time as to be accountable only through a miraculous intervention of the Virgin Mary.11 This manuscript is also one of three known cases in which a solution of gold is used in the illuminations, the other two being a Gospel book from Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel and a psalter now in the

8 Jacopo Gnisci, “Constructing Kingship in Early Solomonic Ethiopia: The David and Solomon Portraits in the Juel-Jensen Psalter,” Art Bulletin 102, no. 4 (2020): 7–36. 9 This is worth stating since most studies dealing with Christian Ethiopian art do not situate their contribution in critical terms within the existing literature. For some remarks on the value of Ethiopic hagiographies as historical sources, see Steven Kaplan, “Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia,” History in Africa 8 (1981): 107–23. For relevant remarks on the use of hagiographies as sources on art, with a focus on the Byzantine tradition, see Alexander Kazhdan and Henry Maguire, “Byzantine Hagiographical Texts as Sources on Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991): 1–22. 10 On this manuscript, see Marilyn E. Heldman, “Maryam Seyon: Mary of Zion,” in African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, ed. Roderick Grierson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 71–100, at 91–92. Unfortunately, the ink has not been analyzed and, more generally, analyses of the pigments used to decorate early Solomonic Ethiopic manuscripts are practically nonexistent. The only exception is Jacek Tomaszewski, Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, and Grażyna Zofa Żukowska, “Ethiopian Manuscript Maywäyni 041 with Added Miniature: Codicological and Technological Analysis,” Annales d’Éthiopie 29 (2014): 97–117. The documentation of the techniques and materials used to decorate manuscripts in the twentieth century is likewise deficient, but see Taye Wolde Medhin, “La préparation traditionnelle des couleurs en Éthiopie,” Abbay: Documents pour servir à l’histoire de la civilisation éthiopienne 11 (1980–82): 219–24. 11 The story is recorded in several copies of the Miracles of Mary and has been translated by Enrico Cerulli, Il libro etiopico dei Miracoli di Maria e le sue fonti nelle letterature del Medio Evo latino (Rome: Dott. Giovanni Bardi, 1943), 89–90.

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Bibliothèque nationale de France.12 In the Miracles of Mary of Gǝšän Maryam, seven full-page miniatures across the manuscript mark the beginning of a new text section. Four of these miniatures feature nearly identical representations of the Virgin and Child flanked by two adoring angels, with Emperor Dawit II on a lower step (Fig. 1).13 Here, significantly, the gold is used exclusively for the garments and halo of the Virgin and Child, a privilege that—in line with the hierarchical worship system promoted by the Church—was not granted to the angels or to a figure as important as the emperor.14 While we know of only three manuscripts decorated with gold, the pictorial evidence provided by other illustrated Ethiopic manuscripts can be looked at from different angles, and with different questions in mind, to illuminate neglected aspects of the historical use and symbolism of metalwork among Christian Ethiopians. Since this is the first study of its kind for the context of early Solomonic Ethiopia, it lays no claims to comprehensiveness, but aims to introduce and present information that has hitherto remained scattered or overlooked. The first section of the essay examines the question of the development of manuscript illumination in Ethiopia and its relationship to other traditions. The second reviews current knowledge about the working methods of Ethiopian illuminators. The third considers whether it is possible to detect visual traffic between different media in Ethiopian art, with a particular focus on representations of metalwork in manuscripts. The fourth looks at the significance of metal objects in Ethiopian illumination. Finally, the last section discusses the attitude of Christian Ethiopians toward materiality and precious metals in the light of visual and textual sources. These sections raise questions that open avenues for future research, address select challenges presented by the evidence, and

12 On the Gospel book see Jacopo Gnisci, “Towards a Comparative Framework for Research on the Long Cycle in Ethiopic Gospels: Some Preliminary Observations,” Aethiopica 20 (2017): 70–105, with further bibliography. On the psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. éth. 105) see Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, “Le psautier illustré de Belēn Sägäd,” in Imagines medievales: Studier i medeltida ikonografi, arkitektur, skulptur, måleri och konsthantverk, ed. Rudolf Zeitler and Jan O. M. Karlsson (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 1983), 1–46. It is probable that these manuscripts were decorated by mixing gold powder and other minerals with gum arabic, but this can only be confirmed through technical analysis. For an overview of the use of gold in the Ethiopian tradition, see Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, Alessandro Bausi, Denis Nosnitsin, and Claire Bosc-Tiessé, “Ethiopic Codicology,” in Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction, ed. Alessandro Bausi et al. (Hamburg: COMSt, 2015), 154–74, at 156–57. 13 The only differences between each scene are the decorations on Mary’s garb and the captions, which respectively describe the emperor as someone who “loves” Our Lady Mary and whose faith is “steadfast,” “crowned by the Trinity,” and “sincere.” 14 In art, this hierarchy finds a number of expressions, as argued in Jacopo Gnisci, “The Liturgical Character of Ethiopian Gospel Illumination of the Early Solomonic Period: A Brief Note on the Iconography of the Washing of the Feet,” in Aethiopia fortitudo ejus: Studi in onore di Monsignor Osvaldo Raineri in occasione del suo 80° compleanno, ed. Rafał Zarzeczny (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2015), 253–75.

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Fig. 1: The Virgin and Child with Emperor Dawit II (left) and beginning of a Miracle of Mary (right). Miracles of Mary of Gǝšän Maryam. Ethiopia, late fourteenth to early fifteenth century. Gǝšän Maryam, Ethiopia, s.n., fols. ? Photo: © Diana Spencer, courtesy of the DEEDS project.

showcase the value of a more culturally and contextually informed approach to Ethiopian art.

Manuscript Illustration in Early Solomonic Ethiopia The birth of a manuscript culture in Ethiopia, and the beginning of a tradition of illustration, date back to the late antique period. Their development was closely related to the introduction of Christianity in Ethiopia and to the country’s close ties with Alexandria and the Mediterranean world. Two Geʿez Gospel books kept at the monastery of Ǝnda Abba Gärima, which have been dated by carbon 14 to ca. 330–650 CE and ca. 530–660 CE, bear witness to the beginnings of this tradition in Ethiopia. The Gospels have coeval metal covers with embossed crosses, which are significant for the history of the presentation and display of manuscripts in Ethiopia and in the late antique world.15 Similar metal covers are represented in the evangelist portraits found in one of the Gärima Gospels, Gärima III, where three of the evangelists hold up a copy of 15 It remains to be established whether the two early Gärima Gospels were produced in Ethiopia, in a different context, or by itinerant artists—if such a question can ever be satisfactorily resolved. In modern Ethiopia, manuscripts with precious covers are carried and displayed in procession during special occasions, as discussed by Anaïs Wion, “The Golden Gospels and Chronicle of Aksum at

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their work, each of which has a treasure binding.16 Each of the gem-studded covers has a cross at its center and is painted in yellow to evoke the gold used in precious bindings from late antiquity onward.17 Yellow, as discussed below, was probably also used for the same purpose in manuscripts from the early Solomonic period. No other illustrated manuscripts from the Aksumite period survive. However, the presence of cycles of illustrations with a late antique flavor in early Solomonic Ethiopic manuscripts suggests a broader impact of early Christian imagery on the development of Ethiopian art. The so-called short cycle—which features representations of the Crucifixion, the Holy Women at the Tomb, and the Ascension—is often mentioned as evidence of the circulation of early Christian models in early Solomonic Ethiopia.18 Other subjects and iconographic details also point in this direction.19 For instance, some Ethiopic Gospel books and psalters20 include Old Testament scenes that were commonly used in early Christian art and that illustrate moments of salvific history, such as Daniel between the Lions and the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace.21

Aksum Ṣeyon’s Church: The Photographs Taken by Theodor v. Lüpke (1906),” in In kaiserlichem Auftrag: Die Deutsche Aksum-Expedition 1906 unter Enno Littmann, vol. 3, Ethnographische, kirchenhistorische und archäologisch-historische Untersuchungen, ed. Steffen Wenig (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2017), 117–33. It is unclear, however, how old this tradition is. 16 For an overview of the features of these two Gospel books and their covers, with further bibliography, see Judith S. McKenzie and Francis Watson, The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia (Oxford: Manar Al-Athar, 2016), esp. 43–45. 17 McKenzie and Watson, The Garima Gospels, 43–46, figs. 44, 58, 60–61, 93. 18 The fundamental studies are those by Marilyn E. Heldman, “An Early Gospel Frontispiece in Ethiopia,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 48 (1979): 107–21; Claude Lepage, “Reconstitution d’un cycle protobyzantin à partir des miniatures de deux manuscrits éthiopiens du XIVe siècle,” Cahiers Archéologiques: Fin de l’Antiquité et Moyen Âge 35 (1987): 159–96; and Gianfranco Fiaccadori, “Πρόσοψις, non πρόοψις. Efeso, Gerusalemme, Aquileia (Nota a IEph 495, 1 s.),” La Parola del Passato 58 (2003): 182–249. 19 See Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, “Observations sur l’iconographie de l’Annonciation dans la peinture éthiopienne,” in Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. University of Lund, 26–29 April 1982, ed. Sven Rubenson (Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, 1984), 149–64; and Claude Lepage and Jacques Mercier, “Un tétraévangile illustré éthiopien à cycle long du XVe siècle: Codicologie et iconographie,” Cahiers Archéologiques: Fin de l’Antiquité et Moyen Âge 54 (2012): 99–174. 20 See, e.g., EMML 2064, fol. 130r, described in Getatchew Haile and William F. Macomber, A Catalogue of Ethiopian Manuscripts Microfilmed for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa, and for the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Collegeville, vol. 6, Project Numbers 2001–2500 (Collegeville, MN: HMML, 1982), 127–28. 21 For these two themes in the Ethiopian tradition, see respectively Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, “The Wall-Paintings in the Church of Mädhane Aläm near Lalibäla,” Africana Bulletin 52 (2004): 9–29, at 17; and Stanisław Chojnacki, “Les trois hébreux dans la fournaise: Une enquête iconographique dans la peinture éthiopienne,” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 35 (1991): 13–40. For an overview of their appearance in early Christian art see André Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 7–30; and Robin M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: Routledge, 2000), 72–88.

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Some of the motifs that appear in Ethiopian miniatures, such as the canopy of wings (see Fig. 1), may also be indebted to early Christian models.22 However, it is often difficult to establish precisely when and from where foreign artistic ideas may have been transmitted to Ethiopia. Due to its geopolitical position at the crossroads of trade routes between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, but surrounded by territories ruled by Muslim dynasties, Ethiopian emperors always maintained a balance between openness toward other states and control over foreign actors present in their country. In its arts too there is a tension between tradition and innovation.23 On the one hand, the evidence suggests that early Solomonic scribes and artists continued to copy late antique texts and images.24 On the other hand, they remained open to literary and artistic ideas coming from their near and distant neighbors, which they appropriated, altered, and adapted to suit their religious needs, sensitivity, and taste.25 While it is evident that illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts reflect this tension between the indigenous and the foreign, studies of their history have not always dealt successfully with the problems that emerge when one attempts to explore dynamics of interaction between visual cultures.26 In large measure, this is due to a lack of pictorial evidence for the period preceding the rise to power of the Solomonic dynasty in 1270, a lack that hinders our ability to understand the early development of early Solomonic manuscript illumination and thus our comprehension of its relationship with

22 Stanisław Chojnacki, Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting: Indigenous Developments, the Influence of Foreign Models, and Their Adaptation from the 13th to the 19th Century (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1983), 179–89; Jacopo Gnisci, “A Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Icon of the Virgin and Child by the Master of the Amber-Spotted Tunic,” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 49 (2019): 183–93, at 187–88. 23 On the necessity to “Africanize” the achievements of the Aksumite Empire without overlooking its material and cultural exchange with other traditions, see Niall Finneran, “Ethiopian Christian Material Culture: The International Context; Aksum, the Mediterranean and the Syriac Worlds in the Fifth to Seventh Centuries,” in Incipient Globalization? Long-Distance Contacts in the Sixth Century, ed. Anthea Harris (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007), 75–89. 24 For an excellent introduction to the cultural and material complexity of the Ethiopic manuscript tradition, see Alessandro Bausi, “Writing, Copying, Translating: Ethiopia as a Manuscript Culture,” in Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field, ed. Jörg Quenzer, Dmitry Bondarev, and Jan-Ulrich Sobisch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 37–77; and Balicka-Witakowska et al., “Ethiopic Codicology,” with further bibliography. For an analysis of the transmission of a visual motif from late antiquity to the early Solomonic period in Ethiopic manuscripts, see Jacopo Gnisci, “An Ethiopian Miniature of the Tempietto in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notes on Its Relatives and Symbolism,” in Canones: The Art of Harmony; The Canon Tables of the Four Gospels, ed. Alessandro Bausi, Bruno Reudenbach, and Hanna Wimmer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 67–98. 25 See Gnisci, “Constructing Kingship in Early Solomonic Ethiopia.” On the concept of appropriation, see Robert S. Nelson, “Appropriation,” in Critical Terms for Art History, ed. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 160–73. 26 For an overview of these issues, with further bibliography, see Matthew P. Canepa, “Preface: Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction among Ancient and Early Medieval Visual Cultures,” Ars Orientalis 38 (2010): 7–29.

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metal objects. Such challenges are compounded by the fact that Ethiopian scribes do not appear to have concerned themselves much with accuracy or realism when copying from one or more models or real-life objects, and that scholars have not been sufficiently attentive to links between images and intended meanings.

Copying, Appropriation, and Innovation Our limited knowledge of pre-Solomonic art and the working methods of Ethiopian artists affects our capacity to locate visual traffic between metalwork and manuscript illustration in the early Solomonic period. On the one hand, there is ample evidence that Ethiopian artists—who were generally monks or members of the clergy27—were in the habit of “copying” images or appropriating motifs from a variety of sources.28 The transmission of texts through copying was a valued and essential activity in a Christian book culture like that of Ethiopia, so it stands to reason that the scribe-artist (the distinction is not always clear for the period in question) also attached importance to the reproduction of the images that accompanied these texts. On the other hand, the evidence also indicates that these “copying” processes seldom led to the creation of an exact replica. Indeed, far from being crystalized, the manuscript culture of early Solomonic Ethiopia appears to have been ever-changing, with both texts and images being frequently amended and revised to suit the taste, religious preferences, or necessities of the society that produced and used these cultural artifacts.29 This research area remains problematic and understudied, and, while it ultimately leads beyond the scope of this essay, it cannot be entirely overlooked, as it bears on the present discussion. In the Ethiopic tradition, as in other contexts, variations in content appear to have been constantly introduced for a variety of reasons that remain to be fully explored.30 These variations could be induced by a variety of factors, including: 1) a desire to modify an image so that it conformed to local 27 Gianfranco Fiaccadori, “Bisanzio e il regno di ʾAksum: Sul manoscritto Martini etiop. 5 della Biblioteca Forteguerriana di Pistoia,” Bollettino del Museo Bodoniano di Parma 7 (1993): 161–99; Marilyn E. Heldman, “Creating Religious Art: The Status of Artisans in Highland Christian Ethiopia,” Aethiopica 1 (1998): 131–47. 28 Suffice it here, as evidence of copying practices, to draw attention to the similarities between the Crucifixion scenes discussed in Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, La crucifixion sans crucifié dans l’art éthiopien: Recherches sur la survie de l’iconographie chrétienne de l’Antiquité tardive (Warsaw: Zaś Pan, 1997), and the Tempietto miniatures discussed in Gnisci, “An Ethiopian Miniature of the Tempietto.” 29 Gnisci, “Constructing Kingship in Early Solomonic Ethiopia.” 30 For this reason, one should be wary of labeling the Ethiopian tradition as “conservative,” as argued in Jacopo Gnisci, “Picturing the Liturgy: Notes on the Iconography of the Holy Women at the Tomb in Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Manuscript Illumination,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78, no. 3 (2015): 557–95, at 587–88. For some reflections on the relationship between “models” and “copies,” see Jonathan J. G. Alexander, “Facsimiles,

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religious beliefs or customs; 2) an incapacity to understand a model, or details of it, which could lead to its misrepresentation or to a transformation into something understandable by its maker and viewers; 3) an inability to accurately copy a model, due to the artist’s technical limits, leading, over time, to further transformations in the copying process; 4) a desire to conflate multiple scenes or models into a single one; and 5) an openness to innovation and to the appropriation of foreign motifs into the artistic repertoire.31 In some instances, the combination of these factors over a length of time makes it difficult to identify which are in play. Consequently, problems also emerge when assessing the visual impact of metalwork on manuscript illumination and vice versa. Some examples of Ethiopian metalwork feature abstract motifs that also appear in Ethiopic manuscripts. At the same time, many early Solomonic miniatures feature metal objects in scenes that appear to reflect, to some extent, the illuminator’s ecclesiastic surroundings.32 Because of this connection, some have looked at the illuminations to help provide a chronology of the morphological development of Ethiopian crosses. Since Ethiopian crosses are often distinct in shape from other traditions, it should be possible, so the reasoning goes, to date them by looking at the appearance of certain cross types in illustrated Ethiopic manuscripts, which can be dated by means of paleographic, textual, and stylistic criteria.33 As tempting as this kind of approach may at first seem, closer scrutiny shows that it generates more questions than answers.

The Morphology of Metal Objects in Ethiopic Manuscripts Attempts at establishing a genealogy of motifs in different media in early Solomonic art generally stumble on the impossibility of reconstructing a development sequence due to the loss of most early material. Moreover, the features of most of the cross types depicted in illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts (e.g. cross pattée, Greek Copies, and Variations: The Relationship to the Model in Medieval and Renaissance European Illuminated Manuscripts,” Studies in the History of Art 20 (1989): 61–72; Mary-Lyon Dolezal, “The Elusive Quest for the ‘Real Thing’: The Chicago Lectionary Project Thirty Years On,” Gesta 35, no. 2 (1996): 128–41; and John Lowden, “The Transmission of ‘Visual Knowledge’ in Byzantium through Illuminated Manuscripts: Approaches and Conjectures,” in Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Catherine Holmes and Judith Waring (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 59–80. 31 For a preliminary presentation of these issues in the Ethiopian tradition, see BalickaWitakowska, “La crucifixion sans crucifié,” 6–9; Gnisci, “Towards a Comparative Framework”; and Gnisci, “An Ethiopian Miniature of the Tempietto.” 32 See the remarks in Alessandro Bausi, “Su alcuni manoscritti presso comunità monastiche dell’Eritrea,” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 38 (1994): 13–69, at 59–62; and Jacopo Gnisci and Rafał Zarzeczny, “They Came with Their Troops Following a Star from the East: A Codicological and Iconographic Study of an Illuminated Ethiopic Gospel Book,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 83, no. 1 (2017): 127–89, at 138–48. 33 As put into practice in Chojnacki, “Ethiopian Crosses.”

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Fig. 2: The abbot Iyäsus Moʾa. Gospel Book of Iyäsus Moʾa. Ethiopia, 1280/1281. Däbrä Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, Ethiopia, s.n. [EMML 1832], fols. 5v–6r. Photo: © Michael Gervers, courtesy of the DEEDS project.

cross, cross crosslet, or cross quadrate) are too generic to be useful in a study of their morphology.34 The cross pattée staff held by the abbot of the monastery of Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, Iyäsus Moʾa (1214–93), at the beginning of a Gospel book he commissioned, for example, does not present particularly distinctive features (Fig. 2). Likewise, the crosses crosslet held by the saints Gärima and Ṣǝḥma in a miniature from a midfifteenth-century prayer book are painted in too generic a manner to be of much use to a study of cross morphology (Fig. 3). Even when painted metal objects present more distinctive details, they are generally still of limited value for establishing chronologies or intermedial relationships. Let us consider, as an example, two miniatures from a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat, a collection of acts of martyrs and saints, from the monastery of Däbrä Libanos in Eritrea.35 Here, Bishop Phileas (fol. 3r) and Zechariah (fol. 3v) are shown holding cross-staffs with tendril-shaped

34 Most of the cross forms that appear in early Solomonic manuscripts are attested already in Aksumite coins, as noted in Juel-Jensen, “The Evolution of the Ethiopian Cross.” 35 On this manuscript, see Alessandro Bausi, “Su alcuni manoscritti presso comunità monastiche dell’Eritrea: Parte terza,” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 41 (1997): 13–56, at 23–32. Considering the style of the miniatures, a late fourteenth- to mid-fifteenth-century date might be more likely for this manuscript than the fifteenth- to early sixteenth-century date proposed by Bausi.

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Fig. 3: St. Gärima and St. Ṣǝḥma with crosslet crosses. Mäṣḥafä säʿatat of Däbrä Qwäyäṣa. Ethiopia, mid- to late fifteenth century. Däbrä Qwäyäṣa, Ethiopia, s.n. [C1-IV-135], fol. 23v. Photo: © Michael Gervers, courtesy of the DEEDS project.

lower arms (Figs. 4–5). Elaborate lower arms such as these were a recurring feature of Ethiopian crosses before and during the early Solomonic period, but they are by no means unique to the Ethiopian tradition.36 Moreover, even if, hypothetically, we 36 See, e.g., Gabriel Millet, “Les iconoclastes et la croix, à propos d’une inscription de Cappadoce,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 34, no. 1 (1910): 96–109, figs. 1, 3–5; Leslie Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus

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Fig. 4: Twelve of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (left) and SS. Phileas, Nob, and Stephen (right). Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat of Däbrä Libanos. Eritrea, fifteenth century. Däbrä Libanos, Eritrea, s.n., fols. 2v –3r. Photo: Alessandro Bausi, © MIE (Missione Italiana in Eritrea 1993, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and University of Bologna).

wished to argue that the artist appropriated these elements from a cross or from an image in another illustrated manuscript, we would still face difficulties in establishing the medium and date of the model. It is true that similarly shaped arms can be seen below a number of Ethiopian crosses, but, for all we know, the Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat artist may have simply added the lower arms as a flourish, perhaps inspired by the similar motifs appearing in near-coeval headpieces and bands of interlace (ḥaräg) in Ethiopic manuscripts.37 The half palmettes that sprout from the base of the cross at the center of the headpiece in the Gǝšän Maryam manuscript (see Fig. 1), for example, have a shape that closely recalls the lower arms of the crosses in the Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat from Däbrä Libanos (Figs. 4–5).

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152–57; and Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art (London: British Library, 2001), 111–12, cat. no. 14. 37 Compare the arms with, for instance, the headpieces reproduced in Csilla Fabo Perczel, “Ethiopian Illuminated Ornament,” in Proceedings of the First International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art: Held at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, October 21 and 22, 1986 (London: The Pindar Press, 1989), 59–62, figs. 105–7.

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Fig. 5: Elisabeth, John the Baptist, and Zechariah. Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat of Däbrä Libanos. Eritrea, fifteenth century. Däbrä Libanos, Eritrea, s.n., fol. 3v. Photo: Alessandro Bausi, © MIE (Missione Italiana in Eritrea 1993, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and University of Bologna).

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Fig. 6: Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law. Psalter with canticles and antiphons. Ethiopia or Eritrea, fourteenth century. Paris, BnF, Ms. éth. 10, fol. 113v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The above remarks can be extended to other types of metal objects depicted in early Solomonic manuscripts. For instance, the chalice-shaped censer held by Zechariah in the Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat of Däbrä Libanos has few distinctive features other than its cross-topped handle (Fig. 5). Similar handles can be seen in many modern

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censers, which are often also chalice-shaped, but since the published examples all date from the eighteenth century onward, it is hard to say what the relationship with coeval metalwork might have been. Zechariah’s censer also lacks a lid,38 but should this be taken as an indication that the Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat illuminator did not replicate a real-world object or that he simply did not pay much attention to such details? The more one looks at the visual evidence from this angle, the more it becomes clear that definite answers to such questions are elusive. Let us consider another example, a prayer staff with a rounded knob held by Moses in a miniature from a fourteenth-century collection of psalms and antiphons now in the BnF (Fig. 6).39 This object, which appears in other early Solomonic manuscripts, brings to mind the metal knob that, to this day, is sometimes found at the top of the wooden staffs used by members of the Ethiopian clergy. However, since similar staffs appear in other traditions from late antiquity onward,40 how are we to determine whether the artists responsible for introducing such details were replicating their surroundings or appropriating motifs from earlier works of art? Moreover, given the lack of prethirteenth-century examples of Ethiopic illumination, how can we establish a chronology for such a development? My point can be further illustrated by looking at a manuscript that contains the Gädlä abunä Ǝsṭifanos (Life of Ǝsṭifanos) and the Gädlä abunä Abäkäräzun (Life of Abäkäräzun) and is embellished with several illuminations depicting local and foreign saints.41 In the portraits of Paul, Pachomius, and Macarius (fols. 2r–3r) the holy men are depicted holding a tau-shaped crosier (Fig. 7). One could argue that these crosiers, like other items depicted in this manuscript, such as the flywhisk held by Abäkäräzun (fol. 113v), replicate objects that were used by the Ethiopian clergy at the time of the painting.42 However, here as elsewhere, the level of simplification makes it difficult to be more precise about the morphological relationships between metal objects and their depiction in illuminated manuscripts, and the loss of evidence makes it impossible to

38 I am grateful to the editors for drawing my attention to this point. 39 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. éth. 10, fol. 113v. On this miniature, see Jacques Mercier, ed., L’arche éthiopienne: Art chrétien d’Éthiopie (Paris: Paris Musées, 2000), 46–47. 40 For instance, see the examples in Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North Africa: Studies in Iconography and Patronage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), fig. 135; and Cynthia Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57 (2010): 284–316, fig. 1. 41 New York, New York Public Library, Spencer Collection, Ethiopic MS 7, ca. 1480–1530; digitized at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/f9af64f0-3635-0138-7016-004d4569172d. On this manuscript, see Marilyn E. Heldman, “The Early Solomonic Period: 1270–1527,” in African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, ed. Roderick Grierson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 141–92, at 190. 42 For an early example of an Ethiopian tau-shaped crosier or prayer staff, see Jacques Mercier and Claude Lepage, Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia: The Monolithic Churches and Their Treasures, trans. Jennifer White-Thévenot and Jane Degeorges (London: Paul Holberton, 2012), fig. 5.80.

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Fig. 7: St. Pachomius. Life of Ǝsṭifanos and Life of Abäkäräzun. Ethiopia or Eritrea, late fifteenth to early sixteenth century. New York, NYPL, Spencer Collection, Ethiopic MS 7, fol. 2v. Photo: From The New York Public Library.

present any kind of sequential development of the appearance of these motifs in Ethiopian art or of the use of such objects in the Ethiopian tradition. Exceptions to these observations exist but are few in number. One such case can be observed by examining a group of Ethiopian crosses of the so-called Lalibäla type

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(Fig. 8).43 These crosses are topped by a zigzag garland that also appears above the arches of the canon tables in several early Solomonic Ethiopic Gospels (Fig. 9). The zigzag garland pattern was, in all likelihood, transmitted to Ethiopia during late antiquity through an Ethiopic Gospel book that featured an illustrated copy of the Eusebian Apparatus.44 Subsequently, as convincingly argued by Jacques Mercier and Claude Lepage, Ethiopian craftsmen transferred this pattern into metalwork.45 Therefore, in this particular instance, we can say with relative confidence that a pattern was transferred from manuscript to metalwork. Although again, due to the loss of earlier evidence, it is difficult to recognize when this transferal took place. There may be a few other cases where it is possible to assert that the themes or patterns used in the decoration of metal vessels were taken, as it were, from illuminated manuscripts. For instance, it is likely, but not certain, that the interlace motifs that appear in Ethiopian crosses and wall paintings were borrowed from manuscript illumination.46 However, the intermedial spread of forms and motifs was a phenomenon that must have occurred at different periods in the context of Ethiopia.47 Therefore, partly due to the loss of evidence and partly to the entangled processes that lay behind the creation of imagery during the early Solomonic period, it is seldom possible to offer a systematized account of the role that metal objects played in the development of manuscript illumination or that miniatures played in the creation or decoration of metalwork.

43 For several examples of such crosses see Mercier and Lepage, Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia, 130–41. These crosses have been tentatively dated by the authors between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. However, the dating is problematic since it is evident that they continued to be produced even after this period, as illustrated by the fifteenth-century example discussed in Heldman, “Early Solomonic Period,” 187, cat. 86. 44 The pattern does, however, appear in other media in late antique art; see for example the sixthcentury diptych with Christ and Mary in Berlin, Bode Museum, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, 564/565. For an overview of the history and decoration of the Eusebian Apparatus, see Matthew R. Crawford, The Eusebian Canon Tables: Ordering Textual Knowledge in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 45 Mercier and Lepage, Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia, 130–41; Jacopo Gnisci, “The Dead Christ on the Cross in Ethiopian Art: Notes on the Iconography of the Crucifixion in Twelfth- to FifteenthCentury Ethiopia,” Studies in Iconography 35 (2014): 187–288, at 197. 46 As argued in Gnisci, “An Ethiopian Miniature of the Tempietto,” 85–88. From the fifteenth century, Ethiopian crosses were also engraved with iconic scenes that may have been borrowed from painted panels and manuscripts, as suggested in Marilyn E. Heldman, The Marian Icons of the Painter Frē Ṣeyon: A Study in Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Art, Patronage, and Spirituality (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), 49–50. 47 For some excellent examples see Mercier and Lepage, Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia, 82–167.

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Fig. 8: Processional cross. Ethiopia or Eritrea, late twelfth to late fourteenth century, bronze, 34.9 x 15.8 cm. Baltimore, WAM, 54.2889. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Significance of Metal Objects in Ethiopic Manuscripts A more fruitful approach may be to investigate the significance attached by Ethiopian illuminators to the metal objects they portrayed during the early Solomonic period. In this respect, an obvious but overlooked point is that questions about mimesis and variation in Ethiopian art may be of interest to someone working within our scholarly tradition, but it is unclear whether such categories existed during the early Solomonic period or if they had any effect on the parameters within which Ethiopian illuminators operated. Originality certainly does not appear to have been a quality actively sought by Ethiopian artists, who, driven by religious belief, concerned themselves more with the intelligibility and iconic character of their work. The linear style of their paintings, the preference for a two-dimensional and non-naturalistic mode of representation

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Fig. 9: Second page of the Epistle to Carpianus within a painted arch. Gospel book. Mäṭre Krǝstos (scribe) and unknown artist, Ethiopia or Eritrea, fourteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.836, fol. 1v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

emphasizing the hierarchical relationships between figures, and the recurring use of captions to label a scene and the elements within it, are all indicators of a demand for visual clarity and a disregard for the mundane. Illustrated objects, regardless of their material, had an essential function within the communicative strategies employed in illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts. Herein, iconic portraits are almost indissolubly linked with objects that ensure, at a basic level, an immediate readability of visual content: holy men and ecclesiastics

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hold a cross, book, or other ritual object (see Figs. 2–6),48 while rulers and warrior saints brandish, or have nearby, a weapon.49 While the portraits of holy men could hardly be described as mimetic, they do replicate aspects of the context to which they belonged, since members of the Ethiopian clergy generally bore the same marks of distinction (that is, they carried the objects and wore the vestments) that are reproduced in early Solomonic illuminations.50 This dynamic relationship between the visual arts and reality ultimately stems from a desire, frequently attested in the written record, to unite two worlds into a whole: the biblical past with the ecclesiastical present, and the heavenly with the earthly. In mirroring aspects of contemporary reality in their work—that is to say, by anachronistically endowing saints and Old Testament prophets with items of liturgical paraphernalia—the Ethiopian illuminators clearly fashioned a connection between themselves and this community of saints, thus exploiting the mechanisms of visual cognition to assert their own identity. Similar strategies, as Steven Kaplan and Antonella Brita have argued, were used to promote sainthood through ritual performances and hagiographic narratives.51 Ritual objects in illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts, however, should not be understood just as elements that signal the ecclesiastical or monastic identity of those who hold them. In early Solomonic Ethiopia liturgical performances, texts, and architectural and artistic forms were embedded with interconnected layers of meaning. These interconnections were consciously reinforced by spreading forms and motifs across the various objects that were used in ritual activities, stimulating the intellect as well as all the senses. Participation in the liturgy, enhanced by this visual and conceptual background, would have encouraged a sense of belonging to the Church and its community. Moreover, the frequent enactment of religious processions outside of the church compound, combined with the custom of associating 48 The cases in which a particular type of metal object is associated systematically to a specific person, thus functioning as an attribute, are few: St. Stephen typically holds a eucharistic chalice (see Fig. 4), while Zechariah generally holds a censer (see Fig. 5). 49 For some examples, see Witold Witakowski and Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, “Solomon in Ethiopian Tradition,” in The Figure of Solomon in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Tradition: King, Sage and Architect, ed. Joseph Verheyden (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 219–40; and Gnisci and Zarzeczny, “They Came with Their Troops,” 138–48. 50 On vestments, see Jacopo Gnisci, “Ecclesiastic Dress in Medieval Ethiopia: Preliminary Remarks on the Visual Evidence,” in The Hidden Life of Textiles in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean: Contexts and Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Islamic, Latinate and Eastern Christian Worlds, ed. Nikolaos Vryzidis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 231–56. For evidence that gold vestments were considered a mark of prestige in Ethiopia, see Aaron Michael Butts, “Embellished with Gold: The Ethiopic Reception of Syriac Biblical Exegesis,” Oriens Christianus 97 (2013–14): 137–59, at 158. 51 Steven Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man and the Christianization of Early Solomonic Ethiopia (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1984); Antonella Brita, “Agiografia e liturgia nella tradizione della Chiesa etiopica,” in Popoli religioni e Chiese lungo il corso del Nilo: Dal Faraone cristiano al Leone di Giuda, ed. Luciano Vaccaro (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015), 515–39.

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days and features of the landscape with episodes of biblical history, allowed Christianity, in its cultural and material manifestations, to penetrate into the very fabric of human existence in early Solomonic Ethiopia. In a context where everything was charged with religious significance, metal objects and their representations could take on new symbolic meanings determined by their function and the settings in which they were used.52 This environment made it possible for an object to embody the spiritual qualities of a saint or for a holy figure to be compared with an object, as illustrated by a prayer to Abunä Bärtälomewos where he is likened to a “vase of joy” and a “cup of sanctity.”53 The virtue of a holy man could even be emphasized by means of a comparison with the material properties of precious metals. Gold, in particular, was often employed as a metaphor for a saint’s purity in Ethiopic hagiographies.54 For example, the fourteenth-century saint Filmona is said to be pure as gold and purer than silver because of his abstinence.55 All these considerations suggest that copying from other illustrated manuscripts or artworks was only one among several factors that led to the creation and reproduction of portraits showing holy men holding metal objects. In fact, by incorporating elements inspired by their material culture in their representations of prophets and saints, Ethiopian illuminators effectively created a visual bridge between the content of the manuscripts they decorated and the reality they inhabited, thus exploiting the edifying and legitimizing power of images. This impression is confirmed by a study of narrative scenes in illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts, in which the appearance of metal objects is not limited to scenes where the narrative justifies their presence. Thus, while it is not surprising to find a water basin and aquamanile in a miniature of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples (Fig. 10), the presence of cross-bearing apostles in miniatures of the Entry into Jerusalem calls for an explanation (Fig. 11).56 In the latter case, the presence of this paraphernalia is wholly inconsistent with the biblical narrative. What matters here is not whether the metal objects depicted in manuscripts are morphologically similar to the real-life objects they portray, but that their presence would have evoked the customs and activities of the religious communities in which

52 I use “symbolic” here with the acceptation given to the term by semioticians: see Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, “Semiotics and Art History,” Art Bulletin 73, no. 2 (1991): 174–208, with further bibliography. 53 Getatchew Haile, ed. and trans., Voices from Däbrä Zämäddo. Acts of Abba Bärtälomewos and Abba Yoḥannǝs; 45 Miracles of Mary (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 150–51. 54 Carlo Conti Rossini, “Note di agiografia etiopica (ʿAbiya-Egziʾ, ʿArkalēdes e Gabra-Iyasus),” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 17 (1938): 409–52, at 413. 55 Maurice Allotte de La Fuÿe, trans., Actes de Filmona (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1958), 13. 56 For a discussion of this motif of the Washing of the Feet in Ethiopian illumination, see Gnisci, “Washing of the Feet.” For the Entry into Jerusalem, see Marilyn E. Heldman, “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem in Ethiopia,” in Proceedings of the First United States Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Michigan State University, 2–5 May 1973, ed. Harold G. Marcus and John Hinnant (East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1975), 43–60; and Gnisci, “Washing of the Feet,” 258–61.

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Fig. 10: Jesus Washing the Feet of His Disciples. Gospel book. Ethiopia or Eritrea, second half of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Private collection, s.n., fol. 4v. Photo: © Jacopo Gnisci.

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both objects and manuscripts were used, thus strengthening in these communities the belief that they belonged to God’s elect people.

Heavenly Gold Another question worth considering is the attitude of Ethiopian illuminators toward materiality and precious metals. Crosses, together with codices, were among the most frequently depicted objects in illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts from the early Solomonic period. Most preserved crosses from this period are made of metal, but more perishable materials such as wood were also used and valued for their symbolic properties.57 Were early Solomonic illuminators interested in emphasizing the materiality of the objects they represented? And, if so, can we uncover the values they attributed to the material properties of these objects? While rules for the use of color were apparently never codified in early Solomonic Ethiopia, it seems significant that the crosses and most other types of liturgical paraphernalia represented in Ethiopic manuscripts were generally painted in yellow (see Figs. 4–5).58 As mentioned above, yellow paint was in all likelihood already employed to represent gold in one of the Gärima Gospels, where it was used for the halos of the evangelists and the treasure bindings of the books they hold. In early Solomonic manuscripts, yellow is systematically used for the golden jeweled cross of Golgotha in representations of the Crucifixion in which the body of Jesus is notably absent.59 This suggests that early Solomonic artists used yellow paint to represent gold.60 The rare cases where dark grey or black, rather than yellow, was used to represent metal objects only serve to reinforce this conclusion. I submit that such cases 57 On the symbolism of wood in Ethiopian literature, see Getatchew Haile, “Praises of the Cross, Wǝddase Mäsqäl, by Abba Giyorgis of Gasǝč̣č̣a,” Aethiopica 14 (2011): 47–120, at 53 and 85. 58 Balicka-Witakowska et al., “Ethiopic Codicology,” 157–58. Systematic research on the use of colors in Ethiopian art has yet to be undertaken, and I am not suggesting that color was devoid of aesthetic or semantic properties in the context of early Solomonic Ethiopia; see, e.g., BalickaWitakowska, “Iconographie de l’Annonciation,” 150. One point that emerges from a preliminary study of Ethiopic literary sources is that emphasis is placed on the contrast between light and darkness rather than on the hues of color. In this respect, it may be possible to find points of contact with other traditions; see, e.g., Liz James, Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). 59 Balicka-Witakowska, La crucifixion sans crucifié; Gnisci, “The Dead Christ.” 60 As noted by Jules Leroy, “La peinture chrétienne d’Éthiopie antérieure à l’influence occidentale,” in Christentum am Nil: Internationale Arbeitstagung zur Ausstellung “Koptische Kunst,” Essen, Villa Hügel, 23.–25. Juli 1963, ed. Klaus Wessel (Recklinghausen: Verlag Aurel Bongers, 1964), 60–78, at 69; and Balicka-Witakowska, La crucifixion sans crucifié, 27n37. For parallel uses of yellow paint (such as orpiment) to stand in for gold, see the essays by Lynley Herbert and Beatrice Leal in this volume.

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Fig. 11: Entry into Jerusalem. Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel Gospels. Ethiopia, second half of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel, Ethiopia, s.n. [Ṭānāsee 1], fols. 13v–14r. Photo: © Michael Gervers, courtesy of the DEEDS project.

show that Ethiopian illuminators occasionally used dark grey and black as a means to represent iron. One such case can be seen in the Gospels of Iyäsus Moʾa (fol. 5v), in which the only figure who holds an item of paraphernalia that is not painted in yellow is the actual donor: Iyäsus Moʾa (see Fig. 2). 61 This feature of his portrait is all the more striking if we consider that his hagiography emphasizes his donation of eight crosses of gold and silver to his monastery, Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, 62 and that late thirteenth-century notes in his Gospel book record the donations of precious gold objects to that same institution (fol. 339). 63 The black cross-staff distinguishes Iyäsus Moʾa as the only contemporary figure depicted in the Gospel book, as does his lack of a halo. Although the earliest surviving crosses of the 61 On this manuscript, see Balicka-Witakowska, La crucifixion sans crucifié, 123–24; and Gnisci, “Washing of the Feet.” On the portrait, see Claire Bosc-Tiessé, “Sainteté et intervention royale au monastère Saint-Étienne de Ḥayq au tournant du XIIIe et du XIVe siècle: L’image de Iyasus Moʾa dans son Évangile,” Oriens Christianus 94 (2010): 199–227. 62 Stanislas Kur, trans., Actes de Iyasus Moʿa, abbé du Convent de St-Etienne de Ḥayq (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1965), 32; while written after the saint’s death, this work may draw on earlier records or oral traditions. 63 Bosc-Tiessé, “L’image de Iyasus Moʾa,” 202–3.

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type held by the saint are made of iron, the illuminator’s decision to use black should not be taken as an indication of interest in visual accuracy. Rather, it should be read as an act of humility on the part of the depicted donor, comparable to the aforementioned decision to not use gold to adorn the garments of Emperor Dawit II in the Miracles of Mary of Gǝšän Maryam (see Fig. 1).64 The presence of an iron cross in the portrait of Iyäsus Moʾa is quite exceptional, and, on the whole, the objects in early Solomonic manuscripts, like the halos of those who hold them, are painted in yellow. From this, we may surmise that the artists responsible for making these images approved of the use of gold vessels and of precious materials in ecclesiastical contexts. The written sources confirm this impression. While some religious groups appear to have criticized the use of gold for liturgical paraphernalia,65 it is safe to say that most Christian Ethiopians did not object to the use of precious metals: church inventories often highlight the donation of objects made with precious metals,66 as do other kinds of texts that circulated during the early Solomonic period.67 However, if on the whole the Ethiopian Church approved of the use of vessels made with precious metals like gold, it condemned the coveting of such precious metals, and generally maintained ambiguous attitudes toward materiality.68 A passage from the fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Gädlä abunä Gäbrä Mänfäs Qǝddus (Life of Gäbrä Mänfäs Qǝddus), in which the saint celebrates the Divine Liturgy, captures much of the Ethiopian Church’s attitude toward gold and, more broadly, earthly objects. As the saint prepared for the celebration, the church in which he stood disappeared, so that “everything built by earthly hand was set aside, all the pillars and stone from the floor to the roof, and all the structure; its beams were transformed, and its chandeliers and all the vessels of the church were transformed; and, moreover, all the curtains disappeared; and, furthermore, traces of the earthly church did not exist [any longer]. There was a light and the darkness was set aside, and a new tabernacle of light was planted.”69 At this point, all the equipment for Mass began miraculously descending from heaven, including “a gold paten, a

64 For another painted simulation of iron see the discussion of Nebuchadnezzar’s colossus in the introductory essay by Joseph Ackley and Shannon Wearing in this volume. 65 For instance, see the discussion on whether altar tablets should be made of gold and silver or wood in Getatchew Haile, trans., The Gǝʿǝz Acts of Abba Ǝsṭifanos of Gwǝndagwǝnde (Louvain: Peeters, 2006), 53–54. 66 For several examples, see Bausi, “Alcuni manoscritti,” 30, 36, 38–39, and 53. 67 Kur, Actes de Iyasus Moʿa, 32. On the use of gold for images, for instance, see Getatchew Haile, “Documents on the History of Aṣé Dawit (1382–1413),” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 16 (1983): 25–35, at 28 and 31. 68 Gnisci, “Metalwork in Early Solomonic Ethiopia.” 69 Paolo Marrassini, ed. and trans., “Vita,” “Omelia,” “Miracoli” del Santo Gabra Manfas Qeddus (Louvain: Peeters, 2003), 66 (my translation).

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chalice, a cross-shaped gold spoon, and the coverings, and the veils” as well as the “priestly vestments” and a “gold basket.”70 This episode is followed by the pitching of “tents woven like gold pomegranates colored with purple threads” and whose color, we are told, “did not look like earthly gold, but was unknown to the eye.”71 The passage speaks to a desire to disassociate objects from the manufacturing processes that led to their creation. The earthly vessels of the church in which Gäbrä Mänfäs Qǝddus was celebrating the Mass, irrespective of their material, had to be replaced with heavenly objects of gold because they were man-made. Gold was not so much to be valued for its material worth but for its symbolic properties and reflective capacity. In this respect, it is possible to draw a further parallel between the Ethiopian Church’s conception of precious-metal objects and the human body. In Christian Ethiopia holy men were venerated because they had cleansed themselves from the pollution of the earthly flesh and made themselves like angels on earth.72 In a similar way, metal vessels were not valued for their manufacture, but because they were sanctified and united with the heavenly sphere through the eucharistic celebration.

Conclusions Scholarship has devoted little attention to the symbolic dimension of the various types of metal objects used by the Ethiopian Church. The focus has hitherto been on the morphology of Ethiopian crosses, with the aim of providing a chronology of their development. To this end, authors have often turned to the evidence offered by illuminated manuscripts—which can generally be dated with greater confidence than metalwork—to help provide a more reliable framework for understanding the evolution of the formal features of crosses. Yet, as this study has shown, this line of research actually provides little insight into the development of crosses, or other metal objects for that matter, in early Solomonic Ethiopia. Indeed, even in the few instances where it is possible to detect traffic between manuscript illumination and metalworking, as with the zigzag garland patterns which decorate crosses of the Lalibäla type (see Figs. 8–9), we are seldom able to determine when the spread of forms across different media took place.

70 Marrassini, Gabra Manfas Qeddus, 66. 71 Ibid. (emphasis added). 72 See Steven Kaplan, “The Ethiopian Holy Man as Outsider and Angel,” Religion 15, no. 3 (1985): 235–49. The exact relationship between the contemporary practices and past beliefs of members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church remains to be investigated, but it is worth noting that there could be partial overlaps between past and present concerns about purity: see, e.g., Tom Boylston, The Stranger at the Feast: Prohibition and Mediation in an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Community (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 7–12.

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In contrast, by studying the significance attributed by Ethiopian illuminators to depictions of crosses and other metal objects it is possible to learn more about their working practices and communicative concerns. The visual evidence suggests that copying from earlier models, or from different media, was just one among several factors affecting the production of visual culture in early Solomonic Ethiopia. When depicting metalwork, Ethiopian illuminators appear to have been inspired not so much by formal likeness, but by a desire to create images that echoed the religious customs and aspirations of the society to which they belonged. The idealized mirroring of aspects of reality in art led to the production of images that would have resonated vividly with their makers and viewers. Thus, the anachronistic placement of objects associated with clerical status in depictions of holy men, and of paraphernalia in Old and New Testament scenes, enhanced the intelligibility of these illustrations and legitimized the actions and ritual performances of the Ethiopian clergy by constructing a precedent rooted in the biblical and apostolic tradition. Gold, as discussed above, is attested in only three illuminated Ethiopic manuscripts from the early Solomonic period. However, Ethiopian artists employed yellow to represent gold, a practice that was already established in late antiquity, given the evidence afforded by Gärima III. While, on the whole, the Ethiopian Church appears to have approved of the use of precious metals in liturgical contexts, it nevertheless maintained an ambiguous attitude toward materiality: objects made with precious metals such as gold were not so much valued for their material worth or craftsmanship, but because of their symbolic meaning, reflective properties and liturgical function.

Roland Betancourt

The Colors of Metalworks: The Painted Materials of Machinery in Byzantium Everything we have collected here and there from the remaining [writers] is easy to know and apprehend truthfully—“axioms of common intuition,” as Anthemios says—and capable of being comprehended from the problem alone and the illustration; they require no instruction or interpretation. We have recast these with common diction and simplicity of style for greater clarity so that [machines] can be both carpentered and constructed easily by anyone. After weaving this [material] also into the works of Apollodorus we have arranged it with the drawings, giving these precise definition, knowing that even an illustration alone, when well defined, is able to render quite clear aspects of construction that are obscure and difficult to express.1

This contemplation on the practicality of images comes from the Parangelmata Poliorcetica (literally, Instructions for Siegecraft), a mid-tenth-century Byzantine treatise on siege warfare composed by an anonymous author traditionally called Heron of Byzantium.2 Based on the earlier writings of the second-century Apollodorus of Damascus and others, this treatise is notable for its visual translation of the schematic diagrams found in earlier works into illustrations depicting machines as three-dimensional objects, rendering them more easily intelligible to the book’s

1 “Ὅσα δὲ ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν σποράδην συνελεξάμεθα εὔγνωστα καὶ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν εὐκατάληπτα, κοινῆς ἐννοίας ἀξιώματα κατὰ Ἀνθέμιον ὄντα καὶ ἀπὸ μόνου προβλήματος καὶ σχηματισμοῦ καταλαμβάνεσθαι δυνάμενα, μηδεμιᾶς διδασκαλίας ἢ ἑρμηνείας δεόμενα, ἰδιωτείᾳ λέξεων καὶ ἁπλότητι λόγου ὑφ’ ἡμῶν καὶ αὐτὰ μεταποιηθέντα πρὸς τὸ σαφέστερον, ὥστε παρὰ τῶν τυχόντων εὐκόλως καὶ τεκτονεύεσθαι καὶ κατασκευάζεσθαι, τοῖς τοῦ Ἀπολλοδώρου καὶ ταῦτα συμπλέξαντες σὺν τοῖς σχήμασιν ἀκριβῶς διορισάμενοι κατετάξαμεν, εἰδότες ὅτι δύναται καὶ μόνος σχηματισμὸς καλῶς διορισθεὶς τὸ περὶ τὴν κατασκευὴν σκοτεινὸν καὶ δύσφραστον κατάδηλον ἀπεργάζεσθαι.” Parangelmata Poliorcetica 1.37–40, in Siegecraft: Two Tenth-Century Instructional Manuals by “Heron of Byzantium”, ed. and trans. Denis F. Sullivan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000), 28–29. 2 Sullivan’s critical edition of the text is based on the extant archetype of the tradition, the illustrated Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1605, which is the subject of the present study. The edition puts the Vatican manuscript’s text in dialogue with the nineteenth-century editions, based on the sixteenth-century Bologna, Università di Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, ms. 1497, and the nineteenth-century Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. suppl. gr. 817, which is itself copied from the late fifteenth-century Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barocci 169. On the text’s history, critical edition, and translation, see Sullivan, Siegecraft, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-005

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readers, as the author notes.3 In the same introduction, the Poliorcetica’s author muses on the incomprehensibility of technical treatises, proposing that perhaps the topics they discuss are perceptible through “ignorance alone” (τῇ ἀγνωσίᾳ μόνῃ), which Denis Sullivan translates as “[mystical] ‘unknowing.’”4 This comment draws on Neoplatonic language, consistent with usages in Pseudo-Dionysius’s De mystica theologia, to articulate the difficulty in visualizing the complex machines described in the text.5 The author claims to have resolved this by furnishing his text with extensive illustrations of “precise definition” (ἀκριβῶς διορισάμενοι).6 This allows one to readily understand the described siege machines visually without the need for additional instruction or clarification. The Poliorcetica comes down to us in several illustrated manuscripts. My focus here is the extant archetype of this tradition: an eleventh-century copy now in the Vatican Library.7 The manuscript is replete with illustrations of the various tools and structures detailed in the text, yet it has all but eluded the attention of art historians.8 It was undoubtedly produced in an imperial scriptorium for the erudition of an emperor, general, or even the army’s master builder. The outlines of the figures and

3 On the textual history of the Poliorcetica and its sources, see P. H. Blyth, “Apollodorus of Damascus and the Poliorcetica,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 33 (1992): 127–58; Ernest Lacoste, “Les Poliorcétiques d’Apollodore de Damas,” Revue des études grecques 3 (1890): 230–81; Friedrich Lammert, “Zu den Poliorketikern Apollodoros und Athenaios und zur Poliorketik des Vitruvius,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 87 (1938): 304–32; Otto Lendle, Texte und Untersuchungen zum technischen Bereich der antiken Poliorketik (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983); and Karl Konrad Müller, “Handschriftliches zu den Poliorketika und der Geodäsie des sogenannten Hero,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 38 (1883): 454–63. 4 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 1.1–8, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 26–27. 5 On this turn of phrase, see Sullivan, Siegecraft, 8–10. 6 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 1.37–38, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 28–29. 7 Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605. The manuscript has been digitized in full color: https://digi.vatlib.it/ view/MSS_Vat.gr.1605. While the text of the Poliorcetica has been dated to the mid-tenth century based on its lexicon as well as the astronomical and military details provided by the author, the Vatican copy is dated to the eleventh century on paleographical grounds. The Vatican Poliorcetica is bound with the complementary treatise by the same author, the Geodesia, which explains the use of a dioptra, akin to a modern surveyor’s theodolite, for measuring sizes and distances on the battlefield. The Geodesia was clearly intended to be used alongside the lessons of the Poliorcetica. The manuscript is about 26 cm in height and comprises fifty-eight folios. The text of the Poliorcetica spans fols. 1r–42r and includes twenty-eight illustrations. The Geodesia covers fols. 42r–57v and is itself illustrated with fourteen sets of diagrammatic and mathematical illustrations. The manuscript closes on fol. 58r with an unexpected and unaddressed image of the zodiac. 8 An exception is Robert Ousterhout’s consideration of the manuscript’s images in relation to Byzantine architectural and building practices: Robert G. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2008), esp. 65–68 and 83–85. The Poliorcetica is also cited, but not discussed, in Robert S. Nelson, “‘And So, with the Help of God’: The Byzantine Art of War in the Tenth Century,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 65/ 66 (2011–12): 169–92, at 169.

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fortifications appear to be composed of the same ink as that used for the text, suggesting that the scribe was also the one sketching these images (Fig. 1). The colors of the pictures have a gouache-like quality to them. They lack the densely layered, painterly characteristics that one finds in other exemplars of Byzantine manuscript illumination. The palette is earthy, comprising dull blue, muted green, mustard yellow, gossamer brown, and turbid maroon. Different shades of the same colors are employed to telegraph depth on individual items. The human figures are staid and rigid, but compelling in the artist’s mobilization of them to show the use of the siege machines. At times, figures turn their backs to the viewer, leaving only the curly locks of their heads facing us. Many of the siege implements are labeled, invariably in a dark carmine ink. This use of carmine is similar to its employment in contemporaneous liturgical manuscripts to write chant marks and to caption images. Here too, the carmine glosses serve as a paratextual tool for the user to navigate the texts and images. Having undertaken an extensive study of this manuscript in person and under the microscope, it is important to note that one of the most striking and previously unmentioned aspects of the illustrations is that several figures and objects have been accentuated with a dull metallic pigment resembling granular gold (though XRF analysis is pending to confirm its composition). While these details still glimmer before the eye, in some areas the discrimination between a murky brown and a potentially tarnished, low-grade metallic pigment required closer study. This included analysis under a microscope, both under raking light and with axial specular illumination.9 These details are difficult to discern via reproductions, and without microscopy it is easy to overlook or misidentify some instances of the metallic pigment. From these studies I was able to detect, for example, the use of this metallic paint on the caps of the soldiers, as well as on the trims of their tunics and breastplates. These subtle flourishes were imparted upon the siege machines as well to highlight their metal parts. Cross-referencing these uses with the text, it would appear that they are often, though not exclusively, used to indicate iron, like that of nails or the armatures of pulleys. This application of pigment exemplifies how the artist consistently strove to emphasize material facture, articulating the joints of wooden planks, the heads of nails, the ties and plates adjoining wheels, and so on. The images live up to the text’s stated expectation that they are to serve as visual tools for comprehending the otherwise obtuse nature of siege machines. Although the manuscript was likely produced for an elite patron, in terms of the quality of illustration, it does not fit our expectations of what a Byzantine imperial manuscript should look like. However, these aesthetic factors do not preclude its

9 I wish to thank Dr. Marta Grimaccia from the Vatican Library’s Conservation Laboratory, who assisted me in consulting the manuscript under the microscope and shared with me her thoughtful observations and questions. I must also thank Dr. Paolo Vian, Deputy Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archive, and Dr. Claudia Montuschi, Director of the Manuscripts Department, who made my study of the manuscript possible over the years.

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Fig. 1: Tortoises and defenses against objects. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fols. 7v–8r. Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

likely origins in an imperial scriptorium. The purpose of the book was technical and didactic, and its images exhibit a high degree of complexity that speaks to the work’s erudition beyond conventional surface aesthetics. The author of the text likewise stresses a purposeful push against beauty, harmony, and grace, asking the reader not to search for Attic diction or composition, as the text’s flat writing

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Fig. 1 (continued )

is intended to communicate the material with clarity and conciseness, at times necessitating infelicities and repetitions.10 It is in keeping with this pragmatic

10 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 3.1–13, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 30–31.

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approach to language that the images across the manuscript look more like the underdrawings of Byzantine miniatures than any other example of Byzantine painting. Such a didactic commission for an imperial milieu does, however, have a precedent in the various educational materials (such as poems and prose) and instructional practices of the imperial family during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Notably, the manuscript evidences extensive signs of use, including wax stains, smudges, and torn and mended folios. In other words, it suggests having been closely scrutinized over the years, rather than languishing untouched as a curiosity. The present essay aims, firstly, to identify and articulate the illustrator’s sensitivity to the technical matters expressed in the text, paying particular attention to the identification and parsing out of materials through color. This shall be done not only by looking at the intersection between the text, images, and their captions, but also by comparing successive iterations of figures and things that are distinguished by subtle variations that convey differences in materials or construction. Only then is one able to appreciate the manner in which the artist glosses details about construction and use in the images, even when the text is silent about certain nuances or minutiae of the siege machines. Effectively, it will be possible to see the manner in which the illustrations filled in the absences of the text itself in order to heighten the technical efficacy of the manuscript. Finally, I will demonstrate how the artist constructed a visual vocabulary through color and line to distinguish between different factures, preparations, and forms of metalwork: for example, discriminating the cruder iron of nails from the cold-forged iron of swords, or differentiating iron implements from those made of bronze. These efforts on the part of the artist indicate a desire to clearly articulate nuanced distinctions in the metals used in the siege machines, as well as their other building materials, composition, and carpentry.

Distinguishing Variations in Construction The essential characteristic of the Vatican Poliorcetica is its attention to detail across text and image. If one dismisses the images as crude sketches aiming only to casually illustrate the text, and neglects to recognize the manuscript as a usable technical treatise tasked with communicating specialized knowledge, one risks overlooking important aspects of the depicted machines’ construction. This information is presented not through comprehensive, lushly detailed images, but rather through the selective inclusion of pertinent details in otherwise sparse compositions—that is, all those minutiae that give these illustrations the “precise definition” demanded by the text. One may appreciate such details in the depiction of laisai, light defensive coverings made of plaited vine stalks or freshly cut willow branches in the form of arches, under which soldiers could take cover from objects launched at them. In the center right of folio 8r (see Fig. 1), four soldiers carry a laisa that clearly communicates its horticultural materials as a green canopy. The artist overlaid this green with a patterned

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Fig. 2: Detail of wooden supports on boots of soldiers walking over caltrops, compared to bare boots of a soldier raking caltrops. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 8r (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

brown ink to show that it is a woven structure, and articulated a sense of threedimensionality by adding a diagonal arc of dark red (now partially abraded) at the top of the canopy (Fig. 2). The depiction of the soldiers carrying the laisa offers a candid glance into the act of warfare; it even shows one of the men, at far left, facing away from the viewer, a surprisingly naturalistic gesture. His curly golden locks are on display, like some mask placed over his visage, while his left hand firmly grasps the edge of the laisa to hold it off the ground. But, most curious in this image is the translucent brown ink that encircles the soldiers’ red boots. These brown outlines are inconspicuous, and it is not immediately clear what they are trying to convey. A close comparison with the footwear of other soldiers depicted across the folio, however, demonstrates that they are unique to this scene. Turning to the text itself, we learn that this brown outline indicates the “wooden supports under the boots” (ξύλινα ὑποθέματα πρὸς τοὺς πόδας) of the soldiers, one of the two possible defenses against the “iron caltrops” (σιδηροῦς τριβόλους) that have been scattered on and mixed into the ground by the enemy, potentially becoming invisible.11 In the illustration, the caltrops are visible immediately below the feet of the soldiers, who are aptly unaware of them given their impervious footwear. Adjoining this scene is another figure who lacks those wooden protectors, but who directly engages 11 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 11.19–22, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 42–43.

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with the caltrops. This figure signals the alternative method for dealing with caltrops, which is to “clear these away with farm rakes with large tines which some also call griphanai” (τοῖς γεωργικοῖς κτεσὶν οὕς καὶ γριφάνας τινὲς καλοῦσιν, ὀδοντωτοῖς οὖσιν, τούτους ἀνακαθαίρειν).12 In these paired scenes, the inclusion and omission of that thin brown line around the soldiers’ boots presents alternatives between the footwear and the raking methods. Such details train the user of the Poliorcetica to think strategically. This impetus is inherent in the technical manual’s incessant litanies of potential strategies, which are meant to be malleable to the conditions of the battlefield and the resources available. A similar emphasis on alternatives appears later in the manuscript, where two options are given for ascending a city wall. The first (fol. 35v) is demonstrated by soldiers “who nail iron stakes, which, being hardened and made pointed, are inserted into the joints and seams of stone and brick walls, hammered with iron mallets by those climbing.”13 The facing folio (fol. 36r) presents the second option: it shows a soldier crossing over a drop-bridge bearing a handheld Greek fire siphon. On folio 35v, two soldiers are illustrated performing two crucial actions (Fig. 3). The one above climbs the parapet using a plaited-rope ladder with iron hooks that adhere to the top of the fortification. At his feet are the iron stakes hammered into the wall, painted in a light brown with metallic gold accents at the tips to stress their sharp, hardened ends. These two stakes are shown haphazardly inserted into the middle of a stone, despite the text’s instruction. The same is true for the one supporting the lower soldier’s proper right foot, but his left foot is resting on an accurately placed stake (a detail that is hard to see due to the bleed-through of the wheel on the folio’s recto). Most importantly, the lower soldier is shown in the act of nailing another one of these iron rods at the joints of the stones, as directed by the text. What we can appreciate here is that the depiction of the scene overall can be quite careless regarding certain details. The illustration effectively conveys that these rods generally serve to prop the soldiers up on the wall, but they are not always placed with precision. However, when it comes to depicting the action of nailing the stakes, we see the artist carefully indicating the proper position. The illustrations in the manuscript thus articulate instructional exactness in the acts prescribed, conscientiously, if not consistently, following the didactic emphases of the text. This approach to illustration cultivates an informed scrutiny on the part of the reader, who must carefully examine the images to draw out from them the information provided by the text and even further details not explicitly stated. The manuscript is meant to be read by consulting images and text in dialogue with one another, which in turn helps clarify many of the depicted details of construction. The artist’s illustrations 12 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 11.21–23, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 42–43. 13 “σιδηροῦς προσηλοῦντας πασσάλους, οἳ στομωθέντες καὶ ὀξυνθέντες εἰς τὰς συμβολὰς καὶ συμφύσεις λιθίνων τε καὶ πλινθίνων ὑπεισέρχονται τειχῶν, σιδηραῖς σφύραις ὑπὸ τῶν ἀναβαινόντων τυπτόμενοι.” Parangelmata Poliorcetica 48.4–7, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 96–97.

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Fig. 3: Scaling a wall with iron spikes and rope ladders. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 35v (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

urge the user to pay close attention to certain specifics that might seem like unremarkable painterly flourishes, but which reinforce the instructions of the text. The task of the manuscript’s user is often to distinguish between signal and noise in these images. This is regulated by a systematic process of looking that takes into account the interdependence of text and image throughout the manuscript. As the above examples indicate, the artist encourages image-image comparison in addition to the expected text-image comparisons we have been discussing. Many such instances occur in close proximity, allowing for the scrutiny of images on the same or adjoining folios, though the artist also demands that the reader recall previous images in order to comprehend subtle differences and improvements on siege machines. These comparisons allow for an appreciation of different types of construction, as well as different layers or stages in the construction, which emerge only as the author delves into the details of specific objects over the course of the text. One especially fruitful instance of image-image comparison is in the presentation of tortoises (χελωνῶν), the protective shells under which soldiers could perform a variety of tasks—such as tunneling, undermining walls, leveling ground, fording a river, or carrying a ram—without falling prey to enemy attacks. In the manuscript’s first set of

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illustrations (fols. 7v and 8r), one is already presented with a host of different types of tortoises, which are each captioned accordingly (see Fig. 1): a lightweight wicker tortoise (γερροχελώνη), a wedge-shaped tortoise (χελώνη ἔμβολον), a vine tortoise for shielding against archery and slinging (ἀμπελοχελώνη), and a tortoise to shelter men leveling terrain and filling ditches (χωστρὶς χελώνη). The artist also depicts, on subsequent folios, the excavator tortoise (χελώνη ὀρυκτρίς), which was used to shield men excavating into the wall of a fortification (Figs. 4–5). These images accompany discussions of the excavator tortoise in two later chapters (chap. 13, fols. 10r–11r; chap. 15, fols. 12r–v). In each instance, figures are wholly missing from the depiction, which serves as a portrait of the object itself. In the first appearance of the excavator tortoise, on folio 11r, it is positioned as a static object before a walled fortification (Fig. 4). The artist has paid a great deal of attention to the materiality of the object’s various components as described in the text. The author details that they are constructed by “taking three or four beams of wood” (ξύλα λαβόντας τρία ἤ τέσσαρα),14 and the artist likewise depicts four vertical beams nailed onto the surface of the tortoise’s shell and capped at the bottom with triangular spikes. The thin brown lines that define the beams are the same as those used to depict the fortifications, and are comparable in form and color to the penmanship of the text itself. Coats of the same tawny ink are layered thinly and with delicate ripples and bleedings, almost like watercolor, in order to texture the grain of these beams and convey their wooden material. At the bottom, these beams are tipped with sharp triangular “iron spurs” (κέντρα σιδηρᾶ), whose purpose is to secure the tortoise into the ground so that it is not dragged out of position.15 The color of the iron spurs is markedly darker than that of the wood; the same dark brown color appears to be used for the nails on the wooden beams, suggesting that they are of the same material, a fact corroborated in the later section detailing the protections for excavator tortoises, which describes these nails as “small iron spikes” (καρφία ἐκ σιδήρου).16 Blotches of this darker shade of brown mark every single nail hammered into the beams, fastening them to the wider horizontal planks behind them. These horizontal planks are contoured with a hint of shadow along their borders to suggest their three-dimensionality as wooden boards, but are otherwise left unpainted. Wooden beams similar in appearance to the four vertical struts are shown at the rear of the contraption, depicted with a lighter shade of brown to indicate the depth of the machine. These support the slanting structure and attach it to the wheels. Upon the lowest of the wide horizontal beams, the siege machine has been clearly labeled as an excavator tortoise (χελώνη ὀρυκτρίς).

14 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 13.9, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 46–47. 15 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 13.19, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 46–47. 16 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 15.2, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 48–49.

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Fig. 4: Excavator tortoise. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 11r (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

On folio 12v is a second representation of an excavator tortoise, corresponding with the chapter dedicated to protective coverings for tortoises (Fig. 5). A caption above the image reads “excavator tortoise smeared with clay” (χελώνη ὀρυκτρίς πηλῷ ἐπικεχρισμένων), indicating that the artist was here tasked with articulating a difference between this excavator tortoise and the one on the preceding folio. This difference manifests itself as a uniform swath of brown tinged with green over the horizontal and vertical beams, giving the surface of the tortoise an aptly muddy appearance. The artist has made clear that this darker brown represents the indicated clay by refraining from covering the top and bottom ends of the vertical struts, along with those forming the tortoise’s internal armature. Thus, the viewer can appreciate a contrast between the pristine wooden beams and the area coated in the fire-retardant “greasy and viscous clay” (πηλὸν λιπαρὸν καὶ κολλώδη) prescribed at length in this chapter of the text.17 What is a fairly simple change in the image of the tortoise results in a significant explicatory illustration. The choice to provide

17 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 15.5, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 48–51.

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Fig. 5: Excavator tortoise smeared with clay. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 12v (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

two different images for such a minor change in surface treatment speaks to the manuscript’s use as a detailed technical tool. The user is encouraged to look comparatively and memorize details as they read in order to properly grasp the material at hand and be capable of appreciating the accruing layers of these constructions.

The Precision and Fungibility of Metalwork Across the various depictions of siegecraft instruments in the Vatican Poliorcetica, one confronts the fundamental questions at the heart of this essay: first, how does one make sense of how colors do or do not signal particular construction materials; and, secondly, given the apparent imprecisions and deviations in the use of color in this manuscript, can one say that it effectively and efficiently conveys materials, both in conjunction with the text and in relation to existing practical knowledge? My proposition is that the artist was strikingly precise in the selection of colors, but that a given color could encompass multiple materials and that the same material could be represented in multiple colors. A deliberate variation of colors could, for instance, be used to signal different applications, finishes, and factures of a single

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material. Notably, one can observe that the factors according to which colors were selected privilege the brilliance and reflective properties of materials rather than their hue.18 Therefore, a polished metal product might be represented with a more luminous and reflective pigment than a duller finish of the same material. To understand the logic of the artist, we must first understand how they negotiated constructions and colors across text and image. In the cases of the two excavator tortoises discussed above, the author does not share detailed information about the facture of the wheels and axles of the structure, making only passing mention of them and leaving their fuller description to the artist. Here, the artist makes telling choices that exemplify the nuance in the depiction of metalwork across the manuscript. And, as shall be demonstrated, these details allow the viewer to comprehend far more information about carpentry and materials from the images than from the text alone. There is a clear consistency in the handling of wheel and axle assemblies throughout the manuscript (see Figs. 1, 4, 5).19 The wheels of the excavator tortoises in both cases are painted in a dull maroon. The color is applied thinly and evenly over the expanse of each wheel’s body. This maroon is found across the manuscript, often indicating finer wooden finishes, like that of the curved bow and socket (πυελίς) of the bow drill (ἀρίς) used to bore holes into fortifications on folio 14r (Fig. 6). This may be read as indicating a darker, richer, and perhaps redder wood, contrasting with the untreated planks used for the body of the tortoise. The wheel hubs are left blank, revealing the parchment underneath, but they are outlined in the same brown ink used to demarcate the iron nails and spikes of the tortoises. The same color is used on each wheel’s rim, presumably indicating a flat iron tire, which would be expected on such a wheel. Therefore, we have an indication here that the nails, spikes, tire, and wheel hubs of these tortoises are all made of the same type of iron or that they have rusted similarly. This is notably distinct from the rich blue of the tortoises’ axles, a color choice meant to demonstrate that they be made of iron rather than wood and, perhaps, that they be made of a higher-quality iron or one that has been cold-forged for increased strength; this will be further discussed below. Note that the pin securing the axle in place, depicted on the front right wheel in both images, is painted the same muddy brown as the rest of the cruder iron materials. It is understandable that an author writing for an emperor, general, or master builder on the battlefield could have easily omitted the details of every machine’s materials, given that the construction and assembly of such objects would have followed established practices well known among elite readers. But what is striking is

18 Liz James has elucidated the manner in which the Byzantines privileged brightness and shine over hue: Liz James, Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), esp. 74–76. 19 Additional examples not illustrated here can be found on folios 34r, 35r, and 35v.

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Fig. 6: Bow drill. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 14r (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

the reliability with which the artist has filled in these gaps and shown material differences with precision and regularity, even if the images at times lack a strict color uniformity by modern standards. While color cannot be read as an infallible key to decode materials, the artist employed colors consistently to articulate certain classes and factures of objects and their materials. The bow drill, for example, corroborates many of the observations made here about the tortoises insofar as it features a similar range of materials, but it is also more clearly labeled and its materials more adequately described in the text. In describing this machine, the author of the Poliorcetica likens it to the type of bow drill used in carpentry: The borers should be similar to a carpenter’s tools: for this is an iron bar no less than 5 podes in length with a diameter of 1 daktylos and a circumference of about 4 dakytloi. It has a blade that is also iron affixed to the front end, 12 daktyloi wide and 8 long, narrowed in the center in front like a garden spade. At the other end it receives a wooden cylinder [made] on a lathe, narrow in the middle [and] turned by a bow. It has at the center of the rear section a head-shaped projection that goes in under and turns in what is termed a socket, that is, a type of cap.20

20 “Τὰ δὲ τρύπανα ἔστωσαν τεκτονικοῖς ὀργάνοις παρόμοια· μοχλὸς γὰρ γίνεται σιδηροῦς μῆκος ποδῶν μὴ ἔλασσον πέντε, δακτυλιαίαν τὴν διάμετρον ἔχων καὶ πάχος γυρόθεν ὡσεὶ δακτύλων

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The iron bar with the spade-like tip is painted in a rich blue (like the tortoises’ iron axles) and labeled upon its body. The cylindrical wooden shaft (into which the iron rod with spade is set) is shown in light brown, the same color elsewhere associated with wood. Lest any viewer mistake its material composition, the image itself also labels this segment of the drawing with the words “wooden cylinder” (κύλινδρος ξύλινος) in carmine. The reddish wood of the bow and socket (labeled in the drawing ἀρίς and πυελίς respectively) is identical to that of the tortoises’ wheels. And here again the artist has clearly distinguished these parts as being made of a different type of wood than the light-brown wood of the cylinder, intimating a difference in production, sturdiness, and origin. In the bow drill, one can also observe the use of the same hue to depict various materials: its strap, which would presumably be made of leather or a similar material, is depicted in the same blue as the iron. This dark blue should not be seen as indicating an iron chain or a simple twine rope. Instead, it conveys the dark shine of a hidelike material, akin to the dull glow of a metal like iron or lead. This type of material would be consistent with the construction and operational needs of this object. An illuminating juxtaposition of iron and leather articulated through the same dark blue is seen on folio 15v (Fig. 7), detailing the use of bellows to stoke fires in the holes that would have been bored into a wall with the bow drill. There, the depiction of a “bronzesmith’s bellows” (ἀσκώμασι χαλκικοῖς) with an “iron pipe in front” (σιδηροῦν αὐλίσκον ἔμπροσθεν) shows both the iron blowpipe and the leathery accordion of the bellows in blue.21 The frame is of the by now familiar dark-red wooden fabrication, dappled with the brown specks of iron nails. Here as before, however, the dark blue serves as a marker of the shine of the material surface, drawing a visual association between the outward appearance of leather and steely-blue iron. Such instances again direct one to the fungibility of color and material in these illustrations, which consistently favor the luster and effects of matter rather than a metrological cataloguing of hue. On folio 35v (see Fig. 3), the soldier climbing the wall holds what the text explicitly tells us is an iron mallet, raised and about to strike. The mallet is depicted with a handle painted in the same metallic granular paint used for armor and helmets (suggesting perhaps a metal surface, though this would most likely enrobe a wooden body), while the head of the mallet is colored with that signature dark blue used for fine iron tools. On folio 11v (Fig. 8), two soldiers excavating a wall carry pickaxes depicted similarly with a metallic gold shaft

τεσσάρων, πέταλον ὁμοίως σιδηροῦν ἐπὶ τὸ ἔμπροσθεν ἄκρον προσηλωμένον ἔχων πλάτους δακτύλων δώδεκα καὶ ὕψους ὀκτώ, ἐστενωμένον κατὰ μέσον ἔμπροσθεν ἐν σχήματι κηπουρικοῦ πλατυλισγίου· πρὸς δὲ τὸ ἕτερον ἄκρον ξύλινον ἀπὸ τόρνου μεσόστενον εἰσδέχεται κύλινδρον ὑπὸ ἀρίδος στρεφόμενον, ἔχοντα κατὰ μέσον τοῦ ὀπισθίου μέρους κεφαλοειδῆ παρεξοχὴν ὑπεμβαίνουσαν καὶ ἀναστρεφομένην ἐπὶ τὴν ὀνομαζομένην πυελίδα ἤτοι ἐπικεφαλίδα τινὰ οὖσαν.” Parangelmata Poliorcetica 17.6–17, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 52–53. 21 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 19.27–30, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 56–57.

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Fig. 7: Bellows. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 15v (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

and dark blue ax-head.22 Both examples demonstrate instances where different iterations of iron are expressed through different colors. These colors speak to issues of facture and materiality precisely through their visual qualities: the brown, for example, is an apt color to depict iron prone to rust, as in the case of the caltrops or wheel tires, versus the resplendent blue of a tempered iron used for sharp blades and sturdy axles, purposely kept from rusting lest they compromise use. Conversely, there are many instances where the same color is used to represent different materials alongside one another. While the text states explicitly that the caltrops sown into the field are made of iron, on folio 8r they are painted in the same golden-brown ink as the wooden supports under the boots of the soldiers and the rake clearing them, the latter being of uncertain material composition. Nevertheless, these chromatic similarities do not undermine the viewer’s recognition of

22 Using a microscope, one is able to confirm that the same golden metallic paint was used to represent the neck of the soldiers’ boots, the hem of their garments, their belts, and the edge and center of their caps, as well as the shafts of the pickaxes. While the dark blue ax-heads have a dull sheen reminiscent of tarnished silver, microscopic analysis and the lack of showthrough on the folio’s recto suggest that the pigment is simply a darker version of the blue paint used elsewhere. But notably, this blue was painted over a layer of brown ink, a detail that can be confirmed since some of the blue has flaked off on the left side of the head of the right figure’s pickax. While not perceptible to the naked eye, microscopic analysis did suggest that some gold powder might have been added to this dark blue pigment, but further technical analysis would be necessary to confirm this.

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Fig. 8: Pickaxing a wall. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 11v (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

differing materials. In both cases the artist’s use of brown speaks to the visual characteristics of the depicted objects’ materiality: ruddy rusty iron and tan hewn lumber.

The Hues of Metal in Other Manuscripts Across contemporaneous Byzantine manuscript painting, depictions of metalwork often resort to tactics comparable to those evidenced in the Vatican Poliorcetica. Though these depictions might lack the technical precision of those in the Poliorcetica, they nevertheless index the multivalent uses of hues to signal different and the same materials, often alongside one another. Therefore, they demonstrate Byzantine artists’ emphasis on the visual effects of brilliance and luster, rather than matching hue or signifying substance. In the Madrid Skylitzes—a twelfth-century copy of the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes—rooftops and armaments often fuse together in blankets of gold, as in the

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Fig. 9: Assassination of Emperor Leontios. Madrid Skylitzes. Sicily, early twelfth century. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Vitr. 26–2, fol. 26r (detail). Photo: Biblioteca Nacional de España.

image of the assassination of Emperor Leontios on folio 26r (Fig. 9).23 The emperor’s garment, crown, and throne, the assailant’s shield and armor, and the building’s metal (most likely bronze or gilded-bronze) door and lead roofs are all depicted in the same gold. One does not perceive these details as one and the same, as if all these different things were made of the same substance. The shadows and contours produced by the black lines give a sense of three-dimensionality, distinguishing the gleam of a lead tile from that of a rippling garment. Nevertheless, one appreciates their shared visual effect, as the light reflects off of crown, textile, armor, and dome in similarly radiant ways. In the manuscript’s depictions of Constantinople under siege on folio 32v

23 The Madrid Skylitzes (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Matritensis gr. vitr. 26–2) was produced in the Kingdom of Sicily, and one of its scribal hands has been associated with the royal chancery during the reign of Roger II (r. 1130–54). The manuscript has been praised (and, at times, derided) for its cosmopolitan nature, heavily determined by Byzantine illustrative practices, but nevertheless conversant with contemporaneous Latin and Arabic interests. For the most recent and comprehensive study of the manuscript, see Elena N. Boeck, Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). See also Vasiliki Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes (Leiden: Alexandros, 2002). The manuscript is digitized in full color, available at http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?pid=d-1754254.

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Fig. 10: Siege of Constantinople. Madrid Skylitzes. Sicily, early twelfth century. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Vitr. 26–2, fol. 32v. Photo: Biblioteca Nacional de España.

(Fig. 10), huddled masses of soldiers become a gold lump of armor and armaments. Chain mail, helmets, bows, and arrows blur into a singular radiant mass. The gleaming doors and decorative cornices of the city’s Golden Gate, along with the lead-tile roofs of domed buildings within the city’s walls, are all swaths of gold pigment given form through simple linework.

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Elsewhere in the Madrid Skylitzes, as in many other Byzantine depictions of architecture, those lead rooftops are painted in a rich and deep blue, much like the hue used for iron axles and swords in the Poliorcetica. The frontispieces of various contemporaneous liturgical scrolls and books of homilies invariably depict the traditional lead roofs of the domes of Byzantine churches as blue.24 In the so-called Menologion of Emperor Basil II made around the year 1000, such rooftops are painted either in the same dark shade of blue (pp. 13, 15, 30) or in a muddy gray, often accentuated with dark blue highlights (pp. 5, 17, 98).25 On page 30, both artistic approaches are used upon the same structure, suggesting two parallel and effective ways of communicating the muted shine of lead roofs in daylight (Fig. 11). That grays and blues were somewhat interchangeable for different finishes of metals is also indicated by the depiction of the disembowelment of a martyr, who is being dragged over caltrops (p. 262). There, the iron caltrops are daintily outlined in black and filled in with a dull gray, akin to that of the lead roof tiles. While the Poliorcetica’s color choices might be attributed to a limited palette, this assumption falters when one observes the consistency with which artists depicted metalwork in other Middle Byzantine manuscripts. The compelling fungibility of dark blue and dull gray for lead speaks to more nuanced and complex choices beyond need or economy. This is made particularly clear when seen in the light of a work like the Menologion of Basil II, a manuscript that features a lavish and extensive color palette, and yet whose illuminator judiciously chose to deploy modest blues and grays to depict lead tiles and red for terracotta tiles (as seen over the doorway in Fig. 11), reserving gold for the bronze door and curtain rod. In other words, the artist made careful and intentional color choices even when presented with the options of a far more expansive color palette. Comparing the Vatican Poliorcetica with other Middle Byzantine manuscripts allows us to better assess how artists produced meaningful differences through their color selections, no matter the range or luxury of their palette.

24 See the frontispieces for the liturgical scrolls from Patmos (Patmos, Library of the Monastery of Saint John, no. 707) and Athens (Athens, National Library of Greece, Cod. 2759), and those for the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, gr. 339, fol. 4v) and the Homilies of James Kokkinobaphos (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1162, fol. 2v). 25 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1613. The manuscript is digitized in full color on the Digital Vatican Library, available at https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613. For the most recent and comprehensive assessment of this manuscript, see El “Menologio de Basilio II”: Libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil, ed. Immaculada Pérez Martín (Vatican City: Bibilioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2008). On its illuminators, see Ihor Ševčenko, “The Illuminators of the Menologium of Basil II,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962): 245–76; Ihor Ševčenko, “On Pantoleon the Painter,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 21 (1972): 241–49.

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Fig. 11: Martyrdom of St. Autonomos. Menologion of Basil II. Constantinople, ca. 1000. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1613, p. 30 (detail). Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

The Hue of “Cold-Forged” Iron In modern parlance, terms like “blue steel” speak to the visual judgments made by metalsmiths in the tempering of iron according to its hues, from light brown to blue. Tempering iron—that is, heating iron, after it has been forged, to a specific temperature range—results in changes to the degree of its hardness, malleability, ductility, and strength; iron is thus made suitable to a variety of uses according to how it has been tempered. These modern industrial categories are not easily discerned in the vocabulary of medieval sources, though parallel techniques are evident. Moreover, indications as to how Byzantine artists perceived and comprehended the color of metals, particularly iron, can be gleaned from textual sources, which speak to the visual characteristics of iron and the corresponding processes of manufacture. Such instances serve as invaluable resources for making sense of the color choices made in the images discussed thus far. For example, the tenth-century Byzantine lexicon known as the Souda includes an entry on “violet-colored iron” (Ἰόεντα σίδηρον) drawn from scholia on Homer’s Iliad. The entry’s author likens this violet iron to Homer’s “purple sea” (ἰοειδέα πόντον) and goes on to clarify that it is the type of iron “suitable for arrows” (εἰς ἰοὺς

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εὐθετοῦντα).26 Here, there is an enticing suggestion of a visual assessment of iron and its coloration, which indicates its suitability for weaponry and armaments.27 The depiction of “cold-forged” (ψυχρήλατος) iron, the term for which appears once in the Poliorcetica (33.13, fol. 25r), hints precisely at this relationship. Coldforged metals are worked at lower temperatures, close to room temperature, which increases the overall strength of the metal.28 In the early second century, Plutarch speaks of the “copper ore in Euboea from which the cold-forged sword-blades used to be wrought, as Aeschylus has said.”29 And, similarly, Athenaeus speaks in The Learned Banqueters of a cup or phiale that has “either been coldforged or has never been placed over a fire” (ἡ δὲ ἀμφίθετος καὶ ἀπύρωτος ἢ ψυχρήλατος ἢ ἐπὶ πῦρ οὐκ ἐπιτιθεμένη).30 However, the word is relatively obscure in ancient and medieval texts, predominantly used to describe personalities by comparing them to adamantine metals. Plutarch used the same phrase in his Lives to describe Brutus, who, “like the cold-forged sword-blades” (τὰ ψυχρήλατα τῶν ξιφῶν), had a hardened disposition.31 In the early twelfth century, Anna Komnene described the tenacity of her father before visiting Celtic dignitaries, likening him to “a statue wrought by the hammer,

26 “Ἰόεντα σίδηρον” (iota 407), trans. Catharine Roth, Suda On Line, ed. David Whitehead, www. stoa.org/sol-entries/iota/407. 27 These differences in the coloration of iron products might also refer to the composition of the iron ore used for the various implements, which would determine its applicability and forging methods. In the Natural History, Pliny the Elder speaks of differences in iron ore from different places, describing not only their color and proneness to rust, but also the suitability of these various ores to different uses: “There are numerous varieties of iron; the first difference depending on the kind of soil or of climate—some lands only yield a soft iron closely allied to lead, others a brittle and coppery kind that is specially to be avoided for the requirements of wheels and for nails, for which purpose the former quality is suitable; another variety of iron finds favour in short lengths only and in nails for soldiers’ boots; another variety experiences rust more quickly” (differentia ferri numerosa. prima in genere terrae caelive: aliae molle tantum plumboque vicinum subministrant, aliae fragile et aerosum rotarumque usibus et clavis maxime fugiendum, cui prior ratio convenit; aliud brevitate sola placet clavisque caligariis, aliud robiginem celerius sentit). He goes on to discuss various processes of forging iron and the various properties imparted by the different processes. See Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34.41, ed. and trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 9:230–33. 28 On western medieval studies of cold-forged armor and armaments, see A. R. Williams, “On the Manufacture of Armor in Fifteenth-Century Italy, Illustrated by Six Helmets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 13 (1978): 131–42. On terminology, see also Hugo Blümner, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste bei Griechen und Römern, vol. 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1886), 346–49. 29 “τῆς ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ χαλκίτιδος ἐξ ἧς ἐδημιουργεῖτο τὰ ψυχρήλατα τῶν ξιφῶν, ὡς Αἰσχύλος εἴρηκε.” Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 5, ed. and trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 476–47. 30 Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters 11, ed. and trans. S. Douglas Olson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 5:444–45. 31 Plutarch, Life of Brutus 1.2, in Plutarch’s Lives, vol. 6, ed. and trans. Bernadotte Perrin (London: William Heinemann, 1918), 126–27 (translation modified).

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made of bronze or cold-forged iron” (σφυρήλατος ἀνδριὰς ἢ ἀπό τινος χαλκοῦ τυχὸν ἢ ψυχρηλάτου σιδήρου κατεσκευασμένος).32 These sources allegorize the technical dimension of this word and help to contextualize it for us. Cold-forged iron imparts increased strength, allowing it to handle high stress with higher yield and elasticity, making it well suited for objects like long axles or swords, objects that the Poliorcetica depicts with blue pigment. In chapter 33 of the Poliorcetica, “cold-forged iron plates” (σιδηροῖς πετάλοις ψυχρηλάτοις) are used to secure the wheels of a portable siege tower.33 In the corresponding image on folio 26r, one encounters the wheels set between pairs of timber beams (Fig. 12). As the text describes, the four wheels are to be “pinned from strong [wooden] axles and secured with cold-forged iron plating”—the word “secured” (συνδεδεμένους) here suggesting that they be confined or bound by these plates. While the text also makes an allowance for iron axles, in that instance there is no mention of the coldforged iron plates. It would seem that here the artist has chosen to illustrate the first model, involving cold-forged plates, denoted in the image by the small blue rhomboids upon the axles, but has chosen not to distinguish the axles themselves. Surely, it is difficult to ascertain concretely how a three-dimensional axle and wheel assembly is being depicted here. The details are generally diagrammatic, yet the addition of those blue specks of paint is striking. Looking closely, one can see that the blue pigment is framed by a brown outline that may indicate an additional plate or wheel socket, similar to how we saw these depicted in the case of the tortoises, while a gossamer brown nail seems to pin the whole assembly together. The color blue stands out in its use across this folio. For example, a thin gouachelike layer of the color defines the side rails and rungs of the ladders that zigzag up the tower, presumably made of iron.34 A similar blue, dabbed with ochre-colored tips, is found in the diamond-like formations on the two green fire-retardant curtains, which would have encircled the areas labeled “ledge” (παράπτερος) and “gallery” (περίδρομος).35 These curtains represent animal hides studded with water-filled wineskins,

32 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad 14.4.7. Greek text in Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. Diether R. Reinsch and Athanasios Kambylis (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), 441; English translation in The Alexiad, trans. E. R. A. Sewter, rev. Peter Frankopan (New York: Penguin, 2009), 412. 33 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 33.13, in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 76–77 (translation modified). 34 While the text does not specify that the ladders are made of iron, the wooden ladders in the manuscript are handled very differently: their rungs are depicted as rectangular planks like those found in the structure of the tower and in the excavator tortoises. Here, the ladder is depicted in blue, suggesting iron, and the rungs and side rails are tubular, similar to the axles depicted across the manuscript. 35 Curiously, the letters spelling out these two words are gilded. That is to say, the text is composed of a layer of carmine ink, which was then topped with the golden metallic pigment that is used across the manuscript. This approach is in keeping with the gilding of texts in contemporaneous imperial and religious manuscripts, such as Gospel books and lectionaries.

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Fig. 12: Portable siege tower. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 26r. Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

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which the text describes as being made of animal entrails, such as the stomach.36 Not only does the connection to water make the blue an apt color choice, but the depiction of leather in the manuscript often resorts to blue (sometimes green) as well, as in the case of the bellows (see Fig. 7). Finally, blue appears most notably in the aforementioned rhomboidal “cold-forged iron plates” of each wheel, which are neatly dabbed with a saturated application of blue. The rust-brown color used for the nail, thinly applied with an almost scribal flourish, is consistent with the manuscript’s depiction of cruder iron implements, like nails and hinges. Similar joints are seen throughout the manuscript with a simple brown iron pin, as in the Ram of Hegetor on folio 20r (Fig. 13) and other battering rams on folio 18r. The Ram of Hegetor evidences a common nut-and-pin axle assembly, whereby the axle is kept in place with a nut that is secured with a pin going through it and the axle rod, but it lacks the blue plate seen in the portable siege tower on folio 26r (see Fig. 12). This default construction is modified by the inclusion of that saturated blue rhombus that works to indicate a difference in the construction’s materials. This suggests a specific manufacture of iron, alluding perhaps to the tempering or cold-forging of iron employed in the production of swords, which are often associated in the manuscript with the color blue. The artist here is telegraphing the difference described by the text by adding blue to the established iconography of the wheel assembly. If one tries to visually sort out how the axle fits into the wooden frame, how exactly the pin secures the axle and wheel, or how the cold-forged plate fits into this whole assembly, it would be difficult to derive this from the image alone. What the image does is alter the pictorial norm established on the preceeding pages for these these axle and wheel assemblies (as in fols. 20r and 18r) by including those blue splotches. In reflecting on this use of “cold-forged” (ψυχρήλατος) in the Poliorcetica, Philip Blyth denied any technical understanding behind the author’s use of the term, deriding the whole passage’s “pedantic and long-winded manner” as “unmistakably that of the Byzantine [i.e. Heron],” belying a broader disdain for Byzantium itself with that turn of phrase. Blyth resolves that the author must have simply borrowed this language wholesale from Athenaios Mechanikos’s second-century BCE On Machines, without any grasp of its meaning.37 Looking at the four instances where ψυχρήλατος appears in Athenaios Mechanikos’s On Machines, there is a sense that “cold-forged” iron was used for specialized functions, primarily sockets

36 These flame-retardant curtains are not discussed in this chapter of the Poliorcetica (33), but instead in chapters 39 and 40. See Parangelmata Poliorcetica 39.7–35 (cf. 12.13–16), in Sullivan, Siegecraft, 82–85 (cf. 44–45). 37 Blyth, “Apollodorus of Damascus,” 137.

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Fig. 13: Ram of Hegetor. Parangelmata Poliorcetica. Constantinople, eleventh century. Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605, fol. 20r. Photo: © 2021 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

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and tires.38 The Vatican Poliorcetica’s artist is not ignorant of these uses, but his grasp of the technical knowledge far exceeds modern authors’ lexical fixation on the term ψυχρήλατος itself.39 The clearest and most articulate description of cold-forging comes from another, far less obvious source of the Poliorcetica, Philo of Byzantium’s Belopoeica (Artillery manual) from the last third of the third century BCE.40 Describing the construction of a catapult, Philo carefully explains the forging of bronze plates, cast from high-quality bronze and “properly purified and several times smelted” (κεκαθαρμένου καλῶς καὶ ἀποπτηθέντος πλεονάκις).41 Then, Philo describes how “after that, we beat them, while cold, continuously for a long period” (καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐκροτήσαμεν αὐτὰς ψυχρὰς συνεχῶς καὶ πολὺν χρόνον).42 He explains that the plates obtain their “strength” (ἰσχὺν) first from the selection of the purest cast bronze with little foreign material so as to be “strong, resilient, and powerful” (ἰσχυρός τε καὶ ὁλκὸς καὶ νευρώδης), reiterating that they then were “beaten cold continuously over a long period with a view to their compressed surface providing resilience.”43 Here, Philo’s words provide us with the critical language needed to comprehend the nuanced importance that cold-forged iron offers the structure depicted in the Poliorcetica. He even states that the workmanship required for these plates is also evidenced in the

38 Athenaios uses the term to describe the strips that serve as iron tires for the wooden wheels of a ram and an excavator tortoise, stating that the wheels are “bound with cold-hammered strips” (δεσμεύονται λεπίσι ψυχρηλάτοις; 22.1, cf. 17.2). Later, when discussing a ram-carrying tortoise, Athenaios describes its wheels as “bound with cold-hammered strips, so that they can be thrust onto a bronze axle” (δεδεμένα λεπίσι ψυχρηλάτοις, ἵνα ἐν ἄξονι ἐμβάλλωνται χαλκῷ σταθμὸν; 36.1). This suggests either an iron tire or a socket for the axle. Another passage describes a socket of some sort as “an armpit bound together with [iron] strips cold-hammered” (ἔχουσα μασχάλην συνδεδεμένην λεπίσι ψυχρηλάτοις; 34.5). Original text and translations in Athenaeus Mechanicus, On Machines (Περὶ μηχανημάτων), ed. and trans. David Whitehead and P. H. Blyth (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004), 54–55 (cf. 50–51), 60–61, 58–59. 39 The Poliorcetica’s artist does not deploy blues for the wheel’s iron tires, as one might expect, but instead consistently uses brown to thickly paint iron tires upon the ochre-colored wheels, which are textured like wood, thus demonstrating his desire to stress the ferrous strip of tire binding the wooden wheel. Axles, however, are often shown in the rich blue used for the coldforged plates of the siege tower, as well as swords, hooks, the heads of pickaxes, the spade of the bow drill, and even the sculpted metal head of a battering ram (see Fig. 13). For further implements made of this blue pigment, see folios 18r, 29v, 30v, and 32r. 40 On the date, see E. W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 6–7. 41 Original text and translation in Philon of Byzantium, Belopoeica 70.4, in Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises, 106–55, at 138–39. 42 Philon of Byzantium, Belopoeica 70.8–9, in Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises, 140–41. 43 “τοῦντο δὲ ψυχραὶ συνεχῶς καὶ πολὺν χρόνον πρὸς [τὸ] τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτῶν πυκνωθεῖσαν εὐτονίαν παρασχεῖν.” Philon of Byzantium, Belopoeica 70.13–16, in Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery, 140–41.

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production of so-called Celtic and Spanish swords, which are immensely flexible while still having the resilience to return to their original shape by virtue of their cold forging and high-quality iron.44 The evidence offered by Philo demonstrates the Poliorcetica’s deep and nuanced handle of a broader corpus on mechanics with a great deal of care paid to the facture and quality of materials. Philo goes on to dedicate an entire paragraph on experimentations with cold-forging to produce swords, noting in detail the process of case-hardening metals (specifically, iron and bronze) through cold-forging. This is a process whereby the surface of the metal is hardened by blows on the surface, but the interior remains soft for flexibility and resilience. First, the iron must be exceedingly pure. After firing, the iron is worked to remove any imperfections in the surface while it is still malleable, but neither too hot nor too cold. This long process of beating with light hammers is what produces resilience (εὐτονίαν). Heavy hammers or hard blows are not used since this would result in “too much hardness” (ἀποσκληρύνειν λίαν), which would cause the iron to become brittle and, when forced, to snap due to the metal being too tightly packed. Firings in between soften the iron or bronze to make particles less densely packed, while the cooling and beating harden them. “Therefore,” Philo resolves, “we beat plates, when cold, on both sides, and thus their surfaces naturally became hard; but the middle remained soft, because the beating, being gentle, did not penetrate deeply. Therefore, they were composed of three layers, as it were, two hard and the one in the middle softer.”45 This process, which results in the resilience (εὐτονίαν) of the metal, is known today as case-hardening through cold-forging. This passage sheds new light on the use of those blue plates in the Poliorcetica, elucidating with technical precision the unique applicability and benefits of coldforged steel, and explaining the connection between these plates and the steel of swords across the manuscript. In his study of ancient artillery, Eric Marsden expresses uncertainty as to whether Greeks and Romans might have been able to consistently produce such high-quality steel for the construction of a large-scale catapult, but he acknowledges its feasibility for smaller items such as swords or plates (of the scale described in the Poliorcetica).46 Therefore, these color choices provide a crucial glimpse into Byzantine military realia and practice, casually 44 Philon of Byzantium, Belopoeica 71.8–9, in Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises, 142–43. 45 “ἐκροτοῦμεν οὖν ψυχρὰς τὰς λεπίδας κατὰ ἀμφότερα τὰ μέρη, καὶ οὕτως τὰς ἐπιφανείας αὐτῶν συνέβαινε σκληρὰς γίνεσθαι, τὸ δὲ μέσον διαμένειν μαλακὸν διὰ τὸ μὴ διικνεῖσθαι τὴν πληγὴν κατὰ βάθος ἐλαφρὰν οὖσαν. καθάπερ οὖν ἐκ τριῶν σωμάτων ἐγίνοντο συγκείμεναι, δύο μὲν σκληρῶν, ἑνὸς δὲ μέσου μαλακωτέρου· διὸ καὶ τὴν εὐτονίαν αὐταῖς συνέβαινεν ὑπάρχειν, καθὼς ἀνώτερον ἀπεδείχθη.” Philon of Byzantium, Belopoeica 71.17–72.4, in Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises, 142–43. 46 E. W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development (Oxford: Clarendeon Press, 1969), 5.

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demonstrating a deep metallurgic knowledge. But, more importantly, they articulate how different metals were being identified and conceived according to contemporaneous understandings of colors and materials. The illustrations, working in conjunction with the text, thus demonstrate systematic color choices that are neither casual, haphazard, nor led by circumstance alone.

Conclusion Through subtle similarities and differences in colors, the artist-scribe of the Vatican Poliorcetica aimed to guide the reader toward a proper comprehension of its images. The artist was able to likewise generate a rich variety of meaning through different applications of color, primarily by increasing and decreasing saturation of a given hue, or, more rarely, by economically layering and mingling two or three colors. This allows the reader to approach the images as holistic representations of the machines, and to deduce from them information that perhaps the author has not yet addressed or does not elaborate upon. The Poliorcetica’s images effectively and efficiently denote complexities of construction and use that the reader might easily overlook or be confused about. In this sense, the artist-scribe has perfectly fulfilled the text’s opening promise to endow the images with “precise definition,” since they know that “even an illustration alone, when well defined, is able to render quite clear aspects of construction that are obscure and difficult to express.” Mining the use of color in the manuscript, one is able to better comprehend the nuances and variations in the machines’ material, facture, and use, as filtered through the eyes of an imperial artist-scribe who possessed a considerable technical knowledge of contemporaneous military machines and construction.

IV Material Translations

Beatrice Leal

Metal, Materiality, and Maṣāḥif: Ornamentation in Abbasid Qur’ans From the beginning, the written form of the Qur’an (the muṣḥaf, pl. maṣāḥif) could be decorated. Of the pre-eleventh-century CE Qur’ans discovered in fragments at Sanʿa in Yemen in 1972, around 12.5 percent had some kind of ornament, as does the so-called Birmingham Qur’an, two parchment leaves which have been radiocarbon-dated to within the first fifty years of Islam.1 Sometimes the artists drew or painted recognizable forms. Two Umayyad-era codices, one associated with Fustat and the other with Damascus, have sura dividers of colorful marbled columns, plant scrolls, fountains, and vases, as well as geometric bands.2 One especially luxurious muṣḥaf from Sanʿa has two full-page architectural frontispieces depicting mosque-like buildings.3 The early eighth-century mosaics of the Great Mosque of

Note: For advice and assistance in writing this chapter, many thanks to Joseph Ackley, Vicki Bailey, Hassan Chahdi, Lael Ensor-Bennett, Alain George, Jacopo Gnisci, John Mitchell, Lawrence Nees, Shannon Wearing, and the two anonymous reviewers. 1 For the Sanʿa manuscripts, see Hans-Caspar Graf von Bothmer, “Masterworks of Islamic Book Art: Koranic Calligraphy and Illumination in the Manuscripts Found in the Great Mosque in Sanaa,” in Yemen: 3000 Years of Art and Civilisation in Arabia Felix, ed. Werner Daum (Innsbruck: Pinguin, 1987), 178–81, at 179. The Birmingham Qur’an (University of Birmingham, Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572a) is digitized at http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/116/. See Alba Fedeli “The Provenance of the Manuscript Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572: Dispersed Folios from a Few Qur’ānic Quires,” Manuscripta Orientalia 17, no. 1 (2011): 45–56; Yasin Dutton, “Two ‘Ḥijāzī’ Fragments of the Qur’an and Their Variants, or: When Did the Shawādhdh Become Shādhdh?,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 8 (2017): 1–56, at 44–46. The parchment was dated with 95.4% confidence to 568–645. All dates given in this chapter are CE. 2 Fustat Codex: Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Marcel 11, 13, 15; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. arabe 330c. Damascus Codex: Istanbul, Türk ve Islâm Eserleri Müzesi (Museum of Turkish and Islamic Archaeology), ŞE 321. See François Déroche, “Colonnes, vases et rinceaux sur quelques enluminures d’époque omeyyade,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 148, no. 1 (2004): 227–64; François Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads: A First Overview (Leiden: Brill, 2014), at 75–76, 85–90, fig. 9, 19–25; and François Déroche, “A Qur’anic Script from Umayyad Times: Around the Codex of Fustat,” in Power, Patronage and Memory in Early Islam: Perspectives on Umayyad Elites, ed. Alain George and Andrew Marsham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018): 69–82. 3 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 20–33.1; see Bothmer, “Masterworks of Islamic Book Art”; Bothmer, “Architekturbilder im Koran: Eine Prachthandschrift der Umayyadenzeit aus dem Yemen,” Pantheon 45 (1987): 4–20; Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 114–15. For architectural imagery also see Alain George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy (London: Saqi, 2010), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-006

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Damascus similarly depict buildings and plant scrolls.4 Parallels can also be drawn between the acanthus and vine scrolls in Umayyad Qur’ans and the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock.5 It is therefore clear that, when it comes to flowers or columns, the ornamental motifs found in Qur’ans did not exist in a vacuum.6 The Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Damascus were monuments of religious but also political power, and the choice of similar imagery for high-quality Qur’anic manuscripts marks the books as objects of elite display. These architectural and floral images were typically drawn in colored inks. Other early Qur’ans were illuminated with gold ink or leaf; in these manuscripts, however, the designs tended to be simpler and more repetitive. Hans-Caspar Graf von Bothmer, writing on the stylistic traits of the early illustrated manuscripts, drew a sharp distinction between the more representational designs in colored ink and the geometric designs in gold. He described the former as having “a particularly visual, sensual quality which is in stark contrast to a completely different group . . . dominated by the use of gold, whether in simple frames, resplendent sura dividers, or austerely structured ornamental pages. Even where there is a wealth of motifs and great complexity of composition, their splendour is a-sensual in a way which is in sharp contrast with the vivid opulence of the richest works of Yemeni illumination.”7 On the face of it, this does not sound like a promising start for a study of images of precious metal objects, or of imagery drawn from the material world in any way. Nevertheless, I propose that the apparently “a-sensual” golden designs of ninth-century maṣāḥif depended for their effect on relationships to objects in the material world, both in terms of their appearance and their significance. After presenting the range of illuminated designs in early Qur’ans, I will discuss their links to precious metal (and other) artifacts. An obvious association of gold— and the predominant one in the text of the Qur’an—is with jewelry, so I will start by looking at gilded decorations on the page as equivalents to personal adornment. The second type of object with which gold was closely linked was coins, objects that carried a powerful mixture of economic, political, and religious significance. Thirdly, I will discuss the materiality of seals and the concept of sealing. As we shall see, the connotations of authority and authenticity carried by seals of various kinds may be the key to understanding the most commonly used Qur’anic illuminations.

4 The connection between images in the Damascene mosque and contemporary Qur’ans has been observed in Alain George, “The Qur’an, Arabic Calligraphy and the Early Civilization of Islam,” in A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. Finbarr Barry Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), 109–129 at 119; and Alain George, “Paradise or Empire? On a Paradox of Umayyad Art,” in George and Marsham, Power, Patronage and Memory, 39–68, at 52–60. 5 As pointed out in George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, 74–78; Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 91–93. 6 See Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 95. 7 Bothmer, “Masterworks of Islamic Book Art,” 180.

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Verse Markers: A Ninth-Century Golden Age Decorations in the Qur’an—whether in ink, pigment, or gold—generally had a function relating to the text, most often highlighting the divisions of suras and verses.8 In some of the earliest Hijazi-script Qur’ans, such as the one held at the University of Birmingham, the ends of suras were accompanied by wavy bands.9 These were probably contemporary with the script; a report of a mid-seventh-century Qur’an, produced during the caliphate of ʿUthman, describes bands “like chains” between the suras.10 Some more ornate Umayyad manuscripts used geometric motifs to separate groups of ten verses. They are round, square, star-shaped, or flower-shaped, and generally executed in several colors of ink.11 The text leaves space for the ornaments often enough to suggest that the two were planned together, although the designs were added in a subsequent phase of production. In several cases, small ink dashes can be seen next to or partially covered by the larger motifs, placeholders put there by the scribe to indicate where ornaments should go.12 However, the verse markers in these early codices were almost never gilded.13 Gilded ornamentation was, in fact, rarely a feature of surviving Umayyad manuscripts.14 Discussing the hesitation of patrons of even large-scale Qur’ans to use gold, François Déroche suggests an ideological avoidance of the material for books

8 François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition: Qur’ans of the 8th to the 10th centuries AD (London: Nour Foundation, 1992), 22. 9 Dutton, “Two ‘Ḥijāzī’ Fragments,” figs. 1 and 6. Circles of red ink at the end of groups of ten verses in the same manuscript seem to have been added later: ibid., 15 and 18–19. 10 Dutton, “Two ‘Ḥijāzī’ Fragments,” 39. 11 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 01–29.2, 20–31.1, 20–33.1, and Kairouan, Musée des arts islamiques, R.38. See Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 121–23, fig. 40; see also 130–31 for Istanbul, Topkapı Saray Library, H.S. 44/32, with “small circles or crude rosettes” dividing single verses and “more elaborate circles” after fifth and tenth verses. For a compilation of tenth-verse markers from Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 20–33.1, see Lawrence Nees, “Graphic Quire Marks and Qur’anic Verse Markers in Frankish and Islamic Manuscripts from the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,” in Graphic Devices and the Early Decorated Book, ed. Michelle P. Brown, Ildar H. Garipzanov, and Benjamin C. Tilghman (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), 80–99, at 93, fig. 4. 12 Nees, “Graphic Quire Marks,” fig. 4; see for example the second image from the right, bottom row. Also see Jeremy Johns, “The Palermo Quran (AH 372/982–3 CE) and its Historical Context,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, ed. Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 587–610, at 593. 13 Nees has compared the ink verse markers to the quire marks in Frankish manuscripts of the later seventh century, suggesting cross-cultural adaptation of motifs. Nees, “Graphic Quire Marks,” 81–83, 95–96, 99. 14 There are some examples: for gold letters numbering the verses in the Umayyad codex of Fustat, see Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 83–84. For gold added at a secondary stage to Sanʿa, Dār alMakhṭūṭāt, Is. 1404, see ibid., 110.

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Fig. 1: Partial Qur’an, sura 3, with illuminated markers at the ends of verses 55 and 60. Origin unknown, ninth century (?). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fols. 3v (right) and 4r (left). Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (CC-BY-NC 4.0).

intended for display in mosques, but this explanation is rather hard to square with the expanses of gold mosaic in the high-profile mosques of the caliphate.15 Nonetheless, for whatever reason, illumination was rare in the first half of the 700s. By the late eighth century, the early Abbasid period, at least some copies of the Qur’an were decorated with gold, according to a reported statement of the theologian and judge Malik ibn Anas (d. 795): “Malik spoke about buying a Qur’an, a sword or a signet ring which had some gold or silver work on it with dinars or dirhams . . . [he said] ‘If the value of the gold is up to one-third of the price, it is permitted.’”16 The possibility that more than a third of the value of a book would be its gold content suggests quite substantial amounts of illumination (or golden covers), but not many gilded Qur’ans from the late eighth century are known. Then, from the ninth century onward, illumination becomes increasingly common.

15 Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 125–26. 16 Malik ibn Abbas, Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ [The Approved], trans. and ed. Gehan ʿAbdel-Raouf Hibah (Beirut: Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah, 2012), 2:660–61 (31.39.1332); G. H. A. Juynboll, “The Attitude Towards Gold and Silver in Early Islam,” in Pots and Pans: A Colloquium on Precious Metals and Ceramics, ed. Michael Vickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 107–15, at 112.

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Fig. 1 (continued )

By far the most common use for the precious metal was for markers at the ends of verses or verse groups, in the form of lobed, petaled, or plain circular medallions. For example, a fragmentary ninth-century Qur’an in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, has a golden letter hāʾ (‫ )ﻫ‬after every fifth verse, the letter standing for five in the abjad system of numbering.17 The letters are stylized, and larger than those in the main text. After every tenth verse is a gold rosette framing a letter that indicates the number of the verse. It appears that the fifth- and tenth-verse markers were added after the text was completed, given their cramped position between words. To compose them, thin ink outlines were drawn first, which can be seen next to the metallic pigment, and showing through some worn patches. The outlines seem to have been done quickly, and the pages turned before the ink was dry, leaving marks on the opposite folio (Fig. 1). The lines were then roughly filled with gold.18 Four basic designs of rosette can be seen. Some, as on folio 4r, have borders of loops or petals drawn in ink; gold

17 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fols. 1v, 3v, 9v, 12r, 16v, 18v, 21r. 18 Throughout this essay I refer to gold as a color; as far as I know, the metal content of the illuminations in the codices I am discussing has not been analyzed. For the gold leaf of the Blue Qur’an see Cheryl Porter, “The Materiality of the Blue Quran: A Physical and Technological Study,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors, 575–86, at 581–85. For a discussion of the range of techniques used in medieval Qur’ans, see Turner in this volume, and her photograph illustrating the use of gold leaf in a ninth-century Qur’an.

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Fig. 2: Partial Qur’an, sura 3, with illuminated marker at the end of verse 160. Origin unknown, ninth century (?). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fol. 8v. Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (CC-BY-NC 4.0).

and/or black dots appear at the tips or joins of the petals.19 A second design involves larger dots of gold and black alternating around an inner circle (Fig. 2).20 A single example of a third design, now rather abraded, features thin gold bands running in curling waves around the inner circle (Fig. 3). In a fourth, petals of gold are separated from the circle by small ovals drawn in ink (Fig. 4).21 Other ninth-century manuscripts contain similar motifs. The Qur’an of Amajur, most of which is now in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul, was written before 876 for Amajur al-Turki, governor of Syria.22 The verse markers are drawn more neatly than in the Bodleian fragment, and the method of numbering is different: the numbers are written as words, rather than being indicated by single

19 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fols. 4r, 6r, 11v, 14v, 17v. 20 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fols. 5v, 8v. 21 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fols. 2v, 20r. 22 François Déroche, “The Qur’an of Amajur,” Manuscripts of the Middle East 5 (1990–91): 59–66; Alain George, “The Geometry of the Qur’an of Amajur: A Preliminary Study of Proportion in Early Arabic Calligraphy,” Muqarnas 20 (2003): 1–15.

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Fig. 3: Partial Qur’an, sura 3, with illuminated marker at the end of verse 40. Origin unknown, ninth century (?). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fol. 2v. Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (CC-BY-NC 4.0).

letters. Nonetheless, the illumination around the words uses the same conventions: a gold circle with a border of swirls, loops, or dots.23 A partial ninth-century Qur’an at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore contains the same repertoire of motifs, as well as golden palmettes highlighting sura titles, and an elaborate illuminated frontispiece and endpiece.24 Tenth verses are marked by medallions with shallow loops of gold around the edge, while fifth verses are indicated by hāʾs in the text, and in the margins by the word “five” inside a circle

23 Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 1116, fols. 11r, 26v; https://cudl.lib.cam.ac. uk/view/MS-ADD-01116/54. 24 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.554, fols. 1r, 1v, 3r, 27v, 36r, 52v, 58r, 62r, 65r, 76v–77v; http:// www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W554/. See Lael J. Ensor, “Decoration in Early Qur’an Manuscripts: A Close Look at the Walters Art Museum’s W.554” (MA thesis, University of Delaware, 2009).

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Fig. 4: Partial Qur’an, sura 58, with illuminated marker at the end of verse 10. Origin unknown, ninth century (?). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3, fol. 20r. Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (CC-BY-NC 4.0).

bordered with small petals and dots (Fig. 5).25 Single verses are marked with gold rosettes, a convention seen in many other ninth-century Qur’ans.26 A number of fragmentary Abbasid Qur’ans in the Khalili Collection exhibit other types of marker, for example triangular groups of three gold circles to separate single verses (Fig. 6).27 In other cases, verses were divided by single circles. In two other partial Qur’ans in the Khalili Collection, individual verses were first marked with small dashes of ink, which were then covered with gold circles, and the gold hāʾs at each fifth verse also seem to be laid over ink; the two materials probably belong to the same design process, since enough space was left between words for the tenth-verse rosettes (Fig. 7).28 A late ninth-century volume of a thirty-part Qur’an 25 Baltimore, WAM, W.554. Most pages have either a fifth-verse or tenth-verse marker; see fols. 26v–27v, 30v, 32r, 34v, 58r for both. Fols. 2–25 of this manuscript are later, probably eleventhcentury. See Ensor, “Decoration in Early Qur’an Manuscripts,” 9–10. 26 Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, cat. nos. 19–22, 27, 29, 33, 35. 27 London, Khalili Collection, KFQ65; Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, cat. no. 25 (also see cat. nos. 26, 28, 34, 44). 28 London, Khalili Collection, KFQ13, KFQ14; Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, 54–55, cat. no. 9.

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Fig. 5: Partial Qur’an, suras 26 and 27, with illuminated verse markers and sura heading. Origin unknown, ninth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.554, fol. 27v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

from the Maghreb or Egypt has the full range of gold illumination: double-page ornamental frontispieces, palmettes in the margins of the first and last pages of script, and the familiar gold medallions, hāʾs, and small rosettes for tenth, fifth, and single verses respectively.29 Three points can be made from this brief survey. Firstly, the golden decorations are highly standardized. There is no reason to think that the manuscripts described above came from the same region of the Abbasid caliphate, let alone the same workshop. They differ in the scale and cost of their production, in their script, and in the precision of the ornamentation. Nonetheless, the conventions of the verse markers are almost identical. The similarity across otherwise unconnected manuscripts could indicate a deliberate attempt at standardization, or suggest that there was a logic behind the forms, beyond “just” decoration. In fact both of these may be true. Secondly, not all Qur’ans were illuminated, but if gold ink or leaf was used, it was applied to the verse markers. I am not aware of any cases where gold was used for other types of ornamentation, or for script, but not for verse markers. Conversely, there are many cases where the medallions at the ends of verses are the only examples of illumination. In manuscripts without metallic illumination, yellow was sometimes

29 London, Khalili Collection, QUR372; Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, 72–75, cat. no. 24.

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Fig. 6: Partial Qur’an, sura 5, with marker at the end of verse 51. Origin unknown, mid-ninth century. London, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, KFQ65, fol. 5v. Photo: © Khalili Family Trust.

used for the outlines of the tenth-verse markers, implying that scribes and patrons expected them to be golden.30 Like their repetitive forms, the consistent use of gold for the medallions hints that they carried some external association that led illustrators and readers, consciously or not, to draw a connection between motif and material. And thirdly, it is not immediately obvious why counting groups of verses was significant, nor why it should have required particular forms. A discussion of the treatment of verses in tens (al-taʿashīr) is included in Omar Hamdan’s study of the second maṣāḥif project.31 The first phase of codification had occurred under Caliph ʿUthman in the 650s; the second project was the systematization of the Qur’anic text carried out by the governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj, toward the end of the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 685–705). The concept of grouping verses existed already; some of the seventhcentury teachers of the Qur’an introduced students to five or ten verses at a time, and 30 See Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, 64, cat. no. 16. Also see Jacopo Gnisci, “Copying, Imitation, and Intermediality in Illuminated Ethiopic Manuscripts from the Early Solomonic Period,” in this volume, for the use of yellow to indicate gold in manuscripts. 31 Omar Hamdan, “The Second Maṣāḥif Project: A Step Towards the Canonization of the Qur’anic Text,” in The Qur’an in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Quranic Milieu, ed. Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 795–836, at 816–20.

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Fig. 7: Single Qur’an folio, sura 26, with illuminated markers at the ends of verses 10 and 20. Origin unknown, ninth century. London, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, KFQ13, verso. Photo: © Khalili Family Trust.

it was the habit of some Companions of the Prophet to recite ten verses during prayers, counting them out with both hands.32 These practices, however, relate to oral memorization and recitation, not to the written form of the revelation; visual signs were not introduced until the caliphally sponsored project of the early eighth century. Complaints against the symbols seem to have begun almost immediately, within the first two decades of the eighth century. The “textual purists” (in the words of Asma Afsaruddin) objected to vowels, diacritical marks, verse markers, and gold ink.33 The combination of these complaints indicates that even in the Umayyad period the 32 Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 816, 819. 33 Ibn al-Ḍurays, Faḍā’il al-Qur’an wa-mā unzila min al-Qurʼān bi-Makkah wa-mā unzila bi-alMadīnah, ed. Ghazwah Budayr (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1987), 41–44; Asma Afsaruddin, “The Excellences of the Qur’an: Textual Sacrality and the Organization of Early Islamic Society,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122, no. 1 (2002): 1–24, at 8–9; Travis Zadeh, “Touching and Ingesting: Early Debates over the Material Qur’an,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129, no. 3 (2009): 443–66, at 457–58.

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designs were illuminated, although no examples have survived. A tenth-century account also records an eighth-century description of single-verse markers as three points, without specifying the medium.34 Regarding the proliferation of more elaborate single-verse dividers in the ninth century, Déroche suggests that the forms were copied from tenth-verse markers, adding that the origin of the latter is unknown.35 After looking at the material associations of the designs, I will come back to this question of their origin and function.

Jewelry A first possible source of inspiration for the illuminated motifs serving as verse markers is jewelry. The Qur’an lists bracelets of gold (aswirah min dhahab) and other golden objects among the rewards for believers in paradise (bracelets: 18:31, 22:23, 35:33; dishes and goblets: 43:71). Bracelets of gold appear in another context in 43:53, when the Pharaoh mocks Moses, asking why he did not wear them. Sura 3:14 lists gold and silver among the worldly things that cannot compare with heavenly rewards, but without criticizing them, and a similarly neutral reference is found in sura 3:91, which states that if unbelievers were to offer a ransom of a world of gold, it would not be accepted. Only one Qur’anic verse is explicitly negative on the subject: “And those who hoard gold and silver and spend it not in the way of God—give them tidings of a painful punishment” (9:34). As in 3:14, the form of the gold is not specified—it simply indicates wealth. So, gold is mainly presented in the Qur’an as heavenly, and in the form of jewelry. There are plenty of surviving examples of early Islamic goldsmithing. Most are earrings, presumably because their small size made them relatively affordable. A crescent-shaped earring with beaded decoration was found in the destruction layer of the earthquake of 749 at Beth Shean; this is one of the few that can be securely dated to the late Umayyad period.36 A sixth- or seventh-century earring in the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem (formerly the L.A. Mayer Memorial Institute for Islamic Art) has similar beaded decoration, with three garnets spaced around the near-circle of gold; another earring in the same museum, from seventh- or eighth-century Egypt or Syria, has an eight-lobed gold rosette hanging from the semicircular ring, and filigree circles bordered with little beads.37 The Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin holds 34 Ibn Abu Dawud, Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif, in Jeffrey Arthur, ed., Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an: The Old Codices (Leiden: Brill, 1937), 143; Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 817. 35 Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, 22. 36 Naʿama Brosh, Islamic Jewelry (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1987), 8, fig. 3; Michael Spink and Jack Ogden, eds., The Art of Adornment: Jewellery of the Islamic Lands (London: Nour Foundation, 2013), 101. 37 Jerusalem, Museum for Islamic Art, nos. J235 and J62. See Rachel Hasson, Early Islamic Jewellery (Jerusalem: L.A. Mayer Memorial Institute for Islamic Art, 1987), 15, 19, nos. 6, 13.

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Fig. 8: Earring. Probably Egypt, seventh to eighth century, gold, 6.5 x 5.8 x 0.4 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 2333. Photo: © Museum für Islamische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Johannes Kramer).

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Fig. 9: Earring. Probably Syria or Palestine, ninth to tenth century, gold, 3.9 x 2.9 x 0.5 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 1994.38. Photo: © Museum für Islamische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Christian Krug).

three earrings attributed to Egypt and the Levant, dated between the sixth and tenth centuries.38 All are composed of sequences of pierced circles and rosettes, clusters of golden granules, and borders of larger beads (Figs. 8–9). In these details of their ornamentation they have some similarities with the medallions in the Qur’ans. For example, compare the combination of small pierced circles and solid gold half-spheres around the curved band in the Levantine earring with a tenth-verse marker in the Bodleian codex (see Figs. 4 and 9), and the small clusters of gold dots of the Egyptian earring with a single-verse marker in a partial Qur’an in the Khalili Collection (see Figs. 6 and 8). The concentric design of the circular feature in the Egyptian earring also compares to the illuminated roundels. A parallel can also be drawn between an eleventh-century gold pendant in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the decoration on a sura heading in a late ninth- or early tenth-century fragment of a Qur’an in the Pierpont Morgan Library; both have small loops around the edge of the circle, swirling decoration inside, and single symmetrical projecting finials.39

38 Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 1986.52, I. 2333, and I. 1994.38. 39 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 30.95.37; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.712, fol. 19v.

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One argument in favor of an association between illuminated decorations and contemporary jewelry is that earrings like these were the most commonly owned gold objects. Some of the museum pieces listed above contain substantial amounts of gold and were presumably owned by wealthy women. But the designs had a long history, and cheaper versions from earlier periods are known from excavations. A common type of earring from late Roman Jordan consisted of a small carved stone wrapped with gold leaf, sometimes with inlaid garnets—such foil earrings were the only form of gold found in nearly three hundred tombs excavated at Saʿad and Yaʿmun.40 This raises the possibility that even in quite small communities, some personal gold ornamentation was a feature of life. Evidence on this scale for the Umayyad or Abbasid period is missing; early Islamic burials did not include grave goods, so items were not preserved in the same way. The visual evidence provided by paintings and sculptures at Qusayr ʿAmra, Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qasr al-Hayr alGharbi, and Samarra indicates that bracelets, anklets, earrings, necklaces, and headbands were standard wear for elite women.41 It is often difficult to tell what material a depicted item is meant to be made from, but sometimes a gold color is indicated, for example in the case of the necklace, earrings, and headdress of the bathing woman at Qusayr ʿAmra.42 Like the gold rings and gilded swords mentioned by Malik ibn Anas, quoted above, copies of the Qur’an were often personal possessions—not just personally owned but carried close to the body. Many of the gilded manuscripts are small and portable, so that the medallions would have been at the same scale and in the same proximity to the reader’s fingers as her own bracelets and rings. The same theologians who objected to the ornamentation of verse markers also recorded their disapproval of perfuming the muṣḥaf with incense and musk, and the fact that this was done at all implies some conceptual overlap between books and bodies, a sense that a manuscript could be (or should not be) adorned like a person.43 Having said this, there are problems with drawing too close a link between the motifs in Qur’ans and real items of jewelry. Firstly, the early Islamic line on actual gold bracelets, in contrast to the heavenly kind, is discouraging. The Qur’an does

40 H. Kory Cooper and Ziad Al-Saad, “Metal Jewelry from Burials and Socioeconomic Status in Rural Jordan in Late Antiquity,” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 15, no. 2 (2015): 81–99, at 86–87, tables 1–2. 41 Qusayr ʿAmra: Claude Vibert-Guigue and Ghazi Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ʿAmra: Un bain omeyyade dans la bâdiya jordanienne (Beirut: IFPO, 2007), plates 17, 18, 28, 37–39, 49, 124, 126. Khirbat al-Mafjar: R. W. Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafjar: An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), plates XXII.4, LV.2–3, LVI.9. Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi: Daniel Schlumberger, Qasr el-Heir el Gharbi (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1986), plates 35, 37, 65c, 67b–c, 81e. Samarra: Ernst Herzfeld, Die Malereien von Samarra (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1927), plates II, LII, LXXI. 42 Vibert-Guigue and Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ʿAmra, plates 28, 115.b. 43 Ibn al-Ḍurays, Faḍā’il al-Qur’an, 41. Also see Zadeh, “Touching and Ingesting.”

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not deal with the subject, but the hadith (traditions of the sayings or actions of Muhammad) did: The Messenger of Allah forbade wearing silk and gold. He said: “They are for them in this world and for us in the Hereafter.”44 If anyone wants to put a ring of fire on one he loves, let him put a gold ring on him: if anyone wants to put a necklace of fire on one he loves, let him put a gold necklace on him.45

As several scholars have pointed out, the situation was more complicated than the blanket disapproval suggested by these traditions.46 For one thing, the very existence of the hadith implies that people who could afford to did wear gold accessories, as the archaeological record also indicates. A number of hadith also circulated recording relaxations of the rules: one allowing women to wear gold (and silk), another allowing men to wear “broken” (muqaṭṭʿan) pieces of gold—implying small bits—and a third legitimizing gold decoration on the hilts of swords.47 Nonetheless, the official line was disapproving. Secondly, and following from this, jewelry (aside from rings, which I will come back to) was a normative part of female dress. In the many figures painted at Qusayr ʿAmra, it is only the women who wear bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, although the men are also richly dressed. Interestingly, there were later medieval discussions of rulings from the Abbasid period that explicitly gendered the illumination of books. The thirteenth-century Syrian legal scholar al-Nawawi commented on the rules laid down by the judge al-Waqidi (ca. 747–823) on the uses of gold and silver, including two that declared it permissible for a Qur’an owned by a woman to be gilded, while forbidding it for one owned by a man.48 Given the number of gilded Qur’ans, if this rule genuinely dates to the ninth century then it seems unlikely that

44 Ibn Mājah, English Translation of Sunan Ibn Mājah, ed. Huda Khattab, trans. Nāsiruddin alKhattab (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2007), 4:486 (32.16.3590), and 4:485–7 for similar hadith. 45 Abū Dāwūd, English Translation of Sunan Abu Dawud, ed. Abū Tāhir Za’ī, trans. Yaser Qadhi (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2008), 4:480–481 (36.8.4236). See also al-Nasā’ī, English Translation of Sunan an-Nasā’ī, ed. Huda Khattab, trans. Nāsiruddin al-Khattab (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2007), 6:92–94 (48.39.5142, 5154). 46 Juynboll, “The Attitude Towards Gold and Silver,” esp. 108–11; Ahmad Ghabin, “Jewellery and Goldsmithing in Medieval Islam: The Religious Point of View,” in Jewellery and Goldsmithing in the Islamic World: International Symposium, ed. Naʿama Brosh (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1987), 83–92, at 83; Michael Spink, Jack Ogden, and J. M. Rogers, “Jewellery in Islamic Societies,” in Spink and Ogden, The Art of Adornment, 13–19, at 15–17. 47 Silk and gold permitted for women: Ibn Mājah, Sunan Ibn Mājah, 488–90 (32.19.3959 and 3597); broken gold permitted for men: al-Nasā’ī, Sunan an-Nasā’ī, 97–102 (48.40.5152–55 and 5162–63); the Prophet’s sword being decorated with gold and silver: al- Tirmidhī, English Translation of Jāmiʿ atTirmidhī, ed. Abū Tāhir Za’ī, trans. Abū Khalīl (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2007), 3:429 (23.16.1690). See Juynboll, “The Attitude Towards Gold and Silver,” 111–12. 48 Yaḥyā bin Sharaf Al-Nawawī, Sharḥ al-muhadhdhab (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Imam, n.d), 6:38–39; Ghabin, “Jewellery and Goldsmithing,” 83.

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it was strictly followed, but it does imply that gold carried a charge of femininity. In the patriarchal world of the early Middle Ages, motifs too closely resembling female accessories might not have been seen as appropriate for depiction in a sacred text. Thirdly, and probably most importantly in terms of the motifs’ reception, the comparisons that can be drawn with surviving pieces of jewelry are clearer on the level of details, such as the clustering of gold dots, rather than entire forms. It is as if the illustrators aimed to depict techniques of goldsmithing rather than specific objects, although these techniques might be most familiar to viewers from items of jewelry.49 The Umayyad and early Abbasid depictions of necklaces and earrings are helpful here, as they show which features artists selected when they needed to clearly convey the idea of jewelry. And on the whole, the images in paint and stucco do not resemble the motifs in Qur’ans. It may be significant that the closest, the headdress of the bathing woman at Qusayr ʿAmra, is worn by a figure more likely to be a mythological personification than a living woman.50 Once possible sources of inspiration are extended beyond the “real,” the closest comparisons to illuminated motifs in Qur’ans are the idealized, semi-heavenly confections of jewels in the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock.51 For example, in the inner arcade, a gold disc encircles a stem of acanthus vine, the inner and outer rims of the disc bordered with alternating blue and red beads, and another medallion has two outer gold borders close together, sandwiching pearls.52 The jeweled flowers of the acanthus vine, with pearls dotted between their petals, are also very similar in form to some of the single-verse markers.53 Other flowers have semicircular curves of pearls between gold strips, with smaller golden loops above the curve containing more pearls or jewels (Fig. 10; the flowers are at either side of the central acanthus spike).54 Overall, the main elements of the jeweled flowers in the mosaics are concentric strips and loops of gold, strings of white pearls, and alternating red and dark blue beads—in other words, the same components present in the verse markers. So, the relationship between the gilded motifs in Abbasid Qur’ans and items of jewelry seems indirect, taking inspiration not from the items themselves, but from depictions that represent otherworldly versions of them, beyond everyday experience, although still drawing on viewers’ recognition of particular metalworking techniques 49 See the contribution by Beth Fischer, “Manuscript as Metalwork: Haptic Vision in Early Carolingian Gospel Books,” in this volume, for the potential of illuminated manuscripts to convey general impressions of metalwork techniques, rather than specific objects. 50 For the interpretation of this figure as a personification, see Beatrice Leal, “The Symbolic Display of Water at Qusayr Amra,” in Holy Water in the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World, ed. Alexei Lidov (Moscow: Theoria, 2017), 232–61, at 252. 51 Oleg Grabar and Saïd Nuseibeh, The Dome of the Rock (London: Thames & Hudson, 1996), 81–105, 118–33. See also the photographs available at http://www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk. 52 Grabar and Nuseibeh, 85, 86, 93. 53 Ibid., 84, 87, 99. 54 Ibid., 88–89, 128.

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Fig. 10: Mosaics with jeweled flowers, arcade of the Dome of the Rock. Jerusalem, completed 691. Photo: Elias Khamis/Manar al-Athar. http://www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk, see Jerusalem – Dome of the Rock.

and conventions. If gold and jeweled treasures could be categorized as paradisiacal rather than worldly, they would not only be permitted—and for men as well as women —but positively encouraged.

Coins Aside from personal accessories, the gold objects with the widest currency were, in fact, currency. In addition to the simple visual link to the gilded motifs in Qur’ans, in that they are small round things with concentric designs, other, more subtle connections are evident. For one, coins were sacred texts. From the reforms of ʿAbd al-Malik onward, gold dinars and silver dirhams carried quotations from the Qur’an.55 The few verses used as inscriptions summarized key points of faith: 9:33 and 61:9 on the role of 55 Luke Treadwell, “ʿAbd al-Malik’s Coinage Reforms: The Role of the Damascus Mint,” Revue numismatique, series 6, 165 (2009): 357–81, at 373–76; Luke Treadwell, “Qur’anic Inscriptions on the

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Muhammad, 112:1–4 on the oneness of God, and the shahada. Luke Treadwell has observed that the choice of 9:33 is significant, as it immediately precedes the verse warning readers not to hoard gold and silver, but to spend it for godly purposes.56 This implies an awareness of the verse on the coin as part of the whole, a little fragment of the book. Further evidence that people thought of coins as comparable to Qur’ans emerges from discussions of whether it was acceptable to handle dinars bearing Qur’anic verses while in a state of ritual impurity.57 ʿAbd al-Razzaq alSanʿani’s collection of hadith discusses coins and the holy book as the only two types of objects for which purity was appropriate, although scholars admitted that for coins it was not always practical.58 Currency and codices were also used as items of state display. Twice in the early Islamic period, simultaneous reforms were carried out in both fields by the ruling caliph or his leading officials. In the 640s–50s, ʿUthman ibn Affan minted the first coins to carry Arabic script, including the bismallah, alongside figural motifs; he also ordered the production of standardized maṣāḥif to be sent to the major cities of the caliphate, and the destruction of earlier books containing variant readings.59 Then, in the last few years of the seventh century, the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd alMalik introduced non-figural epigraphic coinage with Qur’anic quotes. This was a political and religious statement, part of a program to unify the Islamic empire and to create and promote a distinct identity.60 This was also the time of al-Hajjaj’s project of codification. With ʿAbd al-Malik’s support, the governor ordered new maṣāḥif to be sent to all the cities he governed, and books containing variant readings to once again be destroyed.61 Al-Hajjaj is said to have corrected the text himself; he also gathered scholars and told them to calculate (ḥasaba) the contents of the Qur’an, to count its individual letters and divide it accurately into sections.62 As

Coins of the Ahl al-Bayt from the Second to Fourth Century AH,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 47–71. 56 Treadwell, “Qur’anic Inscriptions,” 50–51. 57 Jere L. Bacharach, “Signs of Sovereignty: The Shahāda, Qur’anic Verses, and the Coinage of ʿAbd al-Malik,” Muqarnas 27 (2010): 1–30, at 22–23; Treadwell, “Qur’anic Inscriptions,” 52–55. 58 Treadwell, “Qur’anic Inscriptions,” 53–54. 59 Theodor Nöldeke, Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergsträßer, and Otto Pretzl, The History of the Qur’an (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 251–56. 60 Treadwell, “ʿAbd al-Malik’s Coinage Reforms,” 377–79; Bacharach, “Signs of Sovereignty,” esp. 15–19; Stefan Heidemann, “The Evolving Representation of the Early Islamic Empire and Its Religion on Coin Imagery,” in The Qur’an in Context, 149–96, at 184–88; Luke Treadwell, “The Formation of Religious and Caliphal Identity in the Umayyad Period: The Evidence of the Coinage,” in A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, 89–108, esp. 102–6. 61 Matthias Radscheit, “The Qur’an: Codification and Canonization,” in Self-Referentiality in the Qur’an, ed. Stefan Wild (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2006), 93–102, at 97–98; Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 798–99. 62 Ibn Abu Dawud, Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif, in Arthur, Old Codices, 119–22, instruction to count letters at 119; Radscheit, “Codification and Canonization,” 97; Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 809–15.

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described above, the use of tenth-verse markers likely dates to this initiative, and these markers visualized the method by which the revelation had been measured and divided.63 In the Abbasid period, the caliphate of al-Maʾmun (r. 813–33) was a turning point in monetary policy: al-Maʾmun introduced new designs, script, and metal content for dinars and dirhams across the entire empire, reforms on a scale not attempted since ʿAbd al-Malik.64 Scriptural changes may have coincided again with monetary ones. An earlier Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi (r. 775–85), had already replaced the manuscripts of al-Hajjaj in Medina, and probably in other cities across the empire, with versions of his own, but it is notable that al-Maʾmun claimed credit—or at least was later given credit—for dividing the Qur’an into groups of ten verses: in the twelfth century, Ibn ʿAttiya al-Andalusi wrote that “as for putting the tenths in it [the Qur’an], sometimes I was told that al-Maʾmun the Abbasid ordered it. And it was [also] said that al-Hajjaj did that.”65 The second story is probably the correct one, but it is significant that both existed; it suggests that more substantial accounts of a ninth-century invention of the taʿashīr (tenth-verse divisions) were in circulation. Neither al-Maʾmun nor any other early Abbasid ruler can have invented the practice of al-taʿashīr, but based on the surviving manuscripts, it was around this time that the metallic illumination of the markers became common, and their forms more elaborate. It is worth asking whether this was a caliphal initiative, perhaps running alongside the currency reforms, to be understood as a comparable statement of identity—dynastic branding in gold. The visual connection is slighter than for jewelry, and I am not arguing that the verse markers represent coins. But the concerns of anyone issuing (or using) precious metal coins, of validity and measurable accuracy, are the same as the concerns in the first centuries of Islam regarding the written form of the Qur’an. For early Islamic caliphs and their officials, two primary methods for displaying authority were issuing coins, and defining and codifying the correct version of the sacred text.

Seals These connotations of authoritativeness and authenticity are relevant to a third type of object. Seals were widely used at many levels of society—by private individuals, government offices, and caliphs—and a seal-ring was the one piece of widely

63 Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 816–20. 64 Michael L. Bates, “Who Was Named on Abbasid Coins? What Did It Mean?,” in Iranian Numismatic Studies: A Volume in Honor of Stephen Album, ed. Mostafa Faghfoury (Lancaster: Classical Numismatic Group, 2017), 89–99; Tayeb El-Hibri, “Coinage Reform Under the ʿAbbāsid Caliph alMaʾmūn,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 36, no. 1 (1993): 58–83. 65 Ibn ʿAtiyya, Al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz fi tafsīr al-kitāb al-ʿazīz, ed. Aḥmad Ṣādiq al-Mallāḥ (Cairo: Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, 1974), 1:68 (my translation); Hamdan, “Second Maṣāḥif Project,” 828.

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acceptable male jewelry.66 Muhammad himself was described in the Qur’an as the “messenger of God and the seal of the prophets” (33:40), generally taken to mean the final prophet, perfecting and completing the line. The hadith also describe Muhammad’s own seal-ring: The Messenger of Allah wore a ring of gold for three days . . . Then he threw it away . . . Then he ordered that a ring of silver be made, and that “Muḥammad Rasūl Allah” be engraved on it. It remained on the hand of the Messenger of Allah until he died, then on the hand of Abu Bakr until he died, then on the hand of ʿUmar until he died. Then on the hand of ʿUthman for the first six years of his duties, but when he had to write many letters, he gave it to a man from among Ansar who used to seal letters with it. Then the Ansari went out to a well belonging to ʿUthman and the ring fell . . . He ordered that a similar ring be made and engraved “Muḥammad Rasūl Allah” on it.67

Other hadith explain that Muhammad needed the ring to write to the Byzantines, who would not accept any unsealed letter.68 As with other forms of jewelry, gold was suspect (since Muhammad threw his gold ring away), but the other point here is that seals were important caliphal paraphernalia—signs that the caliphs followed and led others in the footsteps of the Prophet. The surviving seal-rings owned by individuals from the early Islamic period are mostly made from stone, and rectangular, round, or oval, with engraved names or pious phrases and little if any ornamentation.69 They do not bear much resemblance to the gilded ornaments in Qur’ans. A lead seal in the name of caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, on the other hand—which was not a ring, but a stamp carved on both sides—has an undulating ornamental border (Fig. 11), which is closer in appearance to some of the medallions in the Bodleian Qur’an (see Fig. 3).70 The seals that people would probably have seen most often were from a lower level of the social hierarchy, such as the lead or clay discs fastened to consignments of merchandise, given out as tokens of taxes paid, and attached at the bottom of official documents and receipts.71 Stamps with makers’ names were impressed on clay vessels, and ones stating the quality of bread or wishing good health to its eater were pressed into loaves. These simple seals and stamps could have designs

66 Priscilla Soucek, “Early Islamic Seals: Their Artistic and Cultural Importance,” in Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen, ed. Erica Ehrenberg (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 237–59. 67 Al-Nasā’ī, Sunan an-Nasā’ī, 126–27 (48.53.5220), and 125–28 for similar hadith. See also Ibn Mājah, Sunan Ibn Mājah, 507–8 (32.39.3639–41). 68 Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, The Authentic Hadiths of Muslim, with Full Arabic Text, trans. Muḥammad Mahdi al-Šarif (Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah, 2012), 3:680–81 (37.56–58); Venetia Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 2011), 1–2. 69 Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, 23, Table 1 A–B. 70 İbrahim Aturk, “Emevılerden Halıfe Abdulmelık Bın Mervan Adina Kesılmış Eşsız Bır Kurşun Mühür,” Türk Tarıh Kurumu Belleten 16 (1952): 21–25; Soucek, “Early Islamic Seals,” 248. 71 Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, 3–6, 27–34, nos. 1–31.

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Fig. 11: Lead seal in the name of Caliph Abd al-Malik. Palestine, 685–705. Istanbul, Istanbul Archaeology Museums. Photo: from İbrahim Aturk, “Emevılerden Halıfe Abdulmelık Bın Mervan Adina Kesılmış Eşsız Bır Kurşun Mühür,” Türk Tarıh Kurumu Belleten 16 (1952), fig. 7.

of six-pointed stars or flowers, and borders of beads.72 Their one-line inscriptions could spell out numbers referring to dates or to the amount of dirhams paid in tax. For example, a two-sided lead seal dating to the reign of the Abbasid caliph alMahdi has the year written out around the edge (in writing that, even when the seal was new, must have been on the edge of legibility, as much ornament as information) and ithnā ʿashar (twelve) in the middle above a small floral motif.73 A bread stamp from eighth-century Egypt forms a hexagon with inward-curving sides, with dots at the points and a double circle around the central inscription, while a stamp recording the ceramicist’s name on a ninth-century vessel from Samarra has small loops or petals inside a circular border, each loop with a small dot inside it (Fig. 12).74 In all these details of appearance, these are the surviving objects with the most in common with the gold designs in the ninth-century Qur’ans.

72 Six-pointed stars/flowers: Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1891/307; London, British Museum, 1893,1111.1; 1999,0205.1; and 1861,0628.35; see Ludvik Kalus, Catalogue of Islamic Seals and Talismans, Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 45, plate I.4.1; and Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, nos. 1–3. Beaded borders: British Museum, 1992,98.1 and OR 5289; see Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, nos. 9 and 12. 73 London, British Museum, 1970,1016.1; see Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, no. 17. 74 Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Museum für Islamische Kunst, I. 6986 and Sam 1019.

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Fig. 12: Stamped ceramic fragment. Samarra, ninth century, 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.5 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Sam 1019. Photo: © Museum für Islamische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Christian Krug).

An important piece of evidence comes from an Egyptian papyrus document on which, instead of fixing a three-dimensional seal, the scribe drew an ornament (Fig. 13).75 This shape with its six loops or points is similar to the star motifs on clay seals attached to administrative documents during the same period, so it was probably intended as an equivalent mark of authentication. It is the simplest possible version of the circle-with-loops that lies behind the designs of almost all the gilded medallions, and it appears as the missing link between them and any physical object. The shape on the tax document is hurriedly drawn, practically a doodle, but it

75 L. Abel, ed., Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Koeniglichen Museen zu Berlin: Arabische Urkunden, vol. 1, part 1 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1896), 10, cat. no. 8; Geoffrey Khan, “Newly Discovered Arabic Documents From Early Abbasid Khurasan,” in From al-Andalus to Khurasan: Documents from the Medieval Muslim World, ed. Petra Sijpesteijn (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 201–15, at 206–7, fig. 1. For another example on a late ninth-century receipt, see Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Papyri: Selected Material From the Khalili Collection (London: Nour Foundation, 1992), 108–11, cat. no. 11.

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Fig. 13: Drawing of an order of payment on papyrus, with sketched seal. Egypt, early Islamic period. Photo: from L. Abel, ed., Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Koeniglichen Museen zu Berlin: Arabische Urkunden, vol. 1, part 1 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1896), no. 8.

stands as proof that designs like these could have official status whether in two- or three-dimensional form. In contrast to decorated initials in Western manuscripts, the ornament in Qur’ans comes at the end of verses or suras, a placement that implies a function of sealing or completing, as seals were always fixed to the bottoms of documents.76 But of course, the seals attached to official documents were not gold, but cheaper and more readily available materials. As in the case of jewelry, the verse markers were not meant to mimetically resemble actual objects people used, although they were close enough in appearance to seals for the connection to be made, but were intended as idealized and otherworldly improvements on them. They are what a good seal-stamp would look like if it went to paradise.

Conclusions Seeing verse markers as comparable in function to official seals also makes sense in terms of the social context in which they were introduced. As part of the standardization of the text of the Qur’an carried out by al-Hajjaj and his circle, the verse markers demonstrated that a book contained the reformed version, with the verses counted correctly.77 As Déroche describes for the early eighth century, the homogeneity of surviving manuscripts suggests “an increased control over the text and its 76 Porter, Arabic and Persian Seals, 2, quotes court secretary Hilāl al-Ṣābi (d. 1056): “If sealed, the seal was to be at the end.” 77 Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads, 135.

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transmission” in which choices of ornamentation as well as script were “aesthetically and ideologically motivated.”78 I propose that these markers began to be highlighted with gold in the first half of the ninth century for similar reasons of validation and authentication, and that to emphasize this aspect further, new designs were chosen that recalled seals—literal stamps of approval.79 The introduction of gilded verse markers as official policy, rather than simply a new ornamental trend, could explain the high level of standardization of the designs, which seems to have taken place swiftly, and the simultaneous disappearance of the variety seen in earlier manuscripts. If the innovation took place alongside the currency reforms of al-Maʾmun, as I present as one (although certainly not the only) plausible context, then this would have been an instance of one-upmanship over the legacy of ʿAbd al-Malik, analogous to al-Maʾmun’s replacement of the earlier caliph’s name with his own in the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock.80 To speculate further, if the new designs were ordered by the caliphal apparatus, this might explain why, although we have records of the complaints against them, there are so few examples of gilded Qur’ans from the early eighth century: they might have been destroyed following the production of the reformed maṣāḥif. On the other hand, there are some Umayyad-period Qur’ans to which the ninth-century types of gold dots, hāʾs, and medallions were added, perhaps retrospective validation of approved versions. Historians of Anglo-Saxon and Insular art have long drawn connections between manuscript illuminations and precious metalwork, and the recognition of skeuomorphic resemblances across media has contributed to our understanding of the cultural roles of both art forms.81 Similarly, as described at the beginning of this essay, images of leafy scrolls and columns in Umayyad Qur’ans have been linked to the mosaic decorations of the Dome of the Rock and Great Mosque of Damascus, and the ideological connotations of this borrowing have been noted. Such material connections have not yet been sought out or investigated to the same extent in the apparently more abstract art of the Abbasid period. Compared with certain contemporary manuscript traditions—such as the Insular or the Frankish—it is true that the illuminated rosettes of the Abbasid period are minimalist, if one can be minimalist with gold leaf. Nonetheless, these motifs drew on material prototypes in their form and details, and their significance to the written form of the Qur’anic revelation depended on their association with artifacts, from the luxurious and precious to the mundane.

78 Déroche, “A Qur’anic Script from Umayyad Times,” 77–78. 79 In later Qur’ans, ink outlines for the illuminators to fill were sometimes stamped rather than drawn onto the page. I thank Alain George for this information. 80 Grabar and Nuseibeh, Dome of the Rock, 27. 81 Starting with Thomas Downing Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (London: Methuen, 1938), 100–4.

Beth Fischer

Manuscript as Metalwork: Haptic Vision in Early Carolingian Gospel Books A viewer seeing the opening pages of Matthew in the Gospel Book of Saint-Médard de Soissons could be forgiven for perceiving an array of metal objects instead of paint (Fig. 1).1 Frames of gem-studded gold seem to hover over the page, their shine and apparent tangibility enticing the fingers, while the “L” that opens the Gospel text draws its shape and style from fibulae with enamel knotwork. Gold alternates with (tarnished) silver across the entire spread. The internal text throughout the codex is, moreover, almost entirely gold, including the Gospel text, the prefaces, and the canon tables. This combination of metallic ornament and extensive chrysography is a hallmark of Carolingian luxury Gospel books. Metallic text had been used in earlier manuscripts, like the sixth-century Sinope Gospel fragment and the mid-eighth-century Canterbury Codex Aureus, but the Carolingian books significantly expanded the use of metallic features by using gold for almost all the text and by increasing the use of metallic pigments for the miniatures and the ornament.2 The gold and silver in all of these manuscripts was precious, associated with wealth, power, and often divinity.3 However, these well-recognized aspects of illumination sometimes blind us to the sensory effects and material meanings of the metallic surfaces in particular visual and environmental contexts. The gold and silver frames and incipit letters in early Carolingian Gospel books function as though they were metalwork, drawing on meanings associated with metal as material and craft. The result is a pseudo-haptic interface that seems tangible and responsive to its audience’s presence without any direct contact. My approach considers phenomenological experience, but also the neurological underpinnings of perception, combining medieval practices of viewing with cognitive science research on sensory perception. While contemporary research cannot tell us how medieval viewers perceived the world, it can help shake loose some of our own cultural patterns of interpretation. Although the features I describe are found in other early medieval manuscripts, my argument here concerns primarily the six extant complete Gospel books from

1 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8850, digitized at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/ 12148/btv1b8452550p. 2 Sinope Gospel fragment: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Suppl. gr. 1286; Canterbury Codex Aureus (also known as the Stockholm Codex Aureus): Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A.135. 3 Ulrich Ernst, “Farbe und Schrift im Mittelalter unter Berücksichtigung antiker Grundlagen und neuzeitlicher Rezeptionsformen,” in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 41 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1994), 343–415, esp. 350–58. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-007

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Fig. 1: Opening of the Gospel of Matthew. Gospel Book of Saint-Médard de Soissons. Court School of Charlemagne, early ninth century. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8850, fols. 17v–18r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

the so-called Ada School, which were made between 783 and ca. 814 in connection with Charlemagne’s court.4 Despite the high quality and elite context of these manuscripts, we know little about their exact dates or initial locations of use.5 Their earliest documented locations were all influential ecclesiastical centers with close connections to the court.6 Louis the Pious (d. 840) gave the Soissons Gospels to the Abbey Church of Saint-Médard de Soissons in 827, but it had probably been created

4 Wilhelm Koehler first grouped these Gospel books with several other manuscripts and fragments in the early twentieth century. They are sometimes referred to as the Hofschule or “Court School” manuscripts, though this term sometimes encompasses a wider group of manuscripts. Wilhelm Koehler, “Die Tradition der Adagruppe und die Anfänge des ottonischen Stiles der Buchmalerei,” in Festschrift zum sechzigsten Geburtstag von Paul Clemen, 31. Oktober 1926, ed. Wilhelm Worringer, Heribert Reiners, and Leopold Seligmann (Bonn: F. Cohen, 1926), 255–72. The key literature on the group includes Wilhelm Koehler, Die Karolingischen Miniaturen, vol. 2, Die Hofschule Karls des Großen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1958. 5 Michael Embach, Das Ada-Evangeliar (StB Trier, Hs22): Die karolingische Bilderhandschrift (Trier: Paulinus, 2010), 16. 6 Fernand Cabrol, The Books of the Latin Liturgy (Newcastle: Northumberland Press, 1969), 147.

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more than a decade earlier and may have been used in the palace chapel.7 Charlemagne’s de facto son-in-law Angilbert (d. 814) gave the Abbeville Gospels to SaintRiquier at Centula sometime around 794.8 The other manuscripts in the group also seem to have been part of a network of elite gift-giving associated with the Carolingian expansion of high-status ecclesiastical institutions.9 Gospel books are liturgical volumes containing the full text of all four Gospels that are intended for use during the Mass. The dramatic size and extensive illumination of luxury Gospel books like those of the Ada School highlight their role as display volumes, seen in structured moments with limited direct access. Gospel books, especially books of this quality, were designed for the potent environment near the altar, where they appeared alongside chalices, reliquaries, and other instruments of liturgical transformation.10 These manuscripts resonated with such objects not only in their color and surface finish, but also through the use of visual effects that induce the human eye to perceive a metallic surface as a tangible, substantial form. Each Gospel book opens with prefaces and canon tables, but the primary content begins with the incipit to Matthew, the first of the four Gospel texts. The material presence of illumination is strongest in these incipits, and especially at the opening to Matthew. At these points, extensive use of gold and silver combines with the overlapping contours of letters and pictorial forms to create a relief-like dimensionality. Iconographic references to the construction and ornament of metal objects create the visual effect of early medieval metalwork without replicating any individual object. In the incipit to Matthew in the Lorsch Gospels, the curved belly of the “L” distinctly overlaps the outer page border, as emphasized by the outlines

7 Donald A. Bullough, “Roman Books and Carolingian renovatio,” in idem, Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 1–38, at 11. 8 Abbeville Gospels (also known as the Saint-Riquier Gospels): Abbeville, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 4[1], digitized at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55005654j. George Henderson, “Emulation and Invention in Carolingian Art,” in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994), 248–73, at 258; Embach, Das Ada-Evangeliar, 10. 9 Royal abbeys like those that housed the Gospel books formed a disproportionate number of Carolingian buildings compared to their Merovingian counterparts. Albrecht Mann, “Großbauten vorkarlischer Zeit und aus der Epoche von Karl dem Großen bis zu Lothar I,” in Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, ed. Wolfgang Braunfels (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1965), 3:320–23. 10 Rosamond McKitterick, “Royal Patronage of Culture in the Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians: Motives and Consequences,” in Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto medioevo occidentale, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 39, ed. Ovidio Capitani (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1992), 1:93–136, at 118. Anton von Euw considers the display of the Gospel book on the altar essential to ninth-century liturgical practice; he notes that the book was also placed open on an altar facing the group at church councils and other events. Anton von Euw, “Die Textgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliar,” in Das Lorscher Evangeliar: Eine Zimelie der Buchkunst des abendländischen Frühmittelalters, ed. Hermann Schefers (Darmstadt: Hessische Historische Kommission, 2000), 33–53, at 33–34.

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Fig. 2: Incipit to Matthew. Lorsch Gospels. Court School of Charlemagne, late eighth century. Alba Iulia, Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, MS R II 1, p. 37. Photo: National Library of Romania.

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Fig. 3: Incipit to Luke. Abbeville Gospels. Court School of Charlemagne, late eighth century. Abbeville, BM, MS 4[1], fol. 102r. Photo: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.

that distinguish the gilded letter from the gilded frame (Fig. 2).11 This layering creates the sense that the letters of the incipit escape the plane of the page. One especially salient example is the incipit to Luke in the Abbeville Gospels, where an icon-like roundel on the body of the “Q” projects over the right column of the surrounding frame, while the tail of the letter flares behind it (Fig. 3). The monumental letters of the incipits

11 The manuscript is divided between two libraries. The first half, including the prologues, canon tables, and Gospels of Matthew and Mark, is in Romania (Alba Iulia, Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, MS R II 1, digitized at https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15252#0001). The Gospels of Luke and John are in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pal. Lat. 50, digitized at https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Pal.lat.50).

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Fig. 4: Incipit to Matthew. Lindisfarne Gospels. Lindisfarne, ca. 700. London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D IV, fol. 27r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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throughout the Ada School Gospel books repeat this spatial organization without exactly copying the page layouts. I have not found this practice in the Merovingian and Insular Gospel books that precede the Carolingian manuscripts. In the Lindisfarne Gospels, for example, the composition, use of monumental letters, and use of motifs drawn from metalwork is similar, but the letters break through gaps in the frame instead of overlapping them, creating the sense that letter and frame are in the same plane rather than layered (Fig. 4).12 By contrast, the overlapping employed by Carolingian illuminators effectively communicates dimensionality and relief, especially in shallow spaces.13

Material Presence and Illumination as Metalwork These overlapping forms in the Gospel book incipits thus prompt the brain to interpret the metallic forms as being layered in space over the page; the viewer’s optical experience of them as dimensional metal objects is reinforced further by the use of metallic pigment in combination with the representation of details characteristic of early medieval liturgical metalwork. This feature was borrowed from earlier Gospel books, but taken to a new level by the Carolingian illuminators who attended to both the materials and forms associated with metalwork craftsmanship—its colors, patterns, and shapes. The nested gold frames of the Carolingian Gospel books stand out against the deep red-purple background of the dyed parchment, recalling the raised borders that framed the surfaces of treasure bindings, carved ivories, and preciousmetal pictorial reliefs, like those on the ninth-century Altar of Sant’Ambrogio (Fig. 5). The small red and green gems on the frame of the Matthew incipit in the Soissons Gospels are wrapped in gold borders that replicate the wide collars of collet settings, the typical method for attaching gems to medieval metalwork, like those on the late eighth-century Enger Reliquary (Figs. 6–7). Each painted gold setting is slightly green or red, matching the gem inside, as though the light striking the gem is reflecting off the gold.14 The square gold settings around the large gems on the frames of the Mark

12 London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D IV, digitized at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/ Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_nero_d_iv_fs001r. 13 Humans use two methods to determine object relationships within a space. Binocular perspective, the sense of space produced when the slightly different viewpoints of each eye combine in the brain, works on relatively distant objects. Up close, the brain prioritizes occlusion, the overlapping of objects to indicate which is in front, even if the cues given by occlusion contradict cues like scale or linear convergence. Jennifer M. Groh, Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), 36–38 and 43–44. 14 Thank you to Shannon Wearing for pointing out this detail.

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Fig. 5: (a) Golden Altar of Sant’Ambrogio. (b) Detail of back of altar, showing St. Ambrose blessing Wolvinus. Northern Italy, ca. 824–859, wood, gold, silver, gemstones, and cloisonné enamel, 85 x 220 cm. Milan, Sant’Ambrogio. Photos: Wikimedia (Sailko), CC BY 3.0.

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Fig. 6: Collet settings on the Enger Reliquary. Carolingian, late eighth century, wood, gold, silver, gemstones, cloisonné enamel, and glass, 16 x 14 x 5.3 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstgewerbemuseum, 1888,632. Photo: © Genevra Kornbluth.

Fig. 7: Detail of gemstones, incipit to Matthew. Gospel Book of Saint-Médard de Soissons. Court School of Charlemagne, early ninth century. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8850, fol. 18r (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Fig. 8: Detail of gemstones, incipit to Mark. Gospel Book of Saint-Médard de Soissons. Court School of Charlemagne, early ninth century. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8850, fol. 82r (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

incipit have small red curves that resemble granulation, or perhaps filigree, like that on the raised settings of the gems on the cover of the Drogo Gospels (Figs. 8–9).15 The depicted settings appear brighter than the surrounding gold, which adds to the impression that they are raised above the page. This creation of object presence through material specificity is comparable to the illusionistic details in Dutch seventeenthcentury still-life paintings, in which materials like fur, lace, and glass are shown in a shallow, indistinct space. In such paintings, the interest is in the tangibility of individual objects, produced through attention to their respective materials, surface qualities, and even means of construction. The 831 inventory of Saint-Riquier records the profusion of metalwork around altars and shrines, from chalices and thuribles to metal-plated beams and doors.16 In such an environment, viewers were primed to see metalwork everywhere, and to see it on the surfaces of architecture and furniture, not just on standalone objects. Gospel book illumination may have actually been seen as a form of metalwork, not just a representation of it. The inventory describes the Abbeville Gospels as “a Gospel book written in gold” (evangelium auro scriptum) and includes it in the same section as other metal objects in the treasury. The text makes no distinction between

15 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 9388, digitized at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/ 12148/btv1b55001425m. 16 Hariulf, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint-Riquier (Ve siècle–1104), ed. Ferdinand Lot (Paris: Picard, 1894), 87.

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Fig. 9: Detail of the treasure binding of the Drogo Gospel Book. Metz, ca. 845–855, ivory, gold, and gemstones. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 9388. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

the aurum of the Gospel book’s letters and the aurum of the three-dimensional objects recorded alongside it.17 The manuscript’s gems were painted, but the gold and silver were certainly real. Isidore of Seville emphasizes the use of real metal when he describes books of purple parchment on which “the melted gold and silver on the letters stands out” (aurum et argentum liquescens patescat in litteris).18 The low proportion of metal in comparison to the other materials used in a book would not necessarily have prevented this association; medieval viewers of the ninth century seem to have frequently categorized objects as metalwork even when the amount of metal used was relatively minimal. A characteristic example is a gem-encrusted jade vessel that was ascribed to the goldsmith St. Eligius in the ninth century. The object had little metal but was nevertheless defined by its association with the saintly metalworker, showing how the classification of an object might be determined by any presence of precious metal.19 17 Cf. “capsae reliquiarum aureae et argenteae” (gold and silver reliquary caskets) and “evangelium auro scriptum unum” (a Gospel book written in gold). Hariulf, Chronique de l’abbaye de SaintRiquier, 87. 18 Isidore, Etymologiae 6.11 (De pergamenis). Latin: Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), 239. English trans.: Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof, trans., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 141. 19 Suger of Saint-Denis described the materials: “Quod videlict vas tam pro preciosi lapidis qualitate quam integra sui quantitate mirificum, inclusorio sancti Eligii opere constat ornatum, quod omnium aurificum iudicio preciosissimum aestimatur” (It is an established fact that this vessel, admirable for the quality of the precious stone as well as for the latter’s unimpaired quantity, is adorned with “verroterie cloisonnée” work by St. Eloy which is held to be most precious in the judgment of all goldsmiths). Transcription and translation in Ernst Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis

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Modern viewers are accustomed to thinking of illuminated manuscripts as works of parchment and pigment, ignoring the metallic content. The separation between metallic objects and manuscripts is exacerbated by the tendency to value miniatures above other parts of the book, so that we associate illuminated manuscripts with paintings and distance them from three-dimensional metal objects. Our frequent encounters with simulated metal surfaces, like the shiny coated plastic used for electronics, further hamper our experience of the gold paint as real metal.20 Carolingian viewers would instead be conditioned to see the Ada School Gospel books, with gilding on every page, as a variety of metalwork. They encountered gilded manuscripts inside metal treasure bindings, placed alongside gold-plated objects on altars or within treasuries. Inventories like that of Saint-Riquier position illuminated manuscripts alongside metal objects and describe their gold and silver material rather than their imagery.21 It was not just the value or symbolism of gold or silver itself that made it desirable for use in Gospel books. Working with precious metals was a high-status, potentially even saintly, vocation.22 The vita of St. Eligius demonstrates this aspect of goldsmithing, which is used to illustrate his piety; even after becoming a bishop, Eligius reportedly created reliquaries and gold tombs.23 Wolvinus, the magister phaber of the altar of Sant’Ambrogio, depicted himself alongside St. Ambrose in one of its panels, his exemplary craft giving him special access to the heavenly saint (see Fig. 5b). Einhard, one of the most important scholars at Charlemagne’s court, designed a metal reliquary and

and Its Art Treasures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1946), 76–79. The material of this vase is also discussed in W. Martin Conway, “The Abbey of Saint-Denis and Its Ancient Treasures,” Archaeologia 66 (1915): 103–58, at 126–27. On the ninth-century connection, see Caecilia Davis-Weyer, Early Medieval Art, 300–1150: Sources and Documents (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 69. 20 This effect occurs even when we know that the illumination is painted with real metal, because we default to our knowledge of similar-looking materials. Emily Bushnell, “A Dual-Processing Approach to Cross-Modal Matching: Implications for Development,” in The Development of Intersensory Perception: Comparative Perspectives, ed. David J. Lewkowicz and Robert Lickliter (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994), 19–38, at 22. 21 Hariulf, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint-Riquier, 87. 22 Victor Elbern discusses the close connections between early medieval patrons and goldsmiths, both of whom were frequently named in inscriptions, dedications, and patronage records. He outlines continual connections between the court and gold workshops, which would further the relationship between metalwork and the manuscripts, which were produced in a similarly court-connected workshop. Thank you to Joseph Ackley for drawing my attention to this essay. Victor H. Elbern, “Auftraggeber und Künstler in der Goldschmiedekunst des frühen Mittelalters,” Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto medioevo occidentale, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 39 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1992), 855–81, esp. 856 and 874. 23 Vita Eligii episcopi Noviomagensis 2.6–7, in Bruno Krusch, ed., Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum rerum Merovingicarum 4 (Hannover: Hahn, 1902), 697–700. The vita was written by Eligius’s contemporary Dado in the seventh century, but this version was edited and embellished as part of the Carolingian elaboration of his cult.

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was nicknamed Besaleel, after the craftsman in charge of making the Ark of the Covenant.24 While manuscript production was distinct from metalworking, the initial stages of production of precious-metal objects and the metals used in manuscripts overlapped, and both media made use of similar alloys, making it easier for medieval audiences to align gilded manuscripts with metalwork. Gold or silver was melted, mixed with a small proportion of other materials to alter its color and hardness, then beaten into thin sheets that could be used to wrap or cover objects, or ground down and mixed with a liquid medium to create the gold paint used for manuscripts.25 These correspondences were certainly apparent to the scribes who compiled and copied the Mappae clavicula, an early medieval compendium that placed recipes for creating gold and silver text alongside recipes for metal alloys and leafing methods.26 The use of gold and silver in thin layers would not have impeded the associations of illuminated manuscripts with metalwork. The expense and material properties of gold and silver favor use in thin layers over other materials. Pure gold and silver are soft and deform easily, and gold is particularly malleable: a piece about the size of a grain of rice can be beaten to cover a square meter, and a skilled craftsman can use a handheld hammer to pound gold to translucency without creating any holes. While gold-plated objects were a cheaper alternative to solid gold objects, the method was not considered objectionable, and could even signal a higher quality of craftsmanship.27 Prudentius praised the gold-plated beams and ceiling at San Paolo fuori le Mura, and reliquaries and other objects, like the vessel associated with

24 Anthony Cutler, “Reuse or Use? Theoretical and Practical Attitudes Toward Objects in the Early Middle Ages,” in Ideologie e pratiche del reimpiego nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 46 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1999), 1055–79, at 1063; Wolfgang Braunfels, Karl der Grosse: Werk und Wirkung (Aachen: L. Schwann, 1965), 19–26 and 31–32, cat. no. 9 a/b. 25 See Nancy Turner’s essay in this volume for an extended discussion of the metalworking techniques needed to create gilded manuscripts. In recent tests of gilding in Carolingian manuscripts, most tested points were found to be over 90% pure gold; the lowest percentage found was still over 80%. Charlotte Denoël, Patricia Roger Puyo, Anne-Marie Brunet, and Nathalie Poulain Siloe, “Illuminating the Carolingian Era: New Discoveries as a Result of Scientific Analyses,” Heritage Science 6, no. 28 (2018): 1–19, table 2; Kathleen P. Whitley, The Gilded Page: The History and Technique of Manuscript Gilding (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2010), esp. 57–60. 26 The earliest extant copy is ca. 800 (Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, Cod. 490), and reference to a copy appears in the ca. 821–822 catalogue of the library at Reichenau as the “mappae clavicula de efficiendo auro.” See Cyril Stanley Smith and John G. Hawthorne, “Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval Techniques,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 64, no. 4 (1974): 1–128, esp. 20–25. 27 J. Nutting and J. L. Nuttal, “The Malleability of Gold: An Explanation of Its Unique Mode of Deformation,” Gold Bulletin 10, no. 1 (1977): 2–8, at 7–8. Silver is not quite as soft, but it is still malleable enough to be easily turned into flexible sheets (sterling silver is 92.5% silver, alloyed with copper to make it harder).

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St. Eligius mentioned earlier, often made their non-metallic elements visible without ceasing to be considered metalwork.28 Solid metal was not automatically a statement of greater value or purity: the cast calf (vitulum conflatilem) built by the Israelites in Exodus is an idol, while the Ark of the Covenant, made of wood covered in gold (deauravit), is a sacred vessel for divine presence.29 The gold surface of a container conveyed meaning in itself, suggesting that something even better was inside, whether the saintly remains within reliquaries or the divine text within Gospel books.30

Illumination as Haptic Interface The relationship between manuscript illumination and metalwork made it possible for the Ada School Gospel books to use patterns of meaning and sensory response that were already in use for other metalwork. Once primed to notice the metals within the larger material context, we can see the possibility of the gold text not as mere painted demonstration of divine splendor, but as a responsive incarnation, something that signals active presence in the words. The gold and silver illumination could create cross-modal responses; that is, the visible material characteristics of metallic surfaces triggered haptic experience. These metallic surfaces created a seemingly tangible interface, a material container for the text that spoke through the page. Haptic experience is the way that we sense a physical connection to something through a combination of tactile and kinesthetic cues. A growing field of research in both theory and applied user experience design shows that physical contact is not necessary to induce haptic experience because the brain interprets some types of visual stimuli as tactile or kinesthetic without direct contact.31 This “pseudo-haptic feedback” gives users embodied sensations even when they are not touching the thing they are interacting with, as changes in the thing seem directly connected to

28 Cited in Beat Brenk, “Visibility and (Partial) Invisibility of Early Christian Images,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Giselle de Nie, Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 139–83, at 158. 29 Exodus 32:1–4 and 36:20–36. 30 The most complete explanation of this aspect of reliquaries is Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). 31 This kind of cross-modality is not limited to visual/haptic exchanges, but these seem to be particularly common. See Charles Spence and Jon Driver, eds., Crossmodal Space and Crossmodal Attention (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), esp. Paul Bertelson and Béatrice de Gelder, “The Psychology of Multimodal Perception,” 141–77. Although terms like multimodality are relatively new, the effect has long been recognized and exploited. See Mohan Matthen, “Is Perceptual Experience Normally Multimodal?,” Controversies in the Philosophy of Perception, ed. Bence Nanay (London: Routledge, 2016), 121–35, at 121.

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the user’s actions.32 Materiality is closely intertwined with haptic stimuli, because the way objects move, respond to force, and feel is usually closely related to material makeup.33 Metals like those used for reliquaries and in Gospel books turn out to be especially effective for eliciting haptic experiences through sight, because they have distinctive and consistent tactile qualities that are easily elicited from memory.34 The shine of metal is an especially potent haptic cue, as it conveys the smooth feel of the surface. In some cases, visual cues can override other sensory experience. In experiments, the sensation of touch can be easily induced through vision alone, and the brain will attempt to make the fingers feel what our eyes prompt us to feel.35 If the sense of material presence is strong enough, the brain will have a partial tactile response, a sense of physical proximity to an object they can “feel” through vision, even when the viewer is aware that they are not touching anything.36 Viewers’ previous experiences with metalwork thus helped associate visual cues with material sensations, especially since the visual characteristics of metals were so strongly related to their material qualities.37 Although the study of haptic perception is relatively recent, the connection between vision and touch has a much older history. Current explanations of haptic experience and cross-modality explain a mechanism for the affective response I describe, but medieval frameworks for sensory experience showed similar sensitivity to overlapping among the senses, especially in sacred contexts. These early medieval understandings of sensory experience help explain why the detailed and sensorially evocative depictions of the metallic surfaces of Gospel books might have been desirable and effective at enhancing the sense of these manuscripts as metalwork. Two primary models informed ideas about visual perception in the early medieval world, both inherited from classical sources.38 The extramission model, in which the eye emits light that touches an object and then returns to the mind, was

32 Anatole Lécuyer, “Simulating Haptic Feedback Using Vision: A Survey of Research and Applications of ‘Pseudo-Haptic Feedback’,” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 18, no. 1 (2009): 39–53, esp. 43–44. Haptic feedback typically involves actual touch, even if the feedback is not causally related to the action that sparks it, like clicking a mouse button to select an icon on a computer screen. An example of pseudo-haptic feedback would be the way that the movement in a video game changes depending on the simulated conditions, like road type. Players feel as though their physical interaction with the game has changed, even though the device they use has not changed resistance or manipulability. 33 Edward Adelson, “On Seeing Stuff: The Perception of Materials by Humans and Machines,” Proceedings of the SPIE 4299 (2001): 1–12, at 3. 34 Adelson, “On Seeing Stuff,” 6–7. 35 Groh, Making Space, 65, 67, and 170. 36 Lécuyer, “Simulating Haptic Feedback,” 44. 37 This process requires previous experience with the material; cross-modal sensations are not incited by vision with unfamiliar materials. Linda Hurcombe, “A Sense of Materials and Sensory Perception in Concepts of Materiality,” World Archaeology 39, no. 4 (2007): 532–45, at 537. 38 A review of the scholarship on medieval optical theories is found in Cynthia Hahn, “Vision,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph

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passed on via Augustine, and later Isidore of Seville and other Christian commentators, who envisioned a system in which the soul directed the reception of sensory input as a way of divining knowledge from limited earthly information.39 In the intromission model, the object itself was the light source, but the process also ended with light creating a physical imprint of the object on the brain. This latter model might have been particularly appropriate for sacred objects in any material, which were often described as glowing, and especially for metallic objects, which appear to shine of their own accord. Both models shared an understanding of vision as having commonalities with touch, and elements of both entered popular thought in varied versions.40 The mental image produced in models like these was a physical trace, not an insubstantial apparition.41 The Carolingian elites associated with the patronage and ownership of these manuscripts may have been familiar with theories of perception, but the concept of vision as a form of contact would also have been familiar to a wider audience, who recognized the value of simply seeing a reliquary or holy site even if they could not touch it.42 As Chris Woolgar explains, sight was understood to transmit multisensory and moral qualities, not merely images, and sacred objects or images were particularly effective at transmitting elements beyond the visual through the eyes.43 Visual perception of the pages of an illuminated Gospel book would be a form of embodied contact mediated by light that passed critical elements of its sanctity to the viewer.44

(Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010): 44–64, esp. 46–47. Although the volume focuses on later periods, Hahn discusses earlier medieval thought as well. 39 José Filipe Silva, “Augustine on Active Perception,” in Active Perception in the History of Philosophy, ed. José Filipe Silva and Mikko Yrjönsuuri (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014), 79–98. 40 Roland Betancourt has shown that the understanding of vision as touch has sometimes been taken too far by scholars, at least in the context of Byzantine studies. While Betancourt’s argument did not include Western medieval material and did not cite particular artworks, his point that sight was rarely seen as a type or species of touch, but rather was used in similar metaphors that emphasized the importance not just of viewing but comprehending, is relevant to the context of Carolingian art. Roland Betancourt, “Why Sight Is Not Touch: Reconsidering the Tactility of Vision in Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (2016): 1–24. 41 David Lindberg, “The Science of Optics,” in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. David C. Lindberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 338–69, at 349. 42 Cynthia Hahn notes an increasing physical distancing of people from cult sites and relics. Even the sight of such places was limited, heightening the desire for revelation and forcing a greater internal sensory experience as compensation. Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57 (2010): 284–316, at 305. 43 C. M. Woolgar, “What Makes Things Holy? The Senses and Material Culture in the Later Middle Ages,” in Sensing the Sacred in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, ed. R. Macdonald, Emilie K. M. Murphy, and Elizabeth L. Swann (London: Routledge, 2018), 60–78, at 61. 44 In a letter, Boniface asks for a gilded copy of Peter’s epistles: “Sic et adhuc deprecor, ut augeas quod coepisti, id est, ut mihi cum auro conscribas epistolas domini mei, sancti Petri apostoli, ad honorem et reverentiam sanctarum scripturarum ante oculos carnalium in praedicando, et quia dicta eius, qui me in hoc iter direxit, maxime semper in praesentia cupiam habere.” S. Bonifatii et

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The connection of the visible to the tangible was not without complications, as touch was typically considered the lowest of senses while sight was highly valued.45 Touch was earthly, a sense rooted fully in the body. However, touch was also the most convincing of the senses because of its directness; it was not associated with sensory trickery as vision was. This conflict between touch and sight makes the tactile features of the Ada School Gospel books particularly fascinating: they elicit touch’s immediacy without requiring actual contact. Such spiritual touch is similar to descriptions of tasting the Word of God, a cross-modal experience that combined the fleshly sense of taste with prayer.46 The sensation of tasting the Word gave immediacy to an abstract spiritual experience; in the same way, the viewer’s sensation of touching the text-based Word of God, an intimate experience achieved despite distance, added to the books’ sacred power. The conflation of indirect touch and sight has a theological basis in the “Doubting Thomas” episode in the Gospel of John (20:24–29). Beginning in late antiquity, Thomas’s need to touch Christ’s wounds was explained as a mechanism to help Christians have greater faith. Thomas’s expression of disbelief and its resolution gave Christians a vicarious proof of the complete corporeal resurrection of Christ.47 Patrick Crowley highlights the tactile associations of visual perception in the account of Thomas’s doubt, and the way exegetes like Augustine emphasized these synesthetic elements.48 Gregory the Great makes the connection between touch and belief a divinely engineered moment, asking rhetorically, “do you really believe

Lulli epistolae 35, in Ernst Dümmler, ed., Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini aevi, vol. 1, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae 3 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), 286. Ephraim Emerton’s commonly cited translation reads, “And I beg you further to add to what you have done already by making a copy written in gold of the Epistles of my master, St. Peter the Apostle, to impress honor and reverence for the Sacred Scriptures visibly upon the carnally minded to whom I preach. I desire to have ever present before me the words of him who is my guide upon this road.” The Letters of Saint Boniface, trans. Ephraim Emerton (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 42–43. Boniface actually refers to the “eyes of the flesh” (oculos carnalium), emphasizing the physical nature of vision, rather than just to carnal minds. 45 Louise Vinge, The Five Senses: Studies in a Literary Tradition (Lund: Berlingska Boktryckeriet, 1975), 19–20. Jacqueline Jung considers the roles of vision and touch for art objects and devotional practice, albeit for a later date. Jacqueline Jung, “The Tactile and the Visionary: Notes on the Place of Sculpture in the Medieval Religious Imagination,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2010), 203–40, esp. 210–11. 46 Carmela Vircillo Franklin, “Words as Food: Signifying the Bible in the Early Middle Ages,” in Comunicare e significare nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di Studio della Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 52 (Spoleto: Presso la sede della Fondazione, 2005), 733–64. Franklin describes a corporeal sensation that was more than symbolic. 47 Glenn W. Most, Doubting Thomas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 143–44. 48 Patrick R. Crowley, “Doubting Thomas and the Matter of Embodiment on Early Christian Sarcophagi,” Art History 41, no. 3 (2018): 566–91, at 572.

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Fig. 10: Initial with the Doubting Thomas. Drogo Sacramentary. Metz, ca. 826–855. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 9428, fol. 66r (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed?”49 The Doubting Thomas narrative appears in Carolingian manuscripts, such as an initial P in the Drogo Sacramentary (Fig. 10).50 Christ raises his arm, exposing his bare

49 Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, trans. Dom David Hurst (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), 207. “Nunquid casu gestum creditis, ut electus ille discipulus tunc deesset, post autem veniens audiret, audiens dubitaret, dubitans palparet, palpans crederet?” Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia 2.26.7 in Patrologia Latina 76 (Paris: Garnier, 1878), 1201. 50 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 9428, digitized at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/ 12148/btv1b60000332.

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Fig. 11: Evangelist symbols touching the header scroll over a canon table. Gospel Book of SaintMédard de Soissons. Court School of Charlemagne, early ninth century. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8850, fol. 9r (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

side, with the apostles looking on raptly. Thomas gestures toward Christ’s wound, his finger drawn larger than the entire hand of the apostle next to him. Tangibility, or rather, the staging of tangibility, becomes a way to reinforce Christ’s physical presence when the eyes might otherwise perceive only a ghost. Glenn Most points out the conflicted attitude toward touch in John’s account, noting that while Christ in fact tells Thomas to touch him, Thomas never actually does.51 Most identifies this as a “narrative aporia,” in which the power of touch to produce belief is central, but no touch actually occurs. Christ instead emphasizes the blessedness of those who have not seen, without mentioning touch: “Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29).52 The visual and auditory claim of tangibility provides the necessary presence without the need for bodily contact. The illumination of Carolingian Gospel books creates a parallel sense of touch by proxy. As Thomas’s words confirmed the tangibility of Christ’s wounds for those who only hear the Gospel, the virtual tangibility of the illumination produced by the evocation of metalwork also confirms the active presence of the Word without the

51 Most, Doubting Thomas, 50. 52 “Dixit ei Jesus: Quia vidisti me, Thoma, credidisti: beati qui non viderunt, et crediderunt.” English trans. in Douay-Rheims edition, www.drbo.org.

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violation of earthly touch by the viewer. While the viewer looks on, figures within the manuscripts intertwine with the text, seize inscribed scrolls, and point to letters, much as Thomas touches Christ’s side in the Drogo Sacramentary. A detail from the Soissons Gospels exemplifies the clarity and precision of these representations of touch, as the symbols of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke each grasp the banner with a grip appropriate to hands, claws, or hooves, their limbs bent as they push the text up into the arch (Fig. 11). The painted figures’ tactile interaction with text is a proxy for direct viewer contact.53 As Thomas’s touch emphasized the material body of Christ, the Gospel book figures’ touch heightens the material presence of the metallic texts. The sense of physical presence is enhanced as metallic surfaces like the illuminated letters seem to react in relation to movement, bringing in the kinesthetic aspect of haptic experience. Kinesthetic sensations arise from interaction or the appearance of interaction, when an object seems to respond to a viewer’s motions or a change in the environment. The gilded manuscript surface can seem to react to even minor lighting changes and to any motion of the page, of the viewer, or of other nearby objects. This use of shine to create presence is especially significant in the illuminated letters used for the text pages of the Gospel books, which look less like crafted metalwork than the letters of the incipits. The kinesthetic aspects of shiny metal are difficult to perceive in static photographs of manuscripts, especially those published as part of digital manuscript initiatives, which prioritize clear, linear forms. The practical need to keep the whole page in focus and to avoid glare or shadows works against the dynamic effects of the metals. The pages and their miniatures appear flatter than they do in person, and much of the textural richness and chromatic variation of both metal and pigment is lost. This deadening effect is especially strong in photographs of the Ada School Gospel books, with their extensive gilding. The blackened tarnish of the silver surfaces adds to the overall sense of dullness. This is perhaps most visible in the Matthew incipit of the Soissons Gospels, where the black splotches of tarnished silver have spread onto adjoining surfaces and make the center of the page appear dark and dull (see Fig. 1). In its original state, the brightness of the adjacent silver and gold at the center of the page would have heightened the focus on the word “Liber” and made the page almost entirely metallic. Further, in person, viewers would have perceived changes in the appearance of the gilded surface caused by their own bodily movements, flickering candlelight, or even passing clouds.

53 The text here is the label for the canon table, not sacred text in itself; however, the canon tables were designed as a system to convey to readers the underlying unity of the four Gospels and to highlight their single sacred source. The canon tables are thus a symbolic representation of the divine source of the four Gospels in addition to being a functional reference. This aspect of the canon tables is emphasized by other visual details, like the Fountain of Life that divides into four streams of water represented at the start of the canon tables.

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Texts that describe early medieval manuscripts and metal liturgical objects show how metals were experienced as active sources of light. Gold and silver were valued for their luminosity, a form of shine that was perceived not as a reflection, but as something emitted from the material itself.54 The word aurum itself related gold to aurora, the growing light of dawn, and other terms that meant “to shine” or “to glisten.”55 The curved or angled surfaces of reliquaries, patens, and chalices, like the gilded surfaces of manuscripts, created a variable reflection that seemed to move or react to the motion of viewers or nearby lights.56 This feature was critical for the experience of sacred objects as active sources of power. As noted by Patricia Cox Miller, early medieval sources frequently describe relics not just as shining, but as fiery.57 Reliquaries, which both veiled and amplified the flashing relics, were designed to replicate these coruscating surfaces.58 Gospel book inscriptions and dedications use language that invokes similar characteristics. Theodulf of Orléans, a key member of Charlemagne’s court and prolific writer about art, emphasized the value of incorporating shining materials in manuscript illumination. He bragged that his Bible “brightens” (splendescit) with its jewels, gold, and purple, but that the interior “glitters” (micat) even more; both these terms expressed the variability of the shining surface.59 The “glittering” interior refers to the spiritual luminosity of the Gospel text, not just to the illumination. Other inscriptions

54 Dominique Cardon, “Sensibilité aux couleurs des teinturiers d’autrefois: Manifestations, implications techniques et scientifiques,” in La couleur: Regards croisés sur la couleur du Moyen Age au XXe siècle, ed. Michel Pastoureau (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1994), 17–26, at 32; Peter Dronke, “Tradition and Innovation in Medieval Western Colour-Imagery,” in The Realms of Colour/Die Welt der Farben, ed. Adolf Portmann and Rudolf Ritsema (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 51–107, at 57; Herbert Kessler, “Image and Object: Christ’s Dual Nature and the Crisis of Early Medieval Art,” in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 291–319, at 318; and Brenk, “Visibility and (Partial) Invisibility,” 158. 55 Both words come from the Proto-Indo-European root au̯es-, meaning “to shine,” as does bronze; Indo-European Lexicon, Linguistics Research Center, UT Austin. https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/lex/master/ 0141#Lat. Isidore acknowledges these roots in his Etymologies (16.18, De auro); Barney et al., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 329–30. 56 The brain detects motion primarily by recognizing changes in surface lighting. Groh, Making Space, 95 and 98. 57 Patricia Cox Miller, “Relics, Rhetoric, and Mental Spectacles in Late Ancient Christianity,” in Nie, Morrison, and Mostert, Seeing the Invisible, 25–52, at 48. 58 Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” 310. 59 Cited in Adam Cohen, “Magnificence in Miniature: The Case of Early Medieval Manuscripts,” in Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 79–101, at 81. Shining, flashing, and gleaming are tied to senses other than the eyes, including those associated with hearing and touch. The definition of mico given by Lewis and Short includes references to vibrating, quivering, twinkling, flashing, and palpitating; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999. 04.0059:entry=mico. Theodulf’s Bible is extant, though without its original cover: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 9380.

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in manuscripts and on mosaics repeated this double luminosity of material glitter enhanced by spiritual radiance.60 Thomas Noble documents the importance of these metallic effects in the tituli alongside Carolingian wall paintings, noting the frequent appearance of words like “gleam,” “glow,” “glitter,” and “shine.”61 Today we are inclined to read these references to material radiance as metaphors for spiritual brilliance, but the luminance of sacred objects was a consistent and very literal expectation. In the vita of St. Eligius, a woman who saved some of the saint’s hair is awestruck to find the hair emitting a “great radiance luminously shining” (radiantia nimis micare luminaria) in a dark chest, with repeated adjectives emphasizing the relic’s glow as a functional attribute that was visible even to ordinary people’s eyes, not just a figurative trope to signal spiritual value.62 In story after story, this emission of light signals divine presence.63 The varied alloys and combinations of gold and silver used in the Gospel books increased the flickering quality of metallic reflection that was critical to the kinesthetic sense of presence. In an analysis of the reflectivity of silver and gold alloys, Paul Wessel quantified the reflectivity of different alloys, and also demonstrated that alloys reflect light slightly differently under different lighting conditions. Wessel’s experiments showed that gold is at its most reflective in relatively low light, and that its reflectivity drops off quickly as the light around it brightens; silver stays very reflective in moderately bright light, but then eventually drops to a lower reflectivity than gold.64 This means that when gold and silver are next to each other in changing light, they will seem to go back and forth in which is brighter. The varied alloys and colorations of gold added further variability of reflection, even when the color of the metal was only slightly different. This effect is strongest at relatively low levels of light, which is also when gold and silver reflect the highest proportion of the light directed at them, suggesting that the combination of gold and silver in the Gospel books would be particularly effective in a dark interior. In deep shadow, the illumination would reflect almost all of the available light, making it look brighter than its surroundings: this is the luminosity that is so prized in holy

60 Kessler, “Image and Object,” 295 and 318. 61 Thomas F. X. Noble, “Neither Iconoclasm nor Iconodulia: The Carolingian Via Media,” in Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Kristine Kolrud and Marina Prusac (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 95–105, at 99. 62 Vita Eligii episcopi Noviomagensis 2.68, in Krusch, Passiones vitaeque sanctorum, 735. English trans. by Jo Ann McNamara, “The Life of St. Eligius,” Medieval Sourcebook, https://sourcebooks. fordham.edu/basis/eligius.asp. 63 Mary C. Olson, Fair and Varied Forms: Visual Textuality in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts (New York: Routledge, 2003), xi; Giselle de Nie, “Divinos concipe sensus: Envisioning Divine Wonders in Paulinus of Nola and Gregory of Tours,” in Nie, Morrison, and Mostert, Seeing the Invisible, 69–117, at 103. 64 Paul R. Wessel, “Reflectivity of Silver-Gold Alloys in the Spectral Region 1.8–5.0 eV,” Physical Review 132, no. 5 (1963): 2062–64, at 2063.

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objects, the glow within that seems too bright to be caused by mere reflection. This would also make the text highly visible but not easily legible, as the shine would catch the eye but also create a fuzzy luminance around the shapes.65 If the light increased, perhaps as a candelabrum or lamp was lit nearby, or as the book was carried to a brighter spot, the reflectivity would decrease to a more manageable level. In this kind of environment, the letters would go into and out of focus as the light changed. If the light was increased around the Gospel book at the moment when it was read—for instance due to the approach of an acolyte holding a light or by changing the position of the book—the apparent transformation of the surface of the page from gold glow to visible letters might have seemed causally related to the sound of the Word. This would heighten the sense of haptic feedback, as the text responded to the celebrant’s motion in a proportional way, with the revelation of the words prompting the sounds of the Gospel text.

Conclusion The metal surfaces of the Ada School manuscripts were instrumental in the experience of the Gospel book as an active sacred presence. The illuminators’ replication of familiar features of metalwork heightened the sense of tangibility and triggered culturally appropriate expectations of precious metals, particularly the reliquaries, altar frontals, and other sacred objects typically found alongside these liturgical books. This experience required both awareness of metal as a physical substance and familiarity with metal objects, features that are emphasized in the books’ attention to surface texture, use of a variety of metal alloys, and recognizable reference not just to metal objects but to their layered, malleable structures. This metalwork created a haptic promise: something tangible was there, and even if the viewer could not touch it, they could perceive its power in the glittering light that shone forth from the text. Such uses of metallic surfaces are more than symbolic or devotional. Gold and silver worked on multiple levels to mobilize haptic response and reify divine text. In the context of the growing Carolingian devotion to

65 The liquid gold used before the twelfth century could not be burnished to the extent that gold leaf was in later manuscripts, and it produced a diffuse glow rather than intense specular reflection, a characteristic that would be especially notable in low-light situations. This gave it a fuzzy glow as the microfacets of the unburnished surface reflected light in all directions. Otto Loebich, “The Optical Properties of Gold: A Review of Their Technical Utilisation,” Gold Bulletin 5 (1972): 2–10; Eric Kirchner, Ivo van der Lans, Esther Perales, Francisco Martínez-Verdú, Joaquín Campos, and Alejandro Ferrero, “Visibility of Sparkle in Metallic Paints,” Journal of the Optical Society of America 32, no. 5 (2015): 921–27.

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the Gospel text as an appropriate focus for veneration, it is perhaps no wonder that metalwork was pressed into an expanded role beyond that already acknowledged for reliquaries.66 If a gold reliquary could show that a saint was present and responsive, that same golden material would be even more appropriate as an interface for experiencing divine presence in the Gospel text.

66 Theodulf, for example, included the Gospel text as one of the few res sacratae, the divinely ordained objects or images that could possess spiritual qualities in material form (others included the cross, relics, and the Eucharist). Celia Chazelle, “‘Not in Painting but in Writing’: Augustine and the Supremacy of the Word in the Libri Carolini,” in Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages, ed. Edward D. English (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995): 1–22, at 7.

Heidi C. Gearhart

A “Multimedia” Manuscript: Metalwork and the Siegburg Lectionary A tall, narrow manuscript in the British Library known as the Siegburg Lectionary, made ca. 1130–40, opens with six full-page images glowing with saturated blue and shiny gold.1 In the first opening, Peter stands on a blue field surrounded by a thick gold frame; on the recto opposite, Paul is set against a gold field framed in blue (Fig. 1). The composition and color scheme repeat in the next opening: James, placed upon a blue field bordered by gold, is opposite John, who gestures from a gold field thickly edged with blue. In the third opening the prophet Isaiah appears. Like Peter and James on the two prior versos, he is placed on a blue field with a gold frame. Across from him, Jesse lies shrouded in a coffin, a tree extending through his body. Seven branches sprout from the tree, and upon these branches hang seven golden medallions lined with silver bands inscribed with the names of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Fig. 2). Each page of this sequence—from Peter to Jesse— is framed by a slim burgundy border filled with a combination of vegetal patterns, vine scrolls, lozenges, circles, and squares. These single-figure compositions, with their lavish gold, deep blue backgrounds, and ornamental borders, might suggest enamel plaques set onto parchment. They are reminiscent, for instance, of those plaques that decorate the top and sides of the portable altar of Eilbertus, made probably in Cologne around the same time as the lectionary (ca. 1130). On the top of the altar, golden figures are set against blue squares framed in green; conversely, the prophets along the sides of the altar are colored in

Note: I am most grateful to Joseph Ackley and Shannon Wearing for their expert steering of this project and their many thoughtful remarks on this essay. I also wish to thank the authors of this volume who participated in the Zoom workshops in the summer of 2020 for their helpful comments and the anonymous reviewers of this essay for their valuable insights and suggestions. Dr. Thomas Foerster, of the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, and Dr. Harald Horst, of the Erzbischöfliche Diözesanund Dombibliothek Köln, generously provided me with images. Further funding for photographs came from George Mason University. 1 London, British Library, MS Harley 2889: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref= Harley_MS_2889. See A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–12), 2:718, no. 2889; Mauritius P. Mittler, ed., Das Siegburger Lektionar (Siegburg: Respublica-Verlag, 1979); and Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff, eds., Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt; Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang der Romanik (Munich: Hirmer, 2006), 2:399–401, cat. no. 492. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-008

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Fig. 1: Peter (left) and Paul (right). Siegburg Lectionary. Siegburg, ca. 1130–40. London, BL, Harley MS 2889, fols. 1v–2r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

white, blue, and red, and stand against a gold ground (Fig. 3a–b).2 Echoes of metalwork continue elsewhere in the manuscript: an initial F, for example, is painted in gold and decorated with circles resembling punch-marks or studs, while silver rectangular devices resembling clasps seem to fasten together the arms of the letter (Fig. 4). The connection between the Siegburg Lectionary and Cologne ars sacra has long been noted by scholars. Heinrich Ehl suggested a correspondence between the illuminations of the lectionary and Rhenish metalwork, using the likeness to attribute the manuscript to the region of Cologne, while Albert Böckler compared the illuminations to the work of the goldsmith Roger of Helmarshausen.3 Derek Howard Turner also

2 Compare also the champlevé enamel plaques of James and Jude, once part of a book cover or shrine, now in the British Museum, London (1850,1126.1.a and 1983,0304.1). 3 Heinrich Ehl, Die Ottonische Kölner Buchmalerei (Bonn: Schroeder, 1922), 241–46, at 245; Albert Böckler, Abendländische Miniaturen bis zum Ausgang der Romanischen Zeit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1930), 86.

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Fig. 2: Isaiah (left) and the Tree of Jesse (right). Siegburg Lectionary. Siegburg, ca. 1130–40. London, BL, Harley MS 2889, fols. 3v–4r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

noted the manuscript’s similarity to metalwork but did not use this as grounds for localization. Rather, on the basis of its dedication readings, he argued that the lectionary came from the abbey of Siegburg, which was founded twenty-seven miles south of Cologne by Anno, that city’s archbishop from 1056 to 1075.4 Turner’s attribution is now generally accepted, though it has not altered the manuscript’s affiliation with metalwork of the Rhineland. In an essay for the 1975 exhibition at the Schnütgen Museum celebrating Anno, Joachim Plotzek explored the legacy of the archbishop and argued for close artistic connections between Siegburg and Cologne, while in 2006 Andrea Worm suggested that the “parceled” style of the Siegburg manuscript and the works of Roger of Helmarshausen may in fact have been a sign of monastic reform, employed as an emulation of Italian and Byzantine works.5 4 Derek Howard Turner, “The Siegburg Lectionary,” Scriptorium 16 (1962): 16–27, at 20–21. 5 Joachim M. Plotzek, “Kölner und Siegburger Handschriften der romanischen Zeit,” in Monumenta Annonis: Köln und Siegburg; Weltbild und Kunst im hohen Mittelalter, ed. Anton Legner (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1975), 229–36; Andrea Worm, “‘Roger von Helmarshausen’ und der parzellierende

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Fig. 3: Portable altar of Eilbertus of Cologne, top (a) and side (b). Cologne (?), ca. 1130, oak, gilt copper, enamel, rock crystal, and painted parchment, 13.3 x 35.7 x 20.9 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstgewerbemuseum, W 11. Photos: bpk Bildagentur / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Jürgen Liepe (Fig. 3b) / Art Resource, NY.

Stil in der Buchmalerei an Rhein, Maas und Diemel,” in Schatzkunst am Aufgang der Romantik, ed. Christoph Stiegemann and Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen (Munich: Hirmer, 2006), 112–22, esp. 114–16.

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Fig. 4: Initial “F” (left) and Three Marys at the Tomb (right). Siegburg Lectionary. Siegburg, ca. 1130–40. London, BL, Harley MS 2889, fols. 40v–41r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

The idea that a manuscript could be so indebted to contemporary metalwork is intriguing, yet the comparison has largely been used to group objects stylistically. Scholars have yet to sufficiently investigate how visual motifs and strategies might cross modern boundaries of media, and how such intermedial patterns of reference might have been understood by medieval viewers. In the following pages, I reconsider the decoration of the Siegburg Lectionary, examining it in light of both manuscript and metalwork traditions. The illuminations do, in some way, emulate metalwork; yet they are also evidence that motifs and strategies were continually exchanged across media, moving from painting to metalwork and back again. Moreover, the artists’ interest in different ornamental and technical strategies was not merely superficial: in the Siegburg Lectionary this visual borrowing or crossreferencing structures the manuscript and heightens varietas, inviting the reader to contemplate both the form and the content of the work.

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Varietas The readings in the Siegburg Lectionary chart the liturgical year, from Christmas Eve to All Saints’ Day, and include texts from the prophets, the Epistles, and the Acts of the Apostles. These are followed by the Common of Saints, directions and texts for the Mass, and masses and matins for the dead. Because it contained readings from the Epistles rather than the Gospels, the lectionary would likely have been read by a lower order of monk. It also may have been used for study, or prized as an ornament, a testament to the piety and status of Siegburg. In addition to the prefatory images, the manuscript contains three full-page illuminations. The Three Holy Women at the Tomb introduce the feast of Easter (fol. 41r), St. Maurice appears at the reading for the dedication of the church (fol. 66v), and St. Michael appears in conjunction with the reading for Michaelmas (fol. 68r) (Figs. 4–6). Full-page decorated incipits mark the primary feasts of Christmas (fol. 5v), Epiphany (fol. 12r), Easter (fol. 41v), Pentecost (fol. 50r), and Michaelmas (fol. 68v), while smaller initials introduce the minor feasts. Most of the lectionary was copied by a single hand, with short additions made by two other scribes, and the drawings and coloration were done by two.6 The result is a stylistic cohesion which allows for a clearer assessment of the variety of images within. A delight in variety is a key characteristic of twelfth-century art. In his treatise On Diverse Arts (De diversis artibus), written in the early twelfth century in northern Germany, the monk Theophilus couches the recognition of variety in a work of art as part of the practice of vision, which gives the viewer “cause to praise the Creator in the creature and proclaim Him wonderful in His works.”7 Variety thus carried Christian meaning.8 Yet it also implied far more. Variety, as Mary Carruthers has shown, is a prime element of medieval aesthetics, for it prompts ductus, a term that “models artistic experience as a journey undertaken by means of the varying and various pathways in a work, marked out by its stylistic elements.”9 Such variety

6 Mittler, Das Siegburger Lektionar, xxi–xxii. 7 “quodque Creatorum Deum in creatura laudant et mirabilem in operibus suis praedicant, effecisti.” Theophilus, De diversis artibus/The Various Arts, trans. and ed. C. R. Dodwell (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1961), 63. See Heidi C. Gearhart, Theophilus and the Theory and Practice of Medieval Art (University Park: Penn State Press, 2017), at 132–35. 8 Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 135–64; Mary Carruthers, “Varietas: A Word of Many Colours,” Poetica 41, nos. 1–2 (2009): 11–32. See also William J. Diebold, “Medium as Message in Carolingian Writing about Art,” Word & Image 22, no. 3 (2006): 196–201. 9 Carruthers, “Varietas,” 12; see also Carruthers, “The Concept of Ductus, or Journeying through a Work of Art,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 190–213.

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Fig. 5: St. Maurice. Siegburg Lectionary. Siegburg, ca. 1130–40. London, BL, Harley MS 2889, fol. 66v. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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Fig. 6: St. Michael. Siegburg Lectionary. Siegburg, ca. 1130–40. London, BL, Harley MS 2889, fol. 68r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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alleviated taedium, helping monks perform their duties without boredom, particularly in the practice of reading.10 Varietas also pertained to divisions of media. As recent scholarship has shown, art in the Middle Ages did not adhere to modern artistic categories; on the contrary, works comprised multiple materials and crafts, as if reveling in the fluidities of multisensory experience. As Paul Binski has pointed out, this aesthetic “paid little or no heed to the objects of such apprehension in regard to difference of medium: architecture, metalwork, mosaic, sculpture, glass, marble, paint, all are part of an aesthetic regime that viewed and relished multiple aesthetic effect, varietas, without analyzing it into component parts.”11 Theophilus comes to a similar point: for even as he divides his treatise into three books, differentiating between the arts of painting, glass, and metalwork, he allows for, and even encourages, simulation for the sake of effect. Having described to his reader how to apply gold leaf, for example, Theophilus proceeds to discuss tinfoil, in case “you have no gold,” and how one might dye it so it “take[s] on the colour of gold.”12 At the end of his third prologue he praises a similar transmutation of media: “if [the human eye] beholds the ceilings,” he writes, “they glow like brocades; if it considers the walls they are a kind of paradise; if it regards the profusion of light from the windows, it marvels at the inestimable beauty of the glass and the infinitely rich and various workmanship.”13 Varietas, then, could be found both in the variation of media and in the substitution, or simulation, of one media for another. It put a value on artistic skill, and demanded attention to it. Varietas was not merely superficial visual change, however. Theophilus continues this passage to explain how all of this varietas leads a viewer toward a climactic, sympathetic response: “But if, perchance, the faithful soul observes the representation of the Lord’s Passion expressed in art, it is stung with compassion.”14 In this section Theophilus gives a sense of what art might look like, but notably, he doesn’t describe anything. As Carruthers suggests, his aesthetic is instead based on the viewer’s experience of the work, the “journey” through it. As we shall see, varietas is a driving force in the Siegburg Lectionary. It invites the viewer to recognize elements of metalwork in the manuscript, and employs a visual language that cuts across divisions between media. The variety found within the manuscript may well have been a means to both alleviate the taedium 10 Carruthers, “Varietas,” 15, 22–23. 11 Paul Binski, “The Heroic Age of Gothic and the Metaphors of Modernism,” Gesta 52, no. 1 (2013): 3–19, at 12. 12 “Quod si aurum non habueris”; “quod aureolum colorem sufficienter trahant.” Theophilus, De diversis artibus, 22–23. 13 “Si respicit laquearia, vernant quasi pallia; si consideret parietes, est paradysi species, si luminis abundantiam ex fenestris intuetur, inestimabilem vitri decorum et operis pretiosissimi varietatem miratur.” Theophilus, De diversis artibus, 63. 14 “Quod si forte Dominicae passionis effigiem liniamentis expressam conspicatur fidelis anima, compungitur.” Theophilus, De diversis artibus, 63–64.

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experienced by the monastic reader and display the skill of the artists, inviting the sense of wonder in simulation that Theophilus describes. Formal and technical differentiations also create structure in the book. Images vary in subtle ways, enabling a practice of reading that invites comparisons, that goes forward as well as backward, and that hews multiple paths through the text, so that a reader might return to reread various passages, forging mental relations across different parts of the volume.

The Abbey and Its Manuscripts Perched forty meters above the winding river Sieg, the abbey of Siegburg was founded in 1064. Archbishop Anno had initially filled his institution with monks from the abbey of St. Maximin in Trier, a leading force in the Gorze reforms, appointing Erpho of Gorze as abbot. He soon replaced them, however, with monks from Fruttuaria, an Italian abbey founded by the Cluniac reformer William of Volpiano in 1003. Only Abbot Erpho was retained.15 The result was a new, so-called “mixed” observance: Siegburg adopted Fruttuaria’s strict customs, sought freedom from lay control, and chose its own abbot, but, as the foundation of an archbishop, it also preserved the close ties to ecclesiastical hierarchy that were a hallmark of Gorze.16 By the time the Siegburg Lectionary was made Anno and his successors had spread their mixed observance throughout the greater region. Anno founded the monasteries of Saalfeld (1071) and Grafschaft (1072), and reformed the great abbey of St. Pantaleon (1070), while Kuno, who served as abbot from 1105 to 1126, reformed Deutz (ca. 1110) and Gladbach (by 1120), and founded the abbey of Nonnenwerth (ca. 1110).17 Little remains of what must have been an extensive library and liturgical book collection at Siegburg.18 Thirty-two surviving manuscripts have been attributed to the

15 Erich Wisplinghoff, Die Benediktinerabtei Siegburg (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), 21–22. 16 Joseph Semmler, “Die Siegburger Klosterreform,” in Legner, Monumenta Annonis, 45–56; Franz Neiske, “Fruttuaria e gli ambienti monastici dell’area germanica,” in Il monachesimo del secolo XI nell’Italia nordoccidentale, ed. Alfredo Lucioni (Cesena: Badia di Santa Maria del Monte, 2010), 309–28, at 314–15. 17 Josef Semmler, Die Klosterreform von Siegburg: Ihre Ausbreitung und ihr Reformprogramm im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert (Bonn: L. Röhrscheid, 1959), 143–46; Benjamin Laqua, “Siegburger Reformklöster und Kölner Stadtgemeinde im 12. Jahrhundert,” Geschichte in Köln 59 (2012): 79–104. On reforms more generally, see Stephen Vanderputten, Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900–1100 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017); and Alison I. Beach, The Trauma of Monastic Reform: Community and Conflict in Twelfth-Century Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 18 Wisplinghoff, Benediktinerabtei Siegburg, 28–50.

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abbey, but of these, just five were made prior to the canonization of Anno in 1183.19 Given the high status of Siegburg in the early twelfth century, its close connections to a number of abbeys in the region, and the book’s liturgical use, it is perhaps no surprise that the decorative program of the Siegburg Lectionary should be so rich. Yet a look at the other manuscripts with which the lectionary is grouped suggests that its decorative program is something special. Aside from the lectionary, five manuscripts from the second quarter of the twelfth century can be connected to Siegburg or its dependencies:20 a manuscript of Rupert of Deutz’s De victoria verbi Dei;21 a copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica from Great St. Martin’s in Cologne;22 a martyrology and rule from the abbey of Gladbach, once part of a larger Necrologium Gladbacense;23 a fragment of Hugo of Saint Victor’s De tribus diebus, likely once kept at Siegburg itself;24 and a copy of Rupert of Deutz’s De divinis officiis, which was likely brought to St. Emmeram by Kuno when he became bishop of Regensburg in 1126.25 None of these books employ the same combination of technical variation and metalwork-like motifs seen in the Siegburg Lectionary. The initials of the De victoria verbi Dei, for example, are filled with curving, overlapping tendrils ornamented with clasps and studs that might evoke metalwork, but the artists have used neither gold nor silver, just pen and ink.26 The Historia Ecclesiastica, meanwhile, opens with a dedication page on which St. Martin presents a kneeling monk, who offers a copy of the book to the patron of the abbey, St. Eliphius (fol. Iv). The blue and green background might be compared to the Siegburg Lectionary’s image of the Three Marys at the Tomb; yet the only gold in the manuscript appears on the halos of

19 These are Brussels, KBR, MS 1352; a fragment of a Latin glossary still in Siegburg; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14055; and Cologne, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, 09/68. See Wisplinghoff, Benediktinerabtei Siegburg, 13–15, 18–20; Matthias M. Tischler, “Eine unbekannte zeitgenössische Handschrift von Hugos von Sankt Viktor Werk ‘De tribus diebus’ aus Siegburg: Beobachtungen zur frühen Verbreitung Viktoriner Theologie zwischen Paris, dem Rheinland und Südostdeutschland,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 126 (2018): 110–17; and Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:399, cat. no. 491. 20 Böckler, Abendländische Miniaturen, 86; Turner, “The Siegburg Lectionary,” 16; Joachim M. Plotzek, “Kölner und Siegburger Handschriften,” 229–36. 21 Munich, BSB, Clm 14055: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00033095/im ages/index.html. 22 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep. I 58a (Leihgabe Leipziger Stadtbibliothek): https://digital. ub.uni-leipzig.de/object/viewid/0000011985. 23 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.563; Mönchengladbach, Archiv, MS 9. 24 Cologne, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, 09/68. See Tischler, “Eine unbekannte zeitgenössische Handschrift,” 110–17; and Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:399, cat. no. 491. 25 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14355: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/ 0004/bsb00046570/images/index.html. See Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:398–99, cat. no. 490. 26 Turner, “The Siegburg Lectionary,” 19–20; Böckler, Abendländische Miniaturen, 32; Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa 2:397–98, cat. no. 389.

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Christ and the Evangelist symbols on the following verso (fol. 1v), and the initials betray few clasps, and no circular punches (fols. 2r, 155r, 169r). Stylistic similarities suggest that these manuscripts may have been produced at a single scriptorium.27 Perhaps Siegburg produced manuscripts for monasteries in its reforming circle, or its artists traveled and illuminated manuscripts at other sites. But the differences in the group reveal that the deployment of metalworking motifs seen in the lectionary was not, in early twelfth-century Siegburg, standard practice.

Lectionaries and Their Decoration The manuscript’s similarity to metalwork does not appear to be characteristic of lectionary illumination either. It is the only liturgical manuscript to survive from Siegburg from the era prior to Anno’s canonization in 1183, and when compared to other lectionaries of the eleventh- and twelfth-century Holy Roman Empire, it is distinct in both content and decoration.28 Some Gospel lectionaries contained extensive image programs, such as one from the abbey of St. Peter at Salzburg made ca. 1070–90, with its sixteen golden full-page illuminations and richly painted incipits.29 Twelfth-century volumes were somewhat less ornate: a Gospel lectionary likely made at St. Maximin’s in Trier or Hirsau, for example, contains just four full-page images marking the major Christian feasts.30 Meanwhile, lectionaries containing readings for the Mass that were not from the Gospels varied widely in content, and as Janet Backhouse has noted, lectionaries of this type were rarely illuminated.31 One example, copied at Hirsau in the first half of the twelfth century, contains readings from the Gospels as well as the Epistles and the Common of Saints; its initials are illuminated, but nothing else.32

27 Carl Nordenfalk, review of Die Ottonische Kölner Malerschule, by Peter Bloch and Hermann Schnitzler, Kunstchronik 24, no. 10 (1971): 292–309; Joshua O’Driscoll, “Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts from Ottonian Cologne” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2015), 3–51. 28 Wisplinghoff, Benediktinerabtei Siegburg, 13–16. 29 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.780. Meta Harrsen, Central European Manuscripts in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1958), 19–20, cat. no. 10, plates 5, 25, 26, 83. 30 London, British Library, Egerton MS 809: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref= Egerton_MS_809. See also Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa 2:288–90, cat. no. 399; and Peter Bloch and Hermann Schnitzler, Die Ottonische Kölner Malerschule (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1967), 2:100. 31 Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (London: British Library, 1997), 48, cat. no. 33. 32 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Liturg. 324. Falconer Madan, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), 382, cat. no. 19413; Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 1:5, cat. no. 63.

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Fig. 7: Peter and Paul. Lectionary of Archbishop Everger. Cologne, ca. 985–989. Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 143, fol. 4r. Photo: Courtesy of the Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cologne.

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Another manuscript, from Liège, contains readings from the Old and New Testaments and the Common of Saints, but is not decorated at all.33 Finally, an epistolary containing the letters of the Church Fathers, made in Cologne for Archbishop Frederick around 1130, opens with the book’s lone full-page illumination, which displays Frederick seated beneath Christ and surrounded by apostles, prophets, and the four virtues.34 Seen in relation to these lectionaries, the content and decorative program of the Siegburg Lectionary emerges as rather unusual. There is just one extant manuscript which could have been a model for the Siegburg book. The Lectionary of Archbishop Everger was made ca. 985–999 in Cologne, and has been in the collection of the cathedral since at least the fifteenth century (Fig. 7).35 This manuscript contains readings very close to that of Siegburg—including texts from the Old Testament and letters from the apostles—and, as noted by Turner, the manuscripts are stylistically related.36 It is certainly possible that the artists or patron of the Siegburg Lectionary looked to the Lectionary of Archbishop Everger, for even after the death of its founder Siegburg retained close ties with the Cologne archbishops. The Siegburg manuscript goes beyond the Cologne lectionary in its decoration, however: the earlier manuscript contains only two full-page illuminations, one of the archbishop prostrate in prayer, and the other of Peter and Paul, who sit enthroned on the opposite recto.37 It also does not contain any imagery that might be construed as a reference to metalwork. On the whole, therefore, there was no clear tradition to dictate either the texts or decorative program of Siegburg’s lectionary. Both were highly variable. Only the Lectionary of Everger might have served as a reference, perhaps chosen for its link to a Cologne archbishop. Our manuscript, then, was no doubt made to suit the particular wishes of the abbey and patron. A closer look at particular elements of its illumination may bring some of these desires to light.

33 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 87. Diane Warne Anderson and Jonathan Black, The Medieval Manuscripts of the Cologne Cathedral Library, vol. 1, Mss. 1–100 (Collegeville, MN: Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, 1997), cat. no. 87; Judith Oliver, entry for Cod. 87, Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis, Cologne: http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/. 34 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 59. Anton Legner, ed., Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800–1400 (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1972), 1:302, cat no. J41. 35 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 143. See especially Bloch and Schnitzler, Malerschule, 1:13–25, cat. no. 1; O’Driscoll, “Image and Inscription,” 11–15; and Joachim M. Plotzek and Ulrike Surmann, eds., Glaube und Wissen im Mittelalter: Die Kölner Dombibliothek (Munich: Hirmer, 1998), 390. 36 Turner, “Siegburg Lectionary,” 21. 37 Plotzek and Surmann, Glaube und Wissen, 385–92, cat. no. 80.

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Fig. 8: Underside of the portable altar of Eilbertus of Cologne. Cologne (?), ca. 1130. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstgewerbemuseum, W 11. Photo: bpk Bildagentur / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Art Resource, NY.

A Likeness to Metalwork? Some decorative elements of the Siegburg Lectionary clearly evoke ars sacra, and it is worth examining them in detail. Throughout the manuscript, clasps and punches appear on initials. The golden strips that form the letter “F” on folio 40v, for example, are fastened with silver clasp-like bands and ornamented by small circular punches, like those seen on the bottom of the capitals of the Eilbertus Altar, while a curving golden vine with silver leaves sprouts from the base of the letter, weaving through and around its horizontal bars. In other cases, color schemes and patterns suggest vernis brun, a technique wherein gilded patterns are set against areas of oilvarnished copper, creating a metallic palette of gold and brown. On folio 68r, St. Michael and two other angels wield their weapons in a blue medallion encircled in gold, while dragons, colored in shades of pinkish red and gray, writhe against a burgundy background below. The monochromatic color scheme and circular medallion on a decorated frame recalls the technique and coloration of vernis brun used on the underpanel of the Eilbertus Altar (Fig. 8). This plaque is decorated with a series of golden circles on a burgundy ground, punctuated at its center by a golden

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Fig. 9: Medallion with the personification of Justice (mounted on a late medieval or early modern treasure binding). Mosan, mid-twelfth century. Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kg 54:212. Photo: © HLMD (Wolfgang Fuhrmannek).

rectangle inscribed with the name of the patron or goldsmith (EILBERTVS COLONIENSIS ME FECIT), and framed by another band of gold along its perimeter.38 Moreover, with the exception of the Three Marys at the Tomb and St. Maurice, each of the manuscript’s illuminations is framed by a wide band of burgundy on which appear a variety of vegetal and gemlike geometric motifs. Such a sequencing of gems and scrolls on a border is a hallmark of contemporary metalwork. For example, the portable altar of Henry of Werl, bishop of Paderborn, alternates circular and rectangular gems with squarish four-lobed flowers of gold in its decorative border,39 while the crossed squares in the frame around Paul echo the gold-and-niello 38 See also the underside of the Stavelot Altar: Susanne Wittekind, “Der Stabloer Tragaltar: Amtsreflexion und theologische Kommunikation,” chap. 2 in Altar – Reliquiar – Retabel: Kunst und Liturgie bei Wibald von Stablo (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), 51–172; Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:419, cat. no. 506. 39 Ursula Mende, “Goldschmiedekunst in Helmarshausen,” in Helmarshausen: Buchkultur und Goldschmiedekunst im Hochmittelalter, ed. Ingrid Baumgärtner (Kassel: Euregioverlag, 2003), 163–98.

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squares decorating the abacus of each capital on the sides of the Eilbertus Altar (see Fig. 3b).40 Even the borders filled with scrolls—like those of the Isaiah, Tree of Jesse, and Michael pages—have a corollary in metalwork, as exemplified by the vernis brun underpanel of a portable altar from Stavelot made ca. 1150–58.41 The Tree of Jesse image may also evoke aspects of Romanesque metalwork. Here seven medallions painted in gold and silver hang from the tree of Jesse as if they were magical coins emerging from lively branches. There are few examples of images of the Tree of Jesse before ca. 1140, and among those that do survive, even fewer contain medallions.42 Closer, perhaps, is a Mosan enamel decorated with a personification of Justice, made in the middle of the twelfth century and now mounted onto a book cover in Darmstadt. Dressed in blue and green with a green halo, she emerges from a blue ground holding golden scales, her name (IVSTICIA) inscribed into the golden frame (Fig. 9).43 These examples suggest that the artists of the Siegburg Lectionary were likely looking at local, contemporary metalwork and knew its various ornamental techniques, from gem settings to crossed squares to punches. Indeed, they may have even been trained in these metalworking techniques. The similarities between the lectionary and the Eilbertus Altar are especially telling, for a small parchment painting installed beneath a slab of rock crystal on its top panel is thought to have been made by the painter of a book of Gospels from the abbey of Mönchengladbach, a Siegburg foundation; the Eilbertus Altar, then, may well have been made for an institution associated with Siegburg, or by an artist who worked within the abbey’s sphere.44 Monastic viewers too may have recognized certain elements of decoration in manuscripts as typical of metalwork, evoking memories of the highly precious liturgical objects they knew from their own abbey treasury, or from treasuries nearby. Yet other characteristics of the manuscript are more ambiguous, and find echoes in a broader variety of media; they suggest that these works shared a common visual language.

40 Compare also the Modoaldus Cross, made by Roger of Helmarshausen: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:408, cat. no. 497. 41 Brussels, Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1590. 42 An early example with medallions (though without silver and gold) is found in the Bible of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 2, fol. 148r: https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/consult/ consult.php?reproductionId=7442. See also Yolanta Załuska, Manuscrits enluminés de Dijon (Paris: CNRS, 1991), 132–36, no. 104. On the iconography, see Margot Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity, Fulbert of Chartres, and the Stirps Jesse: Liturgical Innovation circa 1000 and Its Afterlife,” Speculum 75, no. 2 (2000): 389–434; and Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 77–82, 85–87, 105, plates II, III, XIX. 43 Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra: 800–1200, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 179. 44 The Mönchengladbach Gospel book is now Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Cod. 508 (AE 680). On its connection to the Eilbertus Altar, see Lasko, Ars Sacra, 180; and Hanns Swarzenski, Monuments of Romanesque Art: The Art of Church Treasures in North-Western Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 57.

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The Opening Sequence As we have seen, the standing figures occupying the opening pages of the Siegburg Lectionary—four apostles and the prophet Isaiah—echo closely the composition of solitary, erect figures on enamel plaques being made in the region of Cologne at this time, like those on the sides of the Eilbertus Altar (see Fig. 3b), or, similarly, on the sides of the Heribert Shrine, made for the abbey of Deutz around 1140.45 Yet while such sequences of single figures occur commonly on objects of ars sacra, they are rare among Ottonian and Romanesque manuscripts of the Holy Roman Empire. The closest parallels I have found include the Gospel book from St. Maria in Lyskirchen (ca. 1000);46 the Evangeliary from St. Aposteln, Cologne (ca. 1140);47 and the St. Pantaleon Gospels (ca. 1140–50).48 In the first, full-length portraits of Mary and John the Baptist occupy folios 22r and 72r; in the second, John and Peter stand together within a double rectangular frame on folio 13r; and in the third, a full-length standing figure of St. Pantaleon appears on folio 10v. Only the book from St. Maria in Lyskirchen clearly predates our manuscript; the other two are contemporary with it. Yet in none of these manuscripts are the figures presented sequentially as part of a prefatory cycle. In terms of this arrangement, the closest comparison I have found comes from England. The Sherborne (or Dunstan) Pontifical, a guide for the liturgical offices of the bishop illustrated in the 970s or 980s in Dorset and by the eleventh century at Notre-Dame, Paris, presents a sequence of three standing figures across three folia at the start of the volume, each depicting a version of Christ.49 Dunstan was known in England and on the continent for his efforts in regularizing English

45 See especially Hermann Schnitzler, Der Schrein des Heiligen Heribert (Mönchengladbach: B. Kühlen, 1962), 9; Martin Seidler, Der Schrein des Heiligen Heribert in Köln-Deutz (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2016); and Michael Budde, “Altare Portatile: Kompendium der Tragaltäre des Mittelalters, 600–1600” (PhD diss., Westfälisches Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 1997), 313–32, cat. no. 54. 46 Cologne, St. Georg, Schatzkammer, s.n. See Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, “Liturgische Prachthandschriften der Romanik in Köln,” in Schatzkunst und Schatzorte in den romanischen Kirchen Kölns, ed. Margrit Jüsten-Mertens (Cologne: Greven, 2015), 72–92; and Bloch and Schnitzler, Malerschule, 1:113–28, cat. no. 20. 47 Cologne, Stadtarchiv, W244. 48 Cologne, Stadtarchiv, W312a. For the St. Aposteln and St. Pantaleon manuscripts see Legner, Monumenta Annonis, 236, cat. no. G3; Plotzek, “Kölner und Siegburger Handschriften,” 231, 236; Plotzek, “Zur Rheinischen Buchmalerei im 12. Jahrhundert,” in Legner, Rhein und Maas, 2:305–32 (esp. 327–28), and 1:308–9, cat. no. J42; and Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa 2:401–2, cat. no. 493. 49 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 943, fols. 5v, 6r, 6v: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/ 12148/btv1b6001165p. See especially Jane E. Rosenthal, “Three Drawings in an Anglo-Saxon Pontifical: Anthropomorphic Trinity or Threefold Christ?,” Art Bulletin 63, no. 4 (1981): 547–62; and Claire Breay and Joanna Story, eds. Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War (London: British Library 2018), 314–15, cat. no. 125.

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abbeys, and it is likely that the monks of Siegburg, themselves steeped in the lore of reform, knew of him.50 Yet while the pontifical’s images may provide a precedent for the Siegburg Lectionary, it is by no means certain. The Sherborne Pontifical is an exceptional manuscript, and there is no evidence that cycles such as these, with solitary standing figures, were a wider phenomenon. The cover of the Siegburg codex may provide a clue as to why the artists chose to open the volume with solitary figures. Currently attached to the nineteenth-century cover of the lectionary is an eleventh-century ivory of St. Matthew, which likely decorated the original cover of the volume. Standing against a plain background, holding a codex, and framed in acanthus leaves, this solitary Evangelist recalls the prefatory apostles within the book (Fig. 10).51 The origin of the ivory remains unknown, but it has been attributed to Italy or Byzantium.52 Perhaps it was brought to Siegburg with the monks from Fruttuaria, in which case its Italian provenance might have served as a reminder of the abbey’s reformist roots. Sequences of standing figures do appear in early Italian art. The sixth-century mosaic program of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, which had been reformed by William of Volpiano in 1007, provides a key example.53 Here, between the windows of the clerestory, solitary apostles stand on tufts of green against a gold background, each housed within an ornamented rectangular frame. A similar series dating ca. 1000 occurs on the upper walls of St. George in Reichenau-Oberzell, where twelve apostles were painted in the spaces between the windows (Fig. 11).54 Perhaps the artists and patrons of the Siegburg Lectionary were looking at the ivory of the cover when designing the preface, or perhaps they knew Sant’Apollinare Nuovo—another Fruttuarian abbey —or St. George. There was certainly knowledge of Sant’Apollinare at Siegburg, for

50 Douglas Dales, Dunstan: Saint and Statesman (1988; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2013); Julia Barrow, “The Chronology of the Benedictine ‘Reform,’” in Edgar, King of the English, 959–975: New Interpretations, ed. Donald Scragg (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008), 211–23; Nicola Robertson, “Dunstan and Monastic Reform: Tenth-Century Fact or Twelfth-Century Fiction?,” Anglo-Norman Studies XXVIII. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2005, ed. C. P. Lewis (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2006), 153–67. 51 See Humfrey Wanley, “Catalogus Brevior,” London, British Library, Add. MS 45708. My thanks to Dr. Eleanor Jackson for bringing this source to my attention. Compare also Trier, Domschatz, Hs. 139/110/68: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, eds., Canossa, 2:410–12, cat. no. 500. 52 Ormonde Maddock Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era with Examples of Mohammedan Art and Carvings in Bone in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1909), 50–51, no. 52, plate 27; Miriam Foot, Pictorial Bookbindings (London: British Library, 1986), 46, plate 43. 53 See especially Philibert Schmitz, Geschichte des Benediktinerordens (Einsiedeln-Zurich: Benziger, 1947–60) 1:168, and Gregorio Penco, “Il movimento di Fruttuaria e la riforma gregoriana,” in Il monachesimo e la riforma ecclesiastica (1049–1122): Atti della quarta Settimana internazionale di studio Mendola, 23–29 agosto 1968 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1971), 385–95. 54 Kōichi Koshi, Die frühmittelalterlichen Wandmalereien der St. Georgskirche zu Oberzell auf der Bodenseeinsel Reichenau (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1999), 1:184–88.

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Fig. 10: Ivory with St. Matthew, cover of the Siegburg Lectionary. Italy or Byzantium (?), eleventh century. London, BL, Harley MS 2889/1. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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Fig. 11: Nave wall painting of standing apostles. Reichenau-Oberzell, St. George, ca. 1000. Photo: Wikimedia (Allie_Caulfield), CC BY 2.0.

Anno had visited Ravenna in 1068.55 Rather than strictly a reference to metalwork, it may be that the motif of standing apostles was intended to hark back to late antique precedent and allude to Siegburg’s reforming agenda, its Fruttuarian roots, and its desire to return to stricter apostolic models of observance.

“Boxed” Backgrounds Unlike the figures of the opening preface, the depictions of the Tree of Jesse, the Three Marys, and St. Maurice appear in muted colors against a blue and green background. Sometimes referred to as “boxed” or “paneled” backgrounds, these frames within frames are found in twelfth-century metalwork from the Rhineland and in

55 See Neiske, “Fruttuaria”; Legner, Monumenta Annonis, 32–33; and Worm, “Roger von Helmarshausen,” 114–16.

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manuscripts produced on the continent and in England.56 In metalwork, they were often combined with engraved figures, so that the monochromatic figures and the linear qualities of the engraving would stand out.57 The top of the Eilbertus Altar, for example, comprises six champlevé enamel plaques surrounding a central panel of rock crystal, which is set as a window upon an illuminated Christ in Majesty (see Fig. 3a). Each enamel plaque is divided into square compartments featuring engraved and gilt figures. Of the twelve apostles, eight sit against a blue square framed in green, while those in the four corners sit in front of expanding squares in shades of mottled green, blue, and purply gray. Scenes from the life of Christ appear in the panels on the left and right ends, where the figures are placed against blue squares framed in green; in the Resurrection scene, Christ likewise appears within a blue and green mandorla.58 Like the sequenced apostles, these backgrounds have a more complex history than may first appear, and have many precedents in painting. The apostles of St. George, Oberzell, for example, stand against a striated background with broad swaths of blue and green, which Otto Pächt argued was an Ottonian modification of the more fluid late antique and Carolingian depictions of pictorial space.59 Charles Reginald Dodwell and others have suggested that the two colors derive from Byzantine illumination and classical heritage, used as an abstraction of the background landscape, as if to show earth and sky.60 Though not common, they do appear in Ottonian manuscripts: in the Gospel Book of Svanhild, abbess of Essen from 1058 to 1085, Matthew sits in front of a blue square framed all around by green,61 while in

56 Examples include the Antiphonary of St. Peter from Salzburg (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Ser. n. 2700), discussed below, and the St. Albans Psalter (Hildesheim, Dombibliothek St Godehard 1) and Life of St. Edmund (New York, Morgan Library MS M 736), both made in England in the twelfth century. The link between the German and English examples deserves further study, but is beyond the scope of this essay. See Lasko, Ars Sacra, 180; and Otto Pächt, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), 116–18. 57 See especially Melanie Holcomb, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), 22–23. 58 Compare also the portable altar of St. Vitus, Mönchengladbach, made ca. 1160 (Budde, “Altare Portatile,” 360–69, cat. no. 58; Lasko, Ars Sacra, 180); and the Altar of the Cardinal Virtues, ca. 1160, now at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (W12) (Budde, Altare Portatile, 333–39, cat. no. 55). 59 Pächt, St. Albans Psalter, 116. 60 C. R. Dodwell, Pictorial Arts of the West, 800–1200 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 129; Joseph Sauer, “Die Monumentalmalerei der Reichenau,” in Die Kultur der Abtei Reichenau: Erinnerungsschrift zur zwölfhundertsten Wiederkehr des Gründungsjahres des Inselklosters 724–1924, ed. Konrad Beyerle (Munich: Verlag der Münchener Drucke, 1925), 2:902–55. 61 Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS 110: https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/de tail/Manchester~91~1~131830~200340. See Rainer Kahsnitz, “The Gospel Book of Abbess Svanhild of Essen in the John Rylands Library,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 53, no. 1 (1970): 122–66.

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the Lectionary of Everger, Peter and Paul sit side by side against a blue and green background (see Fig. 7).62 These backgrounds became increasingly popular in the twelfth century, particularly in works made for the Siegburg and Cluniac circles. Examples include the paintings in the lower church of Schwarzrheindorf, executed for the private chapel of Arnold of Wied just before his election as archbishop of Cologne in 1151, which have been connected to the exegetical works of Rupert of Deutz, who had been in exile at Siegburg between 1116 and 1120; here bright green and blue backgrounds set off figures like those of Luke and John, who are painted in a monochromatic palette of pale ochre and creams, as if drawn or engraved.63 These backgrounds are also found in a copy of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great painted in the Meuse valley in the third quarter of the century, perhaps for the abbey of Saint-Laurent, which adopted the Cluniac custom in 1106.64 Finally, they can be seen in an image of Creation on folio 3r of the Antiquitates Judicae, illuminated ca. 1170–80, from the abbey of St. Trond, which adopted the Cluniac custom a year later.65 If indeed the motif originated from the south of Germany and moved north, it also traveled back again—perhaps with Abbot Kuno when he moved to Regensburg in 1126—for it is heavily used in mid-twelfth-century manuscripts from Salzburg, like the Antiphonary of St. Peter.66 When the Siegburg Lectionary was painted in the second quarter of the twelfth century, then, the green and blue framing device was already known in painting. Like the standing figures of the preface, the motif may well have been understood as a part of classical heritage, or of Italo-Byzantine heritage as mediated by Fruttuaria, but since little art survives from Fruttuaria itself, the role of that particular abbey in the transmission cannot be proven.67 Yet by the twelfth century, the motif was circulating in the Rhineland and beyond, and at Siegburg it certainly stuck. Two portable altars made for the abbey between 1160 and 1180, dedicated to St.

62 Bloch and Schnitzler, Malerschule, 1:14–15. 63 Anna Esmeijer, “The Open Door and the Heavenly Vision: Political and Spiritual Elements in the Programme of Decoration of Schwarzrheindorf,” in Polyanthea: Essays on Art and Literature in Honor of William Sebastian Heckscher, ed. Karl-Ludwig Selig (The Hague: Van der Heijden, 1993), 43–56; Semmler, Klosterreform, 163–65. 64 Brussels, KBR, MS 9916–17. Legner, Rhein und Maas, 1:292–93, cat. no. J20. 65 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 774 (1632). Lech Kalinowski, “Salomon et la Sagesse: Remarques sur l’iconographie de la Création du monde dans les Antiquités Judaïques de Flavius Josèphe du Musée Condé à Chantilly,” Artibus et Historiae 20, no. 39 (1999): 9–26. 66 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Ser. n. 2700. See Elisabeth Klemm, “Das Zeitalter der Romanik,” in Pracht auf Pergament: Schätze der Buchmalerei von 780 bis 1180, ed. Claudia Fabian (Munich: Hirmer, 2012), 252–63; and Holcomb, Pen and Parchment, 22–24. 67 Andrea Worm has argued for a broad influence of Italian art on the works associated with Siegburg because of Fruttuaria, but gives no Fruttuarian examples. See Worm, “Roger von Helmarshausen,” 112–22.

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Mauritius and St. Gregorius, employ many of the motifs examined here.68 On the Mauritius altar, sixteen prophets line the sides, each engraved on a single plaque, their background either solid green or a solid blue, with a thin frame around. On the Gregorius altar, eighteen enameled plaques line the sides, each also occupied by a single standing prophet, this time against a blue and green boxed background. It is impossible to know if the goldsmiths of the Siegburg altars were looking at the abbey’s lectionary, or at other precedents in metalwork, like the Eilbertus Altar. These altars do suggest, however, that the use of these backgrounds became a regular practice at Siegburg, and that they were deployed across multiple media. All in all then, the decorative program of the Siegburg Lectionary certainly shows similarities to metalwork. The prefatory figures, with their smooth gold and saturated blue backgrounds, the gold and silver medallions of the Jesse tree, the clasps and punch marks of the initials, and the gemlike motifs of the frames can be closely identified with twelfth-century decorative schemes employed on objects from the region of Cologne and the Meuse River valley. But at the same time, the complications involved in tracing these “borrowings” suggest that rather than a direct line of transmission from one medium to the other, manuscripts and metalwork made in the area of Siegburg shared a visual language. The works we have traced here, from the Siegburg Lectionary and Eilbertus Altar, to the paintings of Schwarzrheindorf and the Antiphonary of St. Peter, to the altars of Mauritius and Gregorius, use elements that hark back to older imagery from Ravenna, Oberzell, and Cologne. Medium, it seems, was perhaps of less importance than the potential for transmutation and active viewing that Theophilus and the concept of varietas invite.

Variety and Structure Throughout the Siegburg Lectionary, this shared visual language is imbued with a varietas that serves a clear devotional purpose. Across the manuscript, similar compositions and motifs—like the alternating colors of the boxed backgrounds—are slightly varied and combined with new elements, creating structure and varietas. While each type of ornament, such as a gem border or a scroll border, might be found in different parts of the manuscript, the permutation of motifs is never the same. Elements are arranged and rearranged so as to prevent exact repetition. In the prefatory cycle, the traditional green is replaced by gold, so that backgrounds take on a heavenly hue, alternating between blue on gold and gold on blue. Each

68 Legner, Rhein und Maas, 1:270, 273, cat. nos. H8 and H11; Clemens Bayer, “Der MauritiusTragaltar in Siegburg: Bemerkungen zu Datierung, Ikonographie und Ikonologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Inschriften,” Heimatblätter des Rhein-Sieg-Kreises 60/61 (1992–93): 7–46; Budde, Altare Portatile, 340–52 and 399–412, cat. nos. 56 and 63.

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figure, moreover, wears a different combination of robe and tunic: James wears blue over red, while John wears red over blue. Peter’s red over white seems out of place until we arrive at the image of Isaiah, who wears a lighter shade of red over white. In the depictions of the Tree of Jesse and the Marys at the Tomb, meanwhile, the gold of the Apostles’ and Isaiah’s backgrounds gives way to green. These subtle changes are a hallmark of varietas, for they create diversity within a carefully planned structure. This varietas, in turn, aids reading. Isaiah, for example, stands like the other figures in the preface, but his body breaks the pattern of the apostles who precede him. Turning slightly, with knees bent, Isaiah points at his scroll as if to speak, calling the reader’s attention to the prophecy inscribed there, and illustrated across the fold. The type of image and mode of representation thus shift, from the standing, solitary apostles, to the moving prophet, to a diagrammatic portrayal of Isaiah’s prophecy. In the image of Jesse’s tree the background has likewise switched to blue and green, and the gold of the preceding backgrounds now combines with silver to mark out the medallions of the Holy Spirit, as if to underscore the heavenly realm they share with the apostles. Indeed, with their rounded shape, similar size, and golden shimmer, these medallions also evoke the haloes of saints throughout the manuscript, as if to make a concrete connection between the virtues given by the Holy Spirit and the virtue embodied by the holy figures. The border surrounding Isaiah is different too: unlike those of the apostles preceding him, this frame is decorated with a scroll motif, while golden squares—perhaps indicating a different kind of gem—punctuate its corners and cardinal points. These differences distinguish the prophet of the Old Testament from the apostles of the New, and set the stage for the facing image of the Tree of Jesse. Thus even within this initial sequence, variations invite comparisons—to other paintings, to metalwork objects, or to images within the text—encouraging the reader to move backward and forward through the volume. Modes of painting vary too, suggesting that for these readers, the way something was made was worthy of attention. The skin of the four prefatory apostles and Isaiah is thickly painted with blushes and highlights, while Jesse’s wrapped body and tree are done in pale layers of pink, green, and white. So too, the Three Marys are drawn in ink on bare parchment, the folds of their robes defined by a light wash, with the front Mary in green. The figure of Maurice, meanwhile, is also drawn on parchment, differentiating him from the apostles at the front of the volume; like the first Mary, he too wears green, but his robes are darker than hers, painted in a thicker green with black outlines. Finally, in the image of the otherworldly Michael, colors are saturated and monochromatic. This variety reveals a sophisticated play with the techniques of painting, as each image changes in saturation, in use of penwork, wash, color, and parchment. Divisions of text, and the different characters of the book, from apostle to saint to archangel, are marked not just by a change in the type of image but in the technique used to portray them.

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It is of course not uncommon to find different types of images marking out sections of a manuscript: in the aforementioned Gospel lectionary from St. Maximin’s in Trier or Hirsau, full-page illuminations, large historiated initials, and small decorated initials delineate feasts and breaks in the text.69 The juxtaposition of artistic techniques, meanwhile, was quite common in England, and sometimes even occurred within the same image. In the Eadui Psalter, for example, made at Canterbury in the eleventh century, ink-drawn monks present their book to a painted and golden-robed Saint Benedict.70 In fact, Siegburg entered into a societas fraternitatis with Canterbury in 1125, so Canterbury manuscripts may have been known at Siegburg.71 But the Siegburg Lectionary takes the practice of varietas in a different direction, employing subtle shifts in coloration and simulation throughout the program of decoration. Perhaps this technical variation was itself an evocation of metalwork, for such displays of virtuosity were expertly and regularly deployed in twelfthcentury ars sacra. On the Eilbertus Altar each variation of enamel technique serves a different subject. The side plaques, with figures in enamel set on a golden ground in an imitation of Byzantine cloisonné, display the prophets. The top plaques, with figures engraved on gilded copper against blue and green enameled backgrounds, display apostles and Christological scenes. The center image, on parchment, shows Christ in Majesty. The underside, made of vernis brun, is filled with circular patterns. Techniques, then, have been carefully deployed as a deliberate part of the program, and as in the lectionary, they create a variety that highlights the object’s structure and meaning.

Conclusion Through its technical variety, the Siegburg Lectionary evokes the viewer’s knowledge and memory of other media and other objects. It is evident that a visual vocabulary was shared across works made in the context of twelfth-century abbeys associated with Siegburg, and that the various elements of the manuscript—a background, a standing apostle, a motif—would have been recognized by its monastic viewers as familiar. As much as the varietas is on parchment, in other words, it is also in the mind of the monastic reader, as he contemplates the connections made across the image series. In its references to other media and to diverse techniques, the decorative program of the lectionary leads the reader on a journey of recognition, inviting careful study, comparison, and contemplation.

69 London, BL, Egerton MS 809. Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:288–90, no. 399. 70 London, British Library, Arundel MS 155, fol. 133r: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay. aspx?ref=Arundel_MS_155. See especially Holcomb, Pen and Parchment, 15–16; Breay and Story, Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, 328–29, cat. no. 130. 71 See Legner, Monumenta Annonis, 21.

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As I have demonstrated elsewhere, Theophilus argues for a practice of viewing that seeks out diversity, variation, and skill.72 Linking varietas to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, his text suggests that a viewer’s recognition of variety and skill, when understood as a trace of the work of the Spirit, leads one closer to God.73 The artists of the Siegburg Lectionary, painting just around the time Theophilus’s book was written, and within the same cultural sphere, followed a similar philosophy. The varietas they generated in the codex creates structure through diversity, invites comparisons across the book, and displays technical skill, opening a path that leads to a better comprehension of the texts and appreciation of the Lord. We might therefore understand the varietas of the Siegburg manuscript both on its own terms— within the bounds of its own two covers—and in terms of its work with the memories of the mind, as it leads the viewer through a myriad of forms, each set in a careful order, yet exuberantly varied.

72 Gearhart, Theophilus, 132–38. 73 Theophilus, De diversis artibus, 63.

Sophia Ronan Rochmes

Illuminating Luxury: The Gray-Gold Flemish Grisailles Across the medieval arts we find particular color combinations that are repeated so often as to become familiar standards: alternating red and blue initials in manuscripts, the stark contrast of polished black marble together with luminous white marble or alabaster in tomb monuments, and the pairing of gold and silver in metalwork, such as reliquaries and tableware (Fig. 1).1 In the fifteenth century, especially under the patronage of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (1396–1467), there arose a trend for manuscripts in grisaille, a technique of rendering images primarily in tones of gray, black, and white.2 Grisaille miniatures take many forms. In those made for the duke himself, the images tend toward complete monochrome. Though chromatically sparse to an extreme, these manuscripts are still materially luxurious, with an often grandiose scale. In grisaille manuscripts made for other owners, we can find color amidst the grays, such as blue skies, subtle flesh tones, red backgrounds, or details in gold. In one strand of grisaille manuscripts, the focus of this article, foliate borders are painted in gray paired with gold or yellow in a way that strongly resonates with the ubiquitous medieval partnering of silver and gold

Note: My thanks to Abigail D. Newman and to the editors, anonymous readers, and fellow authors for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. 1 On the reliquary statuette of St. Stephen pictured here, see Ko Goubert, “Een schat(kamer) aan Leuvense verhalen: Vijf eeuwen edelsmeedkunst voor de Sint-Pieterskerk te Leuven,” in De SintPieterskerk te Leuven, ed. Brecht Dewilde and Gilbert Huybens (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming). 2 The Burgundian grisaille manuscripts follow on the heels of a rich tradition of fourteenth-century French grisaille manuscripts. On the connections between these two visually distinct traditions, and the ways the Burgundian grisailles revived and reinvented an inherited style, see Sophia Rochmes, “Philip the Good’s Grisaille Book of Hours and the Origins of a New Court Style,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 38, no. 1 (2015): 17–30. For more on Burgundian grisaille manuscripts, see Nigel Morgan and Elizabeth J. Moodey, “Grisaille in Manuscript Painting,” in Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2016), 246–55; Anne Dubois, “Techniques picturales des grisailles dans les manuscrits enluminés des Pays-Bas méridionaux,” in New Perspectives on Flemish Illumination, ed. Lieve Watteeuw, Jan Van der Stock, Bernard Bousmanne, and Dominique Vanwijnsberghe (Leuven: Peeters, 2018), 232–47; Lieve Watteeuw and Marina Van Bos, “Black as Ink: Materials and Techniques in FifteenthCentury Flemish Grisaille Illuminations by Jan de Tavernier, Willem Vrelant and Dreux Jehan,” in Watteeuw et al., New Perspectives on Flemish Illumination, 249–67; and Sophia Rochmes, “Color’s Absence: The Visual Language of Grisaille in Burgundian Manuscripts” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-009

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Fig. 1: Reliquary statue of St. Stephen. Joos Pauwels, Leuven, ca. 1490–99, silver, gilt silver, gilt brass, and glass, 55 x 18.5 x 14.4 cm. Leuven, Museum M, B_VIII_99. Photo: Museum M Leuven, www.artinflanders.be (Dominique Provost).

(Fig. 2).3 Gray in these borders often serves as a substitute for silver, with white highlights creating an illusion of luminosity. This category of grisaille is almost

3 Book of hours, Bruges, ca. 1425, with inserted full-page miniatures ca. 1470. Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Widener 5. https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/ 0023/html/widener_005.html. The grisailles in this manuscript belong to the later additions. Another style of grisaille manuscript painting has also been compared to metalwork: the fourteenthcentury French semi-grisailles, especially those by Jean Pucelle. The semi-sculptural quality of his figures, combined with their small scale, delicateness, and exceptional execution, has led to their comparison with media as diverse as ivory reliefs, enamelwork, and metalwork. See Barbara Drake Boehm, “The Grisaille,” in The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux: Acc. No. 54.I.2, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters Collection, New York, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm, Abigail Quandt, and William D. Wixom (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 2000), 330–37; and Pascale Charron, “Color, Grisaille and Pictorial Techniques in Works by Jean Pucelle,” in Jean Pucelle: Innovation and Collaboration in Manuscript Painting, ed. Anna Russakoff and Kyunghee Pyun (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 91–107.

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Fig. 2: Bernard of Clairvaux. Willem Vrelant, full-page miniature inserted in a book of hours. Bruges, ca. 1470. Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Widener 5, fol. 65v. Photo: Free Library of Philadelphia.

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exclusively restricted to books of hours, the most common type of illuminated manuscript for the lay reader outside of those made for the most elite bibliophiles. The miniatures and historiated initials in these manuscripts are often, but not exclusively, also painted in a type of grisaille called semi-grisaille with the inclusion of gold, flesh tones, and other colors. A book of hours for an unknown patron now at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles presents a typical example (Fig. 3).4 In the borders, gray acanthus leaves twist to show gold reverse surfaces and are studded all around with gold dots and both gray and gold blossoms. These borders reflect the same grisaille-and-gold palette of the book’s miniatures, while further colors are injected into the decorated initials, and rubrics are written in their typical red. Of the approximately 140 surviving Burgundian grisaille manuscripts from the mid- to late fifteenth century, I have identified thirty that exhibit the gray-gold border style (see appendix). Owned predominantly by unnamed patrons (as the great majority of medieval books of hours were), these manuscripts adapt an elite aesthetic of monochrome illumination while also calling to mind material luxury and value through their use of gold and silver-substitute. In this way, artists and patrons were able to both adopt the trend for grisaille manuscript decoration—a hallmark of period courtly taste in books— and embed works within the longstanding tradition of pairing gold and silver. This article addresses the substitution of hues and materials, considering what such choices reveal about material and artistic values, as well as the evolving circumstances of patronage and class. The gray-gold grisaille manuscripts can be connected specifically with non-noble lay patrons, in contrast with the grisaille manuscripts made for the duke and other noble (and non-noble but elite) patrons.5 The essay concludes by comparing the gray-gold grisailles to grisaille glass roundels, as the similarities between the two art forms—both visually and with regard to their production and patronage—further enrich our understanding of the place of these manuscripts in late medieval culture.

Pairing and Substituting Gold and Silver In a wide variety of artistic objects of the period—including reliquaries, tableware, jewelry, ecclesiastic objects, and even metallic threads in luxurious fabric—gold

4 San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1134. http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/HM01134_43. C. W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 1989), 2:444–46. 5 The patrons for these manuscripts are generally unidentified, but we can assume that they were mostly non-noble lay patrons, both because noble patrons typically had identifying elements (such as heraldry, device, or motto) incorporated into their manuscripts and because the laity were the primary consumers for books of hours.

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Fig. 3: Holy Trinity. Book of hours. Flemish, late fifteenth century. San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1134, fol. 26r. Photo: The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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and silver were seen frequently in combination.6 Gold and silver are also commonly linked in scripture and medieval textual descriptions of divine beings, objects, and spaces. Herbert Kessler has observed that in medieval art and texts, silver is “often linked casually with gold, another expensive lustrous material that, with gems, often served as a metaphor for heaven.”7 In medieval color theory, silver and gold together formed a distinct chromatic category, simultaneously thought of as precious metals and hues. In heraldry, the metallic colors gold and silver were set apart from the standard colors, which comprised red (gueles), black (sable), blue (azur), occasionally green (sinople or vert), and much more rarely purple (purpure).8 Rules of heraldic composition dictated that a figure, shape, or symbol in a color from one category could only be placed on a field whose color belonged to the other category. For example, a red figure could be placed on a gold field but not on a blue one. In this context, gold and silver could never appear together, but were linked as a category. While some of the non-metallic colors were etymologically tied to materials (gueles from the French for “throats,” sable relating to a type of fur, and azur from the blue stone lapis lazuli), this group was primarily thought of as hues and categorized as colors, while gold and silver were considered materials and categorized as metals. Although one might think of gold and silver as both metals and hues in their own right, they could also be substituted by yellow and white, respectively. These colors were common equivalents for the two metals in period heraldic depictions as well as more broadly in contemporary art and thought.9 A 1431 compilation of

6 We also find examples of manuscripts referencing textiles with gold and silver thread, as in a border of gold and (now tarnished) silver on a black background in the Prayer Book of Charles the Bold by Lieven van Lathem (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 89.ML.35 [Ms. 37]). On the relationship of this and similar borders to precious textiles, see Antoine de Schryver, The Prayer Book of Charles the Bold: A Study of a Flemish Masterpiece from the Burgundian Court, trans. Jessica Berenbeim (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008), 187–91. 7 Kessler gives many such examples. Herbert L. Kessler, “The Eloquence of Silver: More on the Allegorization of Matter,” in L’allégorie dans l’art du Moyen Âge. Formes et fonctions. Héritages, créations, mutations, ed. Christian Heck (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 49–64, at 50. 8 See, for example, Michel Pastoureau, Black: The History of a Color, trans. Jody Gladding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 71–72. A primary period text on the colors and symbolism of heraldry—distributed in manuscripts and, later, print editions throughout Europe—was Le blason des couleurs en armes, livrées et devises by Jean Courtois, called Sicille (d. 1436). Sicille ends his introduction by enumerating the colors thus: “Tout premier y sont deux métaulx et quatre couleurs; ce sont six, et de ces six meslées ensemble on en faict une qui est la septiesme.” (First, there are two metals and four colors; this makes six, and from these six blended together is in fact a seventh [i.e., purple].) My translation. Jean Courtois [Sicille], Le blason des couleurs en armes, livrées et devises, ed. Hippolyte Cocheris (Paris: Auguste Aubry, 1860), 20. 9 For heraldic representations, see for example Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 4790, which uses white instead of silver and yellow instead of gold. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b55009806h.

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artistic treatises (mainly recipes for colors used in painting) by the Parisian notary Jean Lebègue (1368–1457) begins with a list of “the synonymous names of the colours,”10 which includes gold and silver: “Gold is a nobler metal having the color yellow and is thinned into leaves; those who lack it use stretched tin colored yellow and thin it into leaves. Silver is a noble metal having the color white; those who lack it use the aforementioned tin, thinned out, not colored.”11 Here gold and silver are each given two synonyms or substitutes: a hue and a material. As ubiquitous as the pairing of gold and silver was in late medieval visual culture, we less frequently find a true combination of gold and silver metals in manuscripts. While it was common to apply gold leaf and shell gold in manuscript painting for backgrounds or details, silver was used much more sparingly. As manuscript artists knew, silver leaf quickly loses its shimmer and color, oxidizing into a dark, smudgy black that not only affects the spot where it was applied but also migrates beyond the original location of application, blemishes the opposite page, and darkens the reverse side of the parchment. Manuscript conservator Lieve Watteeuw has estimated that the timeframe for the degradation of silver in manuscripts would have been about ten to twenty years. Further, there are examples of new silver added in the fifteenth century to fourteenth-century manuscripts because of the material’s

10 “Tabula de vocabulis sinonimis et equivocis colorum, rerumque, et accidencium colorum, ipsisque et arti pictorie conferentium, nec non operum exerciciorumque propiciorum ac contingencium eorum.” (Table of the synonymous names of colours, and of the qualities and accidents of colours, and things pertaining to the art of painting; also of the works and exercises proper and incident to them.) Transcribed and translated in Mary P. Merrifield, Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting: Original Texts with English Translations (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999), 18. While Jean Lebègue’s book is largely a compilation, drawing from texts on the art of painting from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, Lebègue himself probably composed this table. Merrifield, Medieval and Renaissance Treatises, 3. See also Inès Villela-Petit, “Copies, Reworkings and Renewals in Late Medieval Recipe Books,” in Medieval Painting in Northern Europe: Techniques, Analysis, Art History, ed. Jilleen Nadolny (London: Archetype, 2007), 167–81. 11 “Aurum est nobilius metallum croceum colorem habens et tenuatur in petulis, quo carentes utuntur stanno attenuato, et colorito colore croceo, et in petulis tenuato. Argentum est nobile metallum album colorem habens, quo qui caret utitur ejus loco de dicto stanno tenuato, non colorito.” Transcribed in Merrifield, Medieval and Renaissance Treatises, 18; translation mine, with generous help from Damian Fleming. Karel van Mander similarly refers to “gold-indicating yellow” (Goudt aenwijsende ghele) and says that silver is “perceived as white” (Silver . . . is wit bevonden). Modern Dutch translation: Karel van Mander, Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const, ed. Hessel Miedema (1604; Utrecht: Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert, 1973), 1:276 and 283 (chap. 14.1 and 14.22). English translation in Karel van Mander, The Foundation of the Noble Free Art of Painting, ed. and trans. Elizabeth A. Honig (n.p.: n.p., 1985), 78 and 80. For this section of his treatise, Van Mander relies heavily on a sixteenth-century edition of Sicille’s text, although without attribution. On Van Mander’s use of Sicille, see the commentary by Hessel Miedema in Van Mander, Den grondt, 2:614–24 and 647. For more on the medieval terminology for gold, yellow, silver, and white, see Raymond van Uytven, “Rood–wit–zwart: Kleurensymboliek en kleursignalen in de middeleeuwen,” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 97 (1984): 447–69, at 467.

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degradation; thus manuscript artists saw and were aware of the evolving appearance of silver in manuscripts.12 Miniaturists continued to use silver especially for small areas such as depictions of windows, swords, and armor, but they certainly would have known that using silver to the extent that gray is used in the borders of this corpus of manuscripts would soon result in a tarnished mess—especially since the edges of pages were the most frequently handled areas.13 Since silver was difficult to work with in manuscripts, a substitute had to be found if a silver-gold combination was desired. In his introduction to his compilation of artistic treatises quoted above, Jean Lebègue describes silver as white. It would have been understandably difficult, however, to effectively convey silver with white on a blank parchment background. Looking at a broader range of medieval manuscripts, Nigel Morgan has observed that painters often used a gray-blue pigment to depict armor, in place of the more ideal use of silver or tin.14 Although gray on its own does not read directly as silver, the employment of white highlights gives the appearance of luminosity.15 In the Flemish gray-gold grisaille manuscripts, gray with white highlighting is used alongside gold leaf, gold paint, or yellow pigments to act as a visual substitute for silver and achieve the popular color pairing of gold and silver. One book of hours in this corpus, probably produced in Ghent or Bruges in the 1470s, is a sustained study in the gold-silver aesthetic, and in fact actual silver seems to have been used in certain details, although the aesthetic is largely realized

12 As presented in the joint paper by Lieve Watteeuw and Marina Van Bos, “Inside an Early 14thCentury Franciscan Antiphonary: Documentation and Analyses of a Ghent Choir Book” (conference presentation, “Inside Illuminations: Art Technical Research and the Illuminated Manuscript,” Brussels, June 5, 2014). Cennino Cennini warned artists about the instability of silver: “Know that above all you are to work with as little silver as you can, because it does not last; and it turns black, both on wall and on wood, but it fails sooner on a wall. Use beaten tin or tin foil instead of it henceforth.” Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook: The Italian “Il Libro dell’Arte”, trans. Daniel V. Thompson (New York: Dover, 1954), 60. 13 For more on the degradation of silver and the ways manuscript artists used this material, see Nancy K. Turner, “Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts,” and Lynley Herbert, “A Curator’s Note: The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts,” both in this volume. 14 Nigel Morgan, “Painting with Gold and Silver,” in Panayotova, Colour, 192–99, at 195. 15 Heather Pulliam, “Color,” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 3–14, at 4. Alberti recognized the potential for white to represent the luster of silver (and black, in contrast, to represent darkness). In his discussion of using black and white to regulate the appearance and effects of colors, he states: “The painter has nothing other than white with which to show the highest lustre of the most highly polished sword, and only black to show the deepest shadow of night. You will see the force of this by placing white next to black so that vases by this means appear of silver, of gold, and of glass and appear to shine in the painting.” Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spencer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 83–84.

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Fig. 4: Calendar page. Book of hours. Flemish, ca. 1470. Brussels, KBR, MS IV 91, fol. 2r. Photo: © KBR.

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Fig. 5: All Saints. Book of hours. Flemish, ca. 1470. Brussels, KBR, MS IV 91, fols. 28v–29r. Photo: © KBR.

with gray pigment in combination with gold (Figs. 4–5).16 The book begins with a calendar filled with alternating gold and silver initials on black ground. The initials in the rest of the manuscript follow suit, again alternating gold initials and silver (or gray) decoration with silver (or gray) initials and gold decoration. Although the overall appearance of the initials in the calendar and body of the manuscript is rather dark due to the black ground as well as the apparent degradation of some silver initials, causing them to read as dark gray, the overall effect clearly presents a combination of gold and silver, calling to mind the same color combination found so frequently in period metalwork. The coloring of the foliate and inhabited borders of this manuscript echoes that of the initials. Here, we find a mix of gold, gray, and black. Given the small dark patches on the reverse of the borders and the occasional black, smudged appearance of some areas, it is likely that actual silver metal was

16 Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), ms. IV 91. See Pierre Cockshaw, Miniatures en Grisaille (Brussels: La Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, 1986), 41.

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Fig. 6: Visitation. Book of hours. Willem Vrelant, Bruges, ca. 1470. Brussels, KBR, MS IV 145, fols. 75v–76r. Photo: © KBR.

used for certain details, such as the stamens of flowers and some small animals and figures; gray pigment was, however, used much more frequently in these gray-gold borders. The central miniatures in this manuscript, primarily executed in grisaille, echo but also deviate from the gray-gold aesthetic of the borders and initials, exhibiting lighter and subtler variations of gray. White, which is used much more extensively in the miniatures than in the borders, achieves the appearance of modeling rather than luminosity, as seen in the draping of the figures’ robes and the contouring of their faces. The artist’s selective use of color, such as the flesh tones accentuated with rosy cheeks and lips that animate the figures, further distinguishes the semi-grisaille of the miniatures from the gray-gold grisaille of the borders. Details in gold, such as haloes and reliquaries, and those in now-darkened silver, such as windows, are used in the miniatures to symbolic or other representative ends, rather than as a means of accentuating the pairing of the two metals and hues. This difference in grisaille types between the borders and initials on the one hand, and the miniatures on the other, could be a result of the difference in types and purposes of decoration as well as the difference in styles between artists. Miniatures were often painted later and by different artists than the borders and initials.

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Fig. 7: Binding with clasp. Portuguese, sixteenth century. Brussels, KBR, MS IV 145. Photo: author, by permission of the KBR.

Another book of hours from Bruges, attributed to Willem Vrelant and produced around 1470, includes similar border decoration (Fig. 6).17 Here, however, the gray and gold borders and initials and the grisaille miniatures are mixed in among brilliant full-color ones, not according to any division in iconography or artistic hand. Rather than limiting itself to a particular chromatic scheme, this manuscript includes a variety. The inserted full-page miniatures are sometimes decorated with matching borders (that is, a grisaille miniature with gray-gold borders, and a fullcolor one with full-color borders), and sometimes decorated with contrasting borders. What is striking when viewing a page with gray-gold borders is the way the binding’s clasp, dangling off the left side of the open book, echoes this border. The book is enclosed in a sixteenth-century binding whose clasp comprises two inter-

17 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 145. The manuscript is much more radiant in person than it appears in this photograph, with light reflecting off the gold details in the miniatures, frames, and borders, and the white-highlighted grisaille forms almost appear to shimmer as well. See Bernard Bousmanne, “Item a Guillaume Wyelant aussi enlumineur”; Willem Vrelant: Un aspect de l’enluminure dans les PaysBas méridionaux sous le mécénat des ducs de Bourgogne Philippe le Bon et Charles le Téméraire (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), 238–39; and Bernard Bousmanne and Thierry Delcourt, eds., Vlaamse miniaturen, 1404–1482 (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2011), 249–50, cat. no. 48.

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twined loops, one colored gold and one silver, reiterating the visual trope of the borders with their twisting gray and gold vines (Fig. 7).18

Gray-Gold Manuscripts and the Ghent-Bruges Style As the trend for grisaille manuscripts died out in the later fifteenth century, brought about in part by the death in 1467 of its primary patron, Duke Philip the Good, the popularity of the so-called “Ghent-Bruges school” of manuscripts was rapidly growing. This new trend was marked by borders with trompe l’oeil figures and objects, often on a gold or yellow ground.19 Some manuscript artists continued to employ the gray-gold style, marrying it with the new fashion for trompe l’oeil borders. Around 1480 we see this occurring in a book of hours attributed to Simon Marmion and made for Jean Gros (ca. 1430–84), administrator for Charles the Bold (Fig. 8).20 The grisaille miniatures in this manuscript exhibit an abundance of white highlights, giving the appearance of a shining surface, along with subtle details delicately painted in gold, such as haloes and crowns. The brilliant effect produced by the white highlights and gold suggests the presence of divine light in the miniatures. In the trompe l’oeil borders, gray vines, flowers, and creatures cast shadows, lending illusionistic volume and suggesting a natural light source outside the book.21 At the same time, the gold grounds of the borders shimmer with light and the ample white highlights on the gray border forms convey the luminosity of silver. This metallic shimmer—literal in the case of the reflective gold paint, fictive in the case of the white-highlighted gray—further contrasts with the occasional appearance of matte colors, such as pinkish white flowers, green leaves, and blue heraldic devices. The division between these palettes and their qualities is made clear.

18 There is no mention of the actual materials of the clasp in the bibliography. It has a silver and gold appearance but could be made of alloys or other materials. The binding bears the arms of the book’s sixteenth-century owner, Juan de Cañavate de la Cueva, a Knight of the Golden Spur under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. See Bousmanne and Delcourt, Vlaamse Miniaturen, 249. 19 For more on the “Ghent-Bruges school” (though the term is intentionally avoided by the authors) see Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, eds., Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003). 20 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 85. http://initiale.irht.cnrs.fr/codex/10333. Gregory T. Clark, “The Chronology of the Louthe Master and His Identification with Simon Marmion,” in Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and The Visions of Tondal, ed. Thomas Kren (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992), 195–208, at 197–98. See also Frédéric Vergne, La bibliothèque du prince: Château de Chantilly; Les manuscrits (Paris: Editerra, 1995), 148. 21 On mixing illusionistic natural and divine light in fifteenth-century paintings, see Patrik Reuterswärd, “What Color Is Divine Light?,” in Light: From Aten to Laser, ed. Thomas B. Hess and John Ashbery (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 108–27.

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Fig. 8: Holy Trinity. Book of hours. Simon Marmion, Flemish, ca. 1465. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 85, fol. 20v. Photo: CNRS-IRHT, © Bibliothèque du musée Condé.

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Fig. 9: Mass of St. Gregory. Book of hours. Circle of the Master of Antoine Rolin, France, probably Mons, ca. 1490–1500. New York, PML, MS M.33, fol. 18r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1900. Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

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Another book of hours in the Ghent-Bruges style is dominated by a gray-gold chromatic scheme, as seen in the full-page miniatures, the borders on the pages facing these miniatures, and the many smaller miniatures and historiated initials (Fig. 9). This diminutive book of hours, only 133 x 96 mm (ca. 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.), is dated to the 1490s and probably hails from the Burgundian territory of Mons in Hainaut, a region then under the rule of Duke Philip the Fair (1478–1506), great-grandson of Philip the Good.22 Shell gold (liquid gold paint) was applied by brush on top of an ochre-colored pigment in the historiated initials, miniature frames, and other details to create two tones of yellow, similar to the multiple yellow tones created in grisaille glass through the application of varying amounts of a silver compound, as discussed below. In this manuscript we also find, in addition to the pervasive use of gray and details in gold, the occasional application of silver metal.23 Silver was employed, for example, in the depiction of rows of coins in the border of folio 21r, where the instruments of the Passion of Christ (arma Christi) are represented in grisaille trompe l’oeil. There, the material silver is used to represent literally the thirty pieces of silver that Judas received for his betrayal of Christ (Matthew 26:15 and 27:3), in a convergence of representational sign and material. The coins are the only element of that border rendered with actual metal, despite the representation of other metal objects. Silver was applied elsewhere in the manuscript in the depiction of windows (e.g. fols. 18r, 45v, and 180v), a typical use of silver. In its original state, the brilliant silver of the windows would have represented light piercing through notably uncolored glass, although this significance is now obscured by their tarnished, deep black appearance. This little book of hours can be placed within two artistic trends of late fifteenth-century Flemish manuscripts: first, the use of grisaille, which was becoming more and more popular in glass but was on its last legs in manuscripts, with a concentrated appearance in the gray-gold strand; and, second, the trompe l’oeil borders characteristic of the Ghent-Bruges school, which was overwhelmingly popular during this time.

Gray-Gold Grisailles: A Luxury Aesthetic? In his 1435 On Painting, Alberti famously calls upon painters to imitate the appearance of gold using paint alone. He first asserts that the painter’s craft could elevate the material with which he works: “Ivory, gems and similar expensive things become more precious when worked by the hand of the painter. Gold worked by the art of painting outweighs an equal amount of unworked gold. If figures were made by the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles from lead itself—the lowest of metals—they 22 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.33. https://www.themorgan.org/manuscript/76901. Anne-Marie Legaré, “The Master of Antoine Rolin: A Hainaut Illuminator Working in the Orbit of Simon Marmion,” in Kren, Margaret of York, 209–22, at 218, 220, and 222n49. 23 With thanks to William Voelkle for confirming the presence of these materials.

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would be valued more highly than silver.”24 Later, he specifically instructs painters not to rely on gold to give value to their works: “There are some who use much gold in their istoria. They think it gives majesty. I do not praise it. . . . I should not wish gold to be used, for there is more admiration and praise for the painter who imitates the rays of gold with colours.”25 Some scholars have attempted to connect northern European grisailles, such as those in Jean Pucelle’s Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux26 and Jan van Eyck’s altarpieces, to such an Albertian sensibility, identifying the restricted, sober palette as a demonstration of artistic virtuosity.27 Jan van Eyck’s grisaille paintings and other panel grisailles of the early fifteenth century in particular lend themselves to this interpretation, as they directly imitate unpainted stone sculpture, at times even referencing specific stone such as alabaster or Dinant marble.28 Such an interpretation does not, however, apply to these gray-gold manuscript grisailles. Here, so often gold is not replaced with yellow, even in the trompe l’oeil examples where artistic ability to render illusionistic forms is key. Whereas the use of gold in panel painting decreased with the rise of naturalism, especially in southern Europe and in line with Alberti’s sentiment, its widespread use in illuminated manuscripts nonetheless persisted into the sixteenth century. Patrons and artists of manuscripts did not shy away from using gold, implying that the use of gray as a substitute for silver here was motivated more by the practical problems of working with easily oxidized silver rather than a desire to display illusionistic virtuosity. Indeed, I believe that this choice referred both to the aesthetic combination of silver and gold as a prevalent chromatic pairing of late medieval visual culture and to the material, monetary value of silver and gold. In this way, the gray-gold aesthetic of grisaille often found in borders of Flemish books of hours differed from the more muted aesthetic of grisaille found in ducal manuscripts. The association of gray with silver seems not to be in play for the grisaille books made for Duke Philip the Good. Most monumental ducal grisaille manuscripts

24 Alberti, On Painting, 64. 25 Ibid., 85. 26 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 54.1.2. 27 Michaela Krieger argued that in the fourteenth century Pucelle was already promoting the idea of the value of craft surpassing the value of material, in the tradition of illusionistic Italian paintings such as those by Giotto and his contemporaries. Michaela Krieger, Grisaille als Metapher: Zum Entstehen der Peinture en Camaieu im frühen 14. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1995). More successful is Rudolf Preimesberger’s analysis linking Van Eyck’s grisaille Annunciation diptych with the paragone between painting and sculpture. Rudolf Preimesberger, Paragons and Paragone: Van Eyck, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Bernini (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2011). 28 Alexander Markschies, “Monochrome and Grisaille: An European Overview,” in Jan van Eyck: Grisallas, ed. Till-Holger Borchert (Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2009), 267–75. In the midto late fifteenth century, the panel grisaille figures become more animated in pose and sometimes incorporate flesh tones. Only around the turn of the sixteenth century do we find panel grisailles representing a world in gray without a sculptural referent, akin to the ducal grisaille manuscripts. For more on this dynamic, see Rochmes, “Color’s Absence,” 52–65.

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Fig. 10: Philip the Good praying before Mary. Miracles of Notre Dame, vol. 1. Jean Le Tavernier, Oudenaarde (miniatures) and The Hague (text), ca. 1456–58. Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 9198, fol. 1r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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are sober in palette and ornamentation, their large margins lacking decoration, quite unlike the heavily decorated gray-gold grisaille manuscripts (Fig. 10).29 One interpretation for these blank margins is their complementarity to the perceived asceticism of grisaille.30 However, although the grisaille manuscripts made for the duke tend to be strikingly achromatic, they are still materially luxurious and imposing objects. Often grandiose in scale, they are filled with hundreds of pages of sizeable, high-quality parchment whose single columns of large, even script leave generous space for the starkly blank margins. The extravagant use of parchment is matched by the employment of the most prestigious manuscript artists of the day, such as Jean Le Tavernier, Willem Vrelant, and Lieven van Lathem. The material value of the ducal grisaille codices as a whole is not matched by the cost of their pigments, which were inexpensive and widely available. Yet, as Lieve Watteeuw and Marina Van Bos note, “less is more, and the restriction to white, grey and black meant that this highly fashionable style focused attention on the illuminators’ outstanding artistic skills,” and those artists still received “high payments” for their work.31 The notable absence of color in Philip’s grisaille manuscripts and their blank borders can also be related to a luxury aesthetic of the Burgundian court, influenced by what Maurits Smeyers has called the duke’s “severe taste.”32 He preferred, for example, to wear all black and for those in his court to follow suit. At his 1454 Feast of the Pheasant, the dress code for guests dictated

29 Such examples of restrained grisaille manuscripts owned by the duke include De primo bello punico (Brussels, KBR, MS 10777), the Chronicles of Charlemagne (Brussels, KBR, MSS 9066–9068; the frontispiece of 9066 has a minimal foliated color frame), the Vie de Sainte Catherine (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. fr. 6449), the Miracles of Notre Dame (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Mss. fr. 9198–9199, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 374), the Cy nous dit (Brussels, KBR, MS 9017), and the grisaille book of hours of Philip of Burgundy (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 76 F 2). Some of the miniatures in his grisaille manuscripts do feature blue skies, which appears to have been a trademark of grisailles by the artist Willem Vrelant. On these and other manuscripts in Philip’s library, see Bernard Bousmanne and Elena Savini, eds., The Library of the Dukes of Burgundy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020). 30 Catherine Reynolds has described the undecorated margins as especially apt for manuscripts in grisaille, “with its connotations of restraint and abstinence.” Catherine Reynolds, “The Undecorated Margin: The Fashion for Luxury Books without Borders,” in Flemish Manuscript Painting in Context: Recent Research, ed. Elizabeth Morrison and Thomas Kren (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006), 9–26, at 13. Along these lines, Pierre Cockshaw notes a jarring distinction within the decoration of a gray-gold book of hours (Brussels, KBR, MS IV 91): “The richness and opulence of the border decoration . . . , of the historiated initials, and of the bar borders where gold and gold-gray blend harmoniously strongly contrasts with the quiet distinction of the grisaille [in the miniatures].” (De rijkdom en de weelde van de randversiering . . . , van de gehistorieerde initialen en van het staafwerk waar goud en goudgrijs harmonisch samengaan, konstrasteert sterk met de stille voornaamheid van de grisaille.) My translation. Cockshaw, Miniatures en Grisaille, 41. 31 Watteeuw and Van Bos, “Black as Ink,” 250–51. 32 Maurits Smeyers, Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid-16th Century: The Medieval World on Parchment (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 322.

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ensembles in black, white, and gray.33 The trend for sober colors even extended to the popularity of gray horses over those with other coats.34 Chromatic sobriety should not categorically be equated with an ascetic sensibility. Rather, monochrome in certain contexts—including dress, tomb monuments, and manuscripts—was associated with an elite courtly status, much like modern fashion, when dressing in all black might be considered de rigueur. We might even hypothesize that Philip the Good had the singular luxury of choice for a sober aesthetic since, as ruler of widespread territories, he did not need to prove his worth through flashy outward means. As Stella Panayotova has observed, addressing a wider chronological and geographic range of illuminated manuscripts, “Lavish use of gold and vivid pigments are often found in illuminations commissioned by aspiring members of the middle class, while colour-line drawings and grisaille paintings, with their sparing use or elimination of chromatic hues, characterize some of the most refined manuscripts produced for princely patrons.”35 Grisaille manuscripts came into vogue through the more sober examples made for Philip the Good, but those produced outside of his patronage indeed tend to include significant amounts of color. When this visual language was adopted by the duke’s contemporaries (such as the Croy family, Louis de Gruuthuse, Edward IV of England, Philip’s son Anthony and his wife Jeanne-Marie de la Viéville, and many others, including unknown patrons) it was injected with a much richer palette through the increased use of gold, color details and backgrounds, and full-color borders, contradicting any notion of restraint or abstinence. Further, full-color manuscripts were still much more popular than grisaille ones, both within the duke’s own collection and among other wealthy patrons, occurring approximately ten times more often among illustrated luxury books of the period.36 In many ways, the Burgundian court was a

33 Smeyers refers to this event as a “grisaille feast” (ibid.). See also Katarzyna Plonka-Balus, “Grisailles in the Illuminated Manuscripts in the Time of Dirk Bouts: Technique, Function, and Meaning,” in Bouts Studies: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven, 26–28 November 1998, ed. Bert Cardon and Katharina Smeyers (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 151–59, at 154. Elizabeth Moodey points out that the addition of gray and white to Philip’s traditional restriction of court dress to black in this event’s dress code was a deviation from the norm. Elizabeth J. Moodey, Illuminated Crusader Histories for Philip the Good of Burgundy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 141. 34 Pastoureau, Black, 110. 35 Stella Panayotova, “Colour in Illuminated Manuscripts,” in Panayotova, Colour, 14–23, at 21. 36 My calculation here is based on the data I have gathered and compared with the numbers published in Hanno Wijsman, Luxury Bound: Illustrated Manuscript Production and Noble and Princely Book Ownership in the Burgundian Netherlands (1400–1550) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). In sculpture of the period, too, polychrome was standard and unpainted stone was exceptional. Julien Chapuis, “Partial Polychromy in Sculpture,” in Borchert, Jan van Eyck: Grisallas, 261–66. Unpainted wood sculpture was even more exceptional, while metal sculptures most often remained unpainted. For discussion of the incidence of polychromy on wood sculpture versus metal sculpture in the fourteenth century, see Michele Tomasi, “L’or, l’argent, la chair: Remarques sur l’usage de la couleur dans les bustes reliquaires en métal du XIVe siècle,” in Aux limites de la couleur: Monochromie et

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society of conspicuous consumption and outward display, promoted in no small way by Duke Philip himself. Within this so-called “theater state,” Philip’s patronage of rich monochrome manuscripts—which were extremely sober yet still materially luxurious and artistically accomplished—can be seen as an ostentatious choice for non-ostentation, a display of the type of aesthetic risks he as ruler could take.37 In contrast, the often unidentified owners of the gray-gold grisaille books of hours were not in this position of power, and indeed these manuscripts frequently include not only gold but also much color.38

The Metallic Translucence of Grisaille Glass A useful comparison can be made with sixteenth-century northern European grisaille glass roundels, which have a similar aesthetic of yellow paired with gray (Fig. 11). At times the coloring of gray-gold grisaille manuscripts resembles these glass roundels more directly than it resembles metalwork, and it is in glass, rather than in manuscripts, that we find a stronger survival of the gray-gold aesthetic into the sixteenth century. The type of glass known now as grisaille glass is more

polychromie dans les arts (1300–1600), ed. Marion Boudon-Machuel, Maurice Brock, and Pascale Charron (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 133–40. 37 In Clifford Geertz’s terms, Philip the Good can be seen as the “active center” of the Burgundian “theater state,” around which everyone and everything radiated, an arrangement maintained through carefully orchestrated ceremonies. See Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980); Clifford Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages, ed. Sean Wilentz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 13–38; Peter Arnade, “City, State, and Public Ritual in the Late-Medieval Burgundian Netherlands,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39, no. 2 (1997): 300–18; and Willem Pieter Blockmans and Walter Prevenier, The Promised Lands: The Low Countries under Burgundian Rule, 1369–1530 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). The idea of the luxury of choice for a sober aesthetic came directly from a conversation with Marco Mostert. 38 For more on the ways that non-ducal (noble and non-noble) manuscript patronage both imitated and diverged from ducal manuscript patronage, see Hanno Wijsman, “Patterns in Patronage: Distinction and Imitation in the Patronage of Painted Art by Burgundian Courtiers in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,” in The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages, ed. S. J. Gunn and A. Janse (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), 53–69. He notes the “clearcut top-down development” of patronage of books of hours (61), as well as the development of certain art styles and forms as a response to new markets: “[An] example might be the appearance of a new style in southern Netherlandish manuscript painting around 1475, the so-called ‘Ghent-Bruges school’. This coincides with the rather sudden drop in demand for illuminated manuscripts by the high nobility and the introduction of printed books. Therefore this new style, emphasising lively colours and naturalistic details, can be seen in my view as a strategy of the manuscript producers turning themselves to new—partly bourgeois, but mainly foreign—markets.” Wijsman, “Patterns in Patronage,” 68.

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Fig. 11: Annunciation. South Netherlandish, ca. 1500–10, colorless glass, vitreous paint, and silver stain, 22.5 cm (diam.). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 1972, 1972.245.1. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

accurately described as uncolored glass, in contrast with the more common stained glass found in medieval churches and other buildings. Properly colorless, in practice the glass appears white or composed of light. This colorless glass thus has commonalities with silver, which is valued for its light-reflecting properties and is synonymous with white. The popularity of grisaille glass originated with a twelfth-century Cistercian directive (repeated in the thirteenth century) prescribing colorless and non-figurative glass,39 but soon spread beyond the Cistercian community.40 In the fourteenth century, the development of the silver-stain 39 Bernard of Clairvaux calls for “white” and undecorated glass in his 1124 apologia: “Vitreae albae . . . et sine crucibus et picturis” (white glass . . . without crosses or pictures). See Helen Jackson Zakin, “French Cistercian Grisaille Glass,” Gesta 13, no. 2 (1974): 27n4; and, more generally, Helen Jackson Zakin, French Cistercian Grisaille Glass (New York: Garland, 1979). 40 The popularity of grisaille glass probably spread because it was an economical choice and allowed more light into buildings compared to colored glass. Before the fourteenth century, grisaille glass appeared primarily in band windows, like light-filled glass curtains that were patterned but

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technique resulted in a new type of grisaille, or colorless, glass. In the silver-stain process, a silver compound (silver oxide or silver sulfide) was applied to the back of colorless glass and fired, turning the dark substance a shade of yellow. Compositions on glass combined the yellow silver stain with black vitreous enamel, which was applied in thin layers like paint, built up to create shades of gray or black, and removed by brush or stylus to reveal clear glass, creating “white” details.41 This new combination of white, yellow, gray, and black became popular in the fifteenth and particularly the sixteenth century, spreading beyond ecclesiastic use to domestic and civic spaces, often in roundel form.42 Self-contained representational scenes with figures and objects in two tones could now be created without the need for lead piping between separate panes of colored glass. The new glass aesthetic had visual similarities to the silver-gold aesthetic in metalwork, and in a way it could be said to be materially similar too, since silver was used in the process of making images on glass. Visually, it was also similar to the gray-gold strand of grisaille manuscripts: both feature an interplay of gray with yellow/gold on a blank/white background.43 A silver-stained grisaille glass roundel and a gray-gold grisaille book of hours have more than their coloring in common: they are part of the same segment of Burgundian visual culture. As domestic objects for a growing mercantile class, both these types of objects were owned by the same types of patrons and present in similar spaces. The gray-gold grisaille style is found in a corpus of relatively modest books of hours for unknown patrons, perhaps for the open market. Likewise, the silver-stained grisaille glass windows were predominantly made for secular buildings, often domestic spaces. By contrast, fully grisaille manuscripts were typically made for courtly bibliophiles, silver-gold metalwork for a courtly or ecclesiastic context, and colorful stained glass as well as ascetic grisaille or uncolored band windows for ecclesiastic spaces. Small in scale and less expensive than colored glass windows, the grisaille glass roundels were available to, and widely popular among, the mercantile class. There was also a great overlap across media non-figural. Meredith Parsons Lillich, “The Band Window: A Theory of Origin and Development,” Gesta 9, no. 1 (1969), 26–33. On the relation of patterns in French Cistercian grisaille glass to patterns in other media, see Zakin, French Cistercian Grisaille Glass. 41 The technique is summarized in Timothy B. Husband, The Luminous Image: Painted Glass Roundels in the Lowlands, 1480–1560 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), 10–12. 42 A taxonomy of the iconography of grisaille glass and its appearance in civic and domestic contexts is given in Ilja M. Veldman, “Characteristics of Iconography in the Lowlands during the Period of Humanism and the Reformation: 1480–1560,” in Husband, The Luminous Image, 15–31. Based on the examples I have been able to find, it appears that in the fifteenth century the silver-stained glass technique was practiced primarily in Germany and became prominent in French and Burgundian territories from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century onward. 43 Maxence Hermant also draws attention to the visual similarities between grisaille stained glass and grisaille manuscripts in sixteenth-century France. Maxence Hermant, “Grisailles et semigrisailles dans le vitrail de France du Nord (1530–1560),” in Boudon-Machuel, Brock, and Charron, Aux limites de la couleur, 77–86, at 85.

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in the iconography of these objects: the late fifteenth-century silver-stained roundels have as subjects images of saints and standard devotional scenes, the same iconography typically found in books of hours.44 Finally, there was also an overlap in the artists who worked on these two types of objects, as well as the methods employed. With the emergence of the silver-stain technique, the process of creating stained glass became more aligned with the graphic style of drawing, painting, and printmaking than ever. Designs were often created by artists working primarily as painters. Brush and stylus were used to make autonomous designs on the surface of single pieces of uncolored glass, in contrast to the earlier reliance on a mosaic-type process of arranging and connecting several smaller pieces of colored glass to form a whole image. We know of a number of panel painters who designed compositions for glass (including Hugo van der Goes, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Holbein the Younger),45 and it is possible that manuscript artists also worked in this capacity. There are, in fact, examples of manuscript artists using compositions from stained glass as models—either directly or via access to the drawn designs—as seen, for example, in the Mayer van den Bergh Breviary.46 ***** As the grisaille aesthetic spread not only from one context of patronage to another but also from one medium to another, it inevitably changed in appearance, with artists working in new techniques and substitute materials. Both silver-stained roundels and gray-gold grisaille books of hours were relatively inexpensive but desirable nonetheless, related to trends in luxury goods but specifically associated with the rising mercantile class and its growing buying power and patronage of visual objects. With the emergence of the gray-gold grisaille manuscripts, the silver-gold aesthetic

44 In the sixteenth century the iconography of these windows expanded to include a wider range of biblical narrative scenes as well as secular subjects. See Veldman, “Characteristics of Iconography,” 15–31. 45 See Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Stained Glass: Radiant Art (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2013), 76–77; and Husband, The Luminous Image, 57–59 and 64–67, cat. nos. 8–9 and 12–14. 46 Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, inv. 618. While the miniatures in this manuscript are in color, they provide evidence of the links between glass and manuscript design. The book’s depictions of Tobias catching a fish and Joseph being sold by his brothers, dated ca. 1510–15, repeat compositions found in designs for glass roundels dating from the 1480s and in several extant examples of silver-stained glass. The compositions were likely designed by Hugo van der Goes for a series of stained glass windows, although this attribution is disputed. See Brigitte Dekeyzer, Layers of Illusion: The Mayer van den Bergh Breviary (Ghent: Ludion, 2004), 108–11; and Husband, The Luminous Image, 64–67, cat. nos. 12–14. A similar phenomenon is illustrated in Husband, The Luminous Image, 57–58, cat. nos. 8–9. Husband notes, “It is not clear how designs that probably originated in a workshop associated with Hugo van der Goes became available to the Bening-Horenbout workshop [Simon Bening and Gerard Horenbout, the artists of the Mayer van den Bergh Breviary], although Alexander Bening, who was the father of Simon and was active in Ghent about 1470, was married to Catherine van der Goes, who may have been Hugo’s sister.”

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was no longer exclusive to the domain of courtly and ecclesiastic patrons. This luxury aesthetic was now available—albeit in altered form—to a wider, more socioeconomically diverse audience.

Appendix Manuscripts belonging to the gray-gold border style (in progress) Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, Cassaforte 3.11 Bordeaux, Cathédrale Saint-André, Marcadé Collection, Marcadé 65a-f Brussels, KBR, MS 10957 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 91 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 145 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 86 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 85 The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 135 E 25 London, British Library, Add. MS 19738 London, British Library, Yates Thompson MS 4 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Res. 178 Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Cod. 470 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.7 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.25 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.30 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.59 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.310 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.778 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.854 Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library, cod. Lat. a. 1 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 381 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 1183 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 3217 Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Widener 5 Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Collins Collection, 1945-65-16 (Pembroke Hours) San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1134 San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1248 Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, MS ABM h13 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Ser. n. 13240

V Treasuries in Books, Books as Treasuries

Eliza Garrison

The Golden Spaces of the Uta Codex At some point between 1020 and 1025, during the final years of Abbess Uta of Niedermünster’s life, she or someone who admired her deeply donated to the treasury of the Niedermünster canonry the object that we know as the Uta Codex.1 It is one of the most sumptuous and complex artworks ever created by the monks at the abbey of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, a center of artistic production just a short walk from Niedermünster. By the end of the first quarter of the eleventh century, St. Emmeram was one of the most influential sites of artistic production in the Ottonian Empire. While there are many things about the circumstances of the creation of the Uta Codex that we will likely never know, what we can reconstruct of its production and donation testify to the rigorous intellectualism of Ottonian monastic life. The “Codex” actually comprises two elements: a massive golden book box (44.3 x 32.5 x 8.9 cm) and a relatively slim manuscript of select pericopes (38.3 x 27.6 cm, 119 folios) (Fig. 1).2 Although these two components were made for each other, no

Note: I wish to thank this volume’s editors as well as its two anonymous peer reviewers; they all offered me tremendously helpful feedback that brought focus and clarity to the propositions made here. Brigitte Buettner and Evan Gatti each read drafts of this essay at various stages of completion, and the argument presented in these pages benefitted enormously from their input. Christine Andrews, Jennifer Borland, Lynn Jones, Elizabeth L’Estrange, Jimmy Mixson, and Nancy Thompson all provided me with opportunities to present this research publicly, and I am grateful to them for supporting my scholarship in this way. I would also like to express my gratitude to Adam Cohen, William Diebold, Larry Nees, and Nancy Thompson for offering me practical support and encouragement for the book project that has grown out of this essay. 1 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601. 2 The scholarly literature on the Uta Codex is vast, and so I cite here the most critical studies in reverse chronological order: Karl-Georg Pfändtner and Brigitte Gullath, eds., Der Uta-Codex: Frühe Regensburger Buchmalerei in Vollendung (Lucerne: Quaternio, 2012); Claudia Fabian and Christiane Lange, eds., Pracht auf Pergament: Schätze der Buchmalerei von 780 bis 1811 (Munich: Hirmer, 2012), 194–97, cat. no. 40; Elisabeth Klemm, Die ottonischen und frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), 1:43–49, cat. no. 19; Béatrice Hernad, ed., Prachteinbände 870–1685: Schätze aus dem Bestand der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München (Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2001), 21–22, cat. no. 7; Adam S. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000); Jutta Rütz, “Der Buchkastendeckel des Uta-Evangelistars in seiner Bedeutung für die Liturgie,” in Wort und Buch in der Liturgie: Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Wirkmächtigkeit des Wortes und Zeichenhaftigkeit des Buches, ed. Hanns Peter Neuheuser (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1995), 445–70; Ulrich Kuder, “Der Spekulative Gehalt der vier ersten Bildseiten des Utacodex,” in St. Emmeram in Regensburg: Geschichte – Kunst – Denkmalpflege (Kallmünz: Lassleben, 1992), 163–78; Jutta Rütz, Text im Bild: Funktion und Bedeutung der Beischriften in den Miniaturen des UtaEvangelistars (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1991); Florentine Mütherich, ed., Regensburger Buchmalerei: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-010

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Fig. 1: Case of the Uta Codex. Regensburg, ca. 1020–25, wood, gold, silver, gemstones, and cloisonné enamel, 44.3 x 32.5 x 8.9 cm. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601. Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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scholarly study has attended to their mutual relationship.3 In what follows, I will examine how both the case and the book simulate aspects of Christ’s physical presence in their materiality and also in their visual evocation of a sacred interior space that is envisioned as continuous both with his body and with the space of the abbey of Niedermünster. In this scenario, the book and the case are extensions of one another. The symbolic order of the illuminations and the messages contained in the book’s seemingly countless inscriptions inscribed Uta into their strict geometric framework; they did so in the name of reform and in the interest of concerns over memoria and the practice of meditatio. I further propose that the format of the illuminations likewise gave form to tensions over female monastics’ access to the divine. Indeed, even as the book’s glittering miniatures granted Uta unparalleled symbolic access to the Word, this luxurious portal to the Divine only allowed her to go so far. The large size of the two interdependent components of the Uta Codex makes clear that they were made to be used and displayed in the performance of the Mass at Niedermünster.4 The astonishing intricacy of the six illuminated double-page openings, replete as they are with inscriptions that expound upon the theological truths envisioned therein, strongly suggests that they were also intended to be viewed contemplatively. The first two openings—at folios 1v–2r and 3v–4r—can be considered a prefatory cycle to the text.5 In the first opening, the Hand of God faces a scene of Uta presenting a golden codex to Mary and Child (Fig. 2). The second opening reveals St. Erhard’s response to a Symbolic Crucifixion in the performance of the Mass (Fig. 3).6 Four additional openings, with portraits of the Evangelists facing large illuminated initials—folios 5v–6r, 41v–42r, 59v–60r, 89v–90r—divide the text of this book of

Von Frühkarolingischer Zeit bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Munich: Prestel, 1987), 33–34, cat. no. 17; Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1965), 147–49, cat. no. 59; Georg Swarzenski, Die Regensburger Buchmalerei des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts: Studien zur Geschichte der deutschen Malerei des frühen Mittelalters (1901; Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1969), 3–26, 88–122. Both the golden book box and the manuscript have been digitized: https://einbaende.digitalesammlungen.de/Prachteinbaende/Clm_13601_Buchkasten_Hauptaufnahme; https://daten.digitalesammlungen.de/~db/0007/bsb00075075/images/. 3 The case and the manuscript have complementary dimensions. While the decoration of the case was modified slightly in the thirteenth century, its format and dimensions easily accommodate the manuscript. Furthermore, the book’s relatively compressed folio count makes clear that it was designed to fit into the book box. 4 It is unclear whether or not the book box could be propped upright and used as a liturgical ornament, although its design indicates this could have been the case. Jutta Rütz’s analysis of the book box obliquely suggests some of the possibilities for its display. See Rütz, “Der Buchkastendeckel des Uta-Evangelistars,” 448. 5 Folios 2v and 3r are blank. 6 As the term might suggest, Symbolic Crucifixion scenes tend to highlight the allegorical meanings of the crucifixion, particularly as these meanings pertain to other conceptual threads contained in a given artwork or series of artworks.

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Fig. 2: Hand of God (left) and Abbess Uta presenting her codex to the Virgin and Child (right). Uta Codex. Regensburg, ca. 1020–25. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601, fols. 1v–2r. Photos: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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Fig. 3: Symbolic Crucifixion (left) and Mystical Mass of St. Erhard (right). Uta Codex. Regensburg, ca. 1020–25. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601, fols. 3v–4r. Photos: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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pericopes (also known as an evangeliary or Gospel lectionary). Ordinarily, evangeliaries are organized according to the liturgical year, and yet the designers of the manuscript portion of the Uta Codex elected to group the pericopes according to the Gospel texts from which they derive. One effect of this organization is that the manuscript maintains the structural logic of a Gospel book even though it only contains a selection of pericopes.7 It is meaningful that the designers of this manuscript opted for this unusual organization: in doing so, they created a book that could reinforce the unity of the Gospels as well as signify the manuscript’s significance as an embodiment of Christ as logos. While the present analysis will consider the relationships between the cover and the first two openings of the manuscript, all six of the illuminated openings in this book display a consistent emphasis on the tactility of the Word, which is metaphorically aligned with Christ’s body. Such emphases were established for the viewer before the book’s golden case was opened. In considering the interplay between box and book, I will pay particular attention to the manner in which the book’s illuminations are rendered as symbolic spaces for the figures that occupy them. Bruno Reudenbach has noted that the form of the codex (as opposed to the rotulus) allowed for scribes and illuminators to conceive of it as a discrete space, in which the “room” of the text and illuminations could suggest places for the reader/viewer’s eye to linger.8 Reudenbach focuses chiefly on the architectonic forms used for canon tables, but his analysis nonetheless reminds us that the viewing communities of a work like the Uta Codex would have readily understood the space of the illuminated page as one possessed of depth. I further propose that the makers of the Uta Codex also constructed the miniatures to simulate from various angles the space of the Niedermünster canonry as a material extension of Christ’s own body. In doing so, the designers of these illuminations went to hitherto unexplored lengths to represent and construct the space of the Word as a tangible architectonic structure.9 In advancing these propositions I take an approach different from scholarly studies that have understandably privileged the rich inscriptions that seem to spill from every corner of the illuminations in the manuscript portion of the Uta Codex. I offer the present analysis as a way to track and explain the visual drama of the illuminations and the connections they share with the book box, which have gone 7 Adam Cohen has remarked that this structure “creates a tension between the nature of the book as an evangeliary and its appearance as a Gospel book,” and underscores the timelessness of the messages contained in the pericopes in their capacity as embodiments of the Gospels. Cohen, Uta Codex, 191. 8 Bruno Reudenbach, “Der Codex als heiliger Raum: Überlegungen zur Bildausstattung früher Evangelienbücher,” in Codex und Raum, ed. Stephan Müller (Vienna: Harrassowitz, 2009), 59–84. Joshua O’Driscoll presents a series of related points in “Visual Vortex: An Epigraphic Image from an Ottonian Gospel Book,” Word & Image 27, no. 3 (2011): 309–21. 9 For an exploration of a related phenomenon from a Reichenau manuscript, see Eliza Garrison, “Movement and Time in the Egbert Psalter,” in Imago libri: Représentations carolingiennes du livre, ed. Charlotte DeNoël, Anne-Orange Poilpré, and Sumi Shimahara (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 163–71.

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unexamined in the existing scholarship. This investigation will therefore make a case for the cohesiveness and programmatic nature of the Uta Codex as a liturgical object. In doing so, I will strike a balance between a logocentric interpretative mode and one that aims to comprehend divine forms which—ineffable as they are—can only partially be explained by their accompanying text. In Jeffrey Hamburger’s now canonical study of devotional images made in the late fifteenth century by nuns at Eichstätt (which are also replete with text), he noted that “inscriptions elucidate drawings but images do not rely on words alone for their meaning.”10 Like the devotional imagery created at Bavarian convents centuries later, the Uta Codex as an object spoke not only through its words but also through the divine forms hammered into its golden case and limned onto its parchment surfaces. The sumptuousness and complexity of the Uta Codex makes clear that no expense was spared in its creation. Indeed, its miniatures bear all of the vaunted stylistic traits of other books painted at St. Emmeram in Regensburg. However, with regard to the lavishness of its materials and the intricacy of its design, the Uta Codex outshines nearly all of the other extant manuscripts made in Regensburg in the tenth and eleventh centuries.11 From the beginning of her tenure at Niedermünster around the year 990, Abbess Uta had been responsible for governing the reform of the abbey and thus encouraging her sisters to return to a strict observance of the Benedictine Rule.12 The Uta Codex was created toward the end of the abbess’s life, at a time when she could look back on over three decades of service to the abbey of Niedermünster and its canonesses. As was the case throughout the Ottonian empire, the canonesses of Niedermünster derived mostly from the ranks of the nobility, and they and their sisters at other royal abbeys and canonries enjoyed a level of education on par with that of their male monastic counterparts. The strictures of the Rule aside, the lives of the Niedermünster canonesses appear to have involved a certain amount of communication with the monks at St. Emmeram.13

10 Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 147. See also Cohen, Uta Codex, 7. 11 See, for example, the Regensburg manuscripts discussed in Mütherich, Regensburger Buchmalerei, and Swarzenski, Regensburger Buchmalerei. 12 See Cohen, Uta Codex, 17–22; Katrinette Bodarwé, “Immer Ärger mit den Stiftsdamen – Reform in Regensburg,” in Nonnen, Kanonissen un Mystikerinnen: Religiöse Frauengemeinschaften in Süddeutschland, ed. Eva Schlotheuber, Helmut Flachenecker, and Ingrid Gardill (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 79–102. 13 Cohen recounts that the Niedermünster canonesses attended the funeral of the Abbot Ramwold of St. Emmeram in 1000. See Cohen, Uta Codex, 186. Cohen’s monograph makes compelling arguments for the connections between the Uta Codex and reform efforts at Niedermünster. Although Rütz does not spend much time considering it in her analysis of the Uta Codex, she also alludes to the importance of the introduction of the Gorze Reform at Niedermünster. See Rütz, Text im Bild, 116–18. For Cohen’s most recent elaborations on these ideas, see Adam S. Cohen, “The Book and Monastic Reform,” in DeNoël, Poilpré, and Shimahara, Imago libri, 173–82, at 173–74.

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Adam Cohen’s study of the Uta Codex paints a compelling picture of Ottonian intellectual culture and the culture of monastic reform in Regensburg, and proposes that a certain Hartwic of St. Emmeram was responsible for the composition of the book’s inscriptions; with Uta (and perhaps with one of her sisters), Hartwic may have also had a hand in determining the book’s iconographic program.14 Hartwic had studied with none other than Fulbert of Chartres and Gerbert of Reims, two of the most well-educated men of the tenth and eleventh centuries, whose scholarly legacies came to shape European intellectual culture for centuries.15 We also know that the library at St. Emmeram was impressive, as three late tenth-century catalogues attest: these lists contain 660 entries, with approximately twenty percent of the titles dealing directly with the trivium and quadrivium.16 St. Emmeram’s library housed, for example, copies of the Physiologus, the Psychomachia of Prudentius, the collected works of Virgil, along with law codes and historical and medical texts.17 Given the close geographical proximity of St. Emmeram and Niedermünster, it is possible that the canonesses had some measure of access to St. Emmeram’s library in addition to the works held in their abbey’s own collection. As Niedermünster had a scriptorium of its own, it seems safe to speculate that canonesses would have copied borrowed books for their own use.18 Indeed, the Uta Codex itself is a testimony to the contact between the two houses.19 Once the Uta Codex entered the treasury at Niedermünster, it would have been used on particularly important feast days for about one third of the liturgical year.20 Considering the object’s commanding scale and remarkable opulence, it is clear that it was meant for display, and one has to imagine that the manuscript’s removal from its case would have been an important part of the liturgical mise-enscène on certain high feast days at Niedermünster. The clerics who were enlisted to perform liturgical services at the canonry would have had occasion to reflect upon the various meanings of the manuscript’s illuminations in the course of the book’s use. It is also likely that Uta and other members of the community at Niedermünster would have viewed the book’s illuminations as a part of their personal devotion, for these were designed to be scrutinized with the utmost care and reflection.21 We might think of this aspect of the Uta Codex’s use as a kind of

14 Cohen, Uta Codex, 184–85. 15 Ibid., 184. 16 Ibid., 185. 17 Ibid. 18 On the scriptorium at Niedermünster, see Swarzenski, Regensburger Buchmalerei, 90 and 121–22. On scribal activity in Regensburg see also Cohen, Uta Codex, 185–86. 19 Cohen, Uta Codex, 186 and 188. 20 Ibid., 192n45; Rütz, Text im Bild, 166–69; and Swarzenski, Regensburger Buchmalerei, 193–96 and 206–18. In his physical examination of the Uta Codex, Karl-Georg Pfändtner discovered numerous signs of use. See Pfändtner and Gullath, Der Uta-Codex, 117–18. 21 Cohen, Uta Codex, 193–96; Swarzenski, Regensburger Buchmalerei, 122.

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forerunner to Shrine Madonnas and related devotional objects from the late Middle Ages.22 Jutta Rütz’s Text im Bild, a monograph on the Uta Codex published in 1991, took on the herculean task of analyzing the inscriptions that wrap around and through the book’s full-page illuminations. Rütz’s study was pathbreaking in its thorough attention to the theological meanings contained in these inscriptions, and it became essential to later studies. Rütz subsequently published an article on the book box of the Uta Codex, in which she proposed, among other things, that the figure of the Christ in Majesty was to be understood in relation to the manuscript’s visual appearance as a Gospel book, despite it technically being an evangeliary.23 In her analysis, the case of the Uta Codex asserts the conceptual continuity of the imagery between the box and the book, and we thus are to understand the relief of the Maiestas Domini as the first “picture” in the book. The Maiestas iconography on the cover and its promise of Christ’s return, she points out, is emphasized in the manuscript’s cycle of illuminations, and is presaged in the double-page opening containing the Crucifixion and St. Erhard celebrating Mass (see Fig. 3).24 According to Rütz, St. Erhard appears here as a type for the priestly celebrant and enacts a symbolic Last Supper, while Christ, envisioned in this image as both king and priest, here prefigures his future glory on the cover. In addition to the visual force of the illuminations, the inscriptions in this opening reference in various ways the promise of eternal life presaged in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.25 Rütz’s goal in this essay was to provide an overview of the liturgical meanings of the book box, but even her brief discussion of the connections between the case and the book pointed to a rich relationship between the two. My own close scrutiny of the commanding imagery of the case and the prefatory cycle of illuminations will build upon Rütz’s work to underscore the plentiful and revealing ways in which the box and the book were conceptually keyed to each other.

Case – Body – Book A large enthroned Christ in Majesty dominates the golden case of the Uta Codex, and his figure sets much of the tone for the rest of the object, in which Christ’s Incarnation and the world of the New Law can be visually and spiritually

22 The literature on this topic is extensive; two studies that have critically attended to this idea are Elina Gertsman, Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), and Hamburger, Nuns as Artists. 23 Rütz, “Der Buchkastendeckel des Uta-Evangelistars,” 445–70, esp. 462. 24 Ibid., 468–69. 25 Ibid., 469.

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Fig. 4: Detail of Christ’s hands. Case of the Uta Codex. Regensburg, ca. 1020–25. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601. Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

apprehended (see Fig. 1).26 Christ’s seated figure is elongated—almost oval—and each of his hands is pressed firmly against his body.27 Nimbed and swathed in pleated gold sheeting, Christ raises his right hand in benediction and clutches a codex to his body with his left. This jeweled book is emblazoned with the Alpha and Omega. The hand that blesses is strikingly long and large; its size is roughly equivalent to the jeweled codex Christ holds in his other hand. As David Ganz has

26 See Rütz, “Der Buchkastendeckel des Uta-Evangelistars.” See also David Ganz, Buch-Gewänder: Prachteinbände im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer, 2015), esp. 65–68. For an older yet still decisive consideration of the case, see Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter, 147–49, cat. no. 59. See also Pfändtner and Gullath, Der Uta Codex, 103–5. My research indicates that Hermann Schnitzler was the first to suggest that their visual programs were complementary. See Hermann Schnitzler, “Zur Regensburger Goldschmiedekunst,” in Wandlungen christlicher Kunst im Mittelalter, ed. Johannes Hempel (Baden-Baden: Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1953), 171–88, at 176–79. 27 The shape of Christ’s figure recalls the shape of a seal. Indeed, there are other resonances with seals in the manuscript’s cycle of illuminations. For more on seals and their significance, see Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2011); eadem, “Replica: Images of Identity and the Identity of Images in Pre-Scholastic France,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Hamburger and AnneMarie Bouché (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 46–64; and Thomas E. A. Dale, “The Individual, the Resurrected Body, and Romanesque Portraiture: The Tomb of Rudolf von Schwaben in Merseburg,” Speculum 77, no. 3 (2002): 707–43.

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Fig. 5: Side view. Case of the Uta Codex. Regensburg, ca. 1020–25. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601. Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

observed, the codex that Christ grips is coterminous with his body; this detail establishes a clear equivalency between body and book (Fig. 4).28 This most sacred of bodies is also marked by the decisive physicality of Christ’s figure, which at forty centimeters takes up nearly the entire height of the case, and is carved in such high relief that its depth is nearly equivalent to the upper section of the case that supports it (Fig. 5).29 Most immediately, the front of the case of the Uta Codex evokes book covers that make up the binding of the book to which they are attached. Unlike a book, however, the case of the Uta Codex opens on the left. This reinforces the case’s function as a box, and likewise its morphological commonality with other contemporary liturgical objects such as reliquaries.30 So, while it is in direct conversation with the formal aspects of a work like the cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, which dates to ca. 870 (Fig. 6), we can also think of it as a functional cousin to an object like the reliquary of St. Andrew in Trier, which predates the Uta Codex by over forty years (Fig. 7).31 The rich and meaningful relationship between the case and the manu-

28 Ganz, Buch-Gewänder, 65–68. 29 Ibid., 65. 30 On the connection to reliquaries, see Cohen, Uta Codex, 193. On reliquaries made to evoke the shape of book covers, sometimes referred to as plenaria, see Beate Braun-Niehr, “Das Buch im Schatz: Im Dienst von Liturgie, Heiligenverehrung und Memoria,” in ‘ . . . das heilige sichtbar machen’: Domschätze in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft, ed. Ulrike Wendland (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2010), 121–36. 31 The shelf mark for the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram is Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000. The manuscript has been digitized: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/ bsb00096095. For the cover, see: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00107609.

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Fig. 6: Cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram. Court School of Charles the Bald, ca. 870, gold, gemstones, pearls. Munich, BSB, Clm 14000. Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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Fig. 7: Reliquary of St. Andrew. Trier, ca. 980, wood, gold, ivory, gemstones, and cloisonné enamel, 31.0 x 44.7 x 22.0 cm. Trier, Cathedral Treasury, inv. 5. Photo: Holly Hayes / EdStockPhoto.

Fig. 8: Soiscéal Molaise (Shrine of St. Molaise). Made for Devenish Abbey (Lough Erne, County Fermanagh), ca. 1001–25, with fifteenth-century additions, 11.5 cm (height). Dublin, National Museum of Ireland, R.4006. Photo: This image is reproduced with the kind permission of the National Museum of Ireland.

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Fig. 9: Detail of Near Eastern (?) textile lining. Case of the Uta Codex. Munich, BSB, Clm 13601. Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

script connects them to Irish book shrines like the eleventh-century Soiscéal Molaise (Fig. 8).32 Even the interior of the case of the Uta Codex bears out comparisons to reliquaries and book shrines: the box was once lined with precious textiles, most likely silk from the Near East, so as to luxuriously envelop its contents (Fig. 9).33 Those with access to the Uta Codex were among the precious few who would have caught a glimpse of the chromatic interplay between the textiles when the manuscript was removed from and placed back into the box.

32 See Karen Eileen Overbey, Sacral Geographies: Saints, Shrines, and Territory in Medieval Ireland (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). I am grateful to Sherry Lindquist, who first suggested that I consider this connection, which I also later found upon renewed consultation of Rütz, “Der Buchkastendeckel des Uta Evangelistars,” 460. 33 Pfändtner and Gullath, Der Uta Codex, 104–5. One set of the remaining textile fragments that once lined the case’s interior is orange and yellow. Another set of textile fragments is blue. All of these colors are in keeping with the allusions to textiles on folio 2r, the dedication page, and to the simulated textiles on folio 4r, the scene of St. Erhard celebrating the Mass. On folio 2r, animal motifs evocative of textile designs appear along the rectangular frame of the miniature. On folio 4r, beneath the simulated stone of the altar appears a brightly colored textile featuring griffons or winged horses within roundels. If Cohen is right and these two illuminations display moments when humans come into contact with the divine through the celebration of the Mass, then perhaps the integration of representations of precious textiles enhanced these associations. See Cohen, Uta Codex, 190.

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Today the manuscript component of the Uta Codex is bound in a suede cover from 1962; this replaced an earlier eighteenth-century binding. Traces of bookworms on the manuscript’s first and last folios indicate that the book was contained in a binding that would have been susceptible to damage from insects and worms. Karl-Georg Pfändtner has proposed that this could mean that one of the earlier bindings was made of wood boards covered with textiles.34 Given the material splendor of the case, and keeping in mind the coordination between case and book, a textile binding for the codex that was itself contained in a golden box lined with textiles would have been a logical choice from a practical and aesthetic standpoint. Since the canonesses at Niedermünster also created textiles for liturgical use, we might imagine that some of their own work came to form part of the Codex.35 Like the artworks to which it is morphologically related, the case of the Uta Codex, with its monumental representation of Christ in Majesty, was made to function as a type of reliquary container for the relic/book, understood here as the body of Christ logos. The makers of both components of the Uta Codex understood it as an embodied object; the manuscript portion in particular was made to emphasize its significance as both Word and flesh.36 Conceiving of the manuscript component of the Uta Codex as a relic of Christ logos may help explain the staggering number of inscriptions that weave in, out, and through the illuminations; they each speak in different ways to Christ’s majesty, much in the manner of an “authentic,” the label or tag that medieval people often attached to relics as a way to authenticate them and establish their physical source.37 In the performance of the Mass at Niedermünster, the Uta Codex’s journey from the sacristy to the altar would have been

34 Pfändtner and Gullath, Der Uta Codex, 105. 35 On the canonesses’ work as textile artists, see Cohen, Uta Codex, 48–49. See also Eliza Garrison, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 121; Warren Woodfin, “Presents Given and Presence Subverted: The Cunegunda Chormantel in Bamberg and the Ideology of Byzantine Textiles,” Gesta 47, no. 1 (2008): 33–50; and Swarzenski, Regensburger Buchmalerei, 110. The miniature of St. Erhard celebrating the Mass—and the cycle of illuminations in the Uta Codex more generally—seem to exemplify the “textile mentality” described in Lisa Golombek, “The Draped Universe of Islam,” in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World, ed. Priscilla P. Soucek (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 25–49. I thank Evan Gatti for suggesting this connection to me. 36 See Bruno Reudenbach, “Der Codex als Verkörperung Christi: Mediengeschichtliche, theologische und ikonographische Aspekte einer Leitidee früher Evangelienbücher,” in Erscheinungsformen und Handhabungen heiliger Schriften, ed. Joachim F. Quack and Daniela C. Luft (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 229–44; Thomas Lentes, “Textus Evangelii: Materialität und Inszenierung des textus in der Liturgie,” in ‘Textus’ im Mittelalter: Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im schriftsemantischen Feld, ed. Ludolf Kuchenbuch and Uta Kleine (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 133–48; and Jeffrey Hamburger, “Body vs. Book: The Trope of Visibility in Images of Christian-Jewish Polemic,” in Ästhetik des Unsichtbaren: Bildtheorie und Bildgebrauch in der Vormoderne, ed. David Ganz and Thomas Lentes (Berlin: Reimer, 2004), 112–45. 37 See Cynthia Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57 (2010): 284–316, at 290.

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likened to Christ’s own entry into the world; the removal of the book from its case would have been staged as a moment of revelation. Here, the textiles inside the case and those presumably on the book’s original cover would have asserted the revelatory drama that was so important to the design of both components of this artwork.38 If the pronounced physicality of the figure of Christ in Majesty on the box’s front and the manner in which he holds his codex signaled an equivalency between body and book, the case’s clear similarity to a reliquary underscored the significance of the manuscript portion of the Uta Codex as an embodiment of Christ. Thus, on the box we see the shimmering majesty of Christ’s exterior form while the contents of the book manifest in word and paint the manner in which Christ’s glory—and the glory of his physical body—was imagined in the first quarter of the eleventh century.

Book – Body – Word Inside the Uta Codex, it becomes even more apparent that the gold of the case set the tone for the cycle of illuminations, for the miniatures are suffused with gold in a manner that is unmatched in other Ottonian manuscripts. The forceful relationships between book and body established on the box are expanded and elaborated in the golden frameworks for the figures, forms, and inscriptions that fill the pages. Close analysis of the illuminations in the first two openings reveals that their creators envisioned them as interlocking heavenly spaces and as visualizations of the interior of a sacred body; these spaces are further aligned with the space of the cloister and with that of the abbey church of Niedermünster. The golden aesthetic of the Uta Codex as it is heralded on the case extends thoughout the text of the book, and it is announced in an especially dynamic fashion across folios 1v–2r and 3v–4r. In the virtual world of the manuscript, the illuminations’ golden spaces honor the sacredness of Christ as an embodiment of the Word. If the golden case focuses on Christ’s eternal and apocalyptic presence through both its materiality and iconography, the shimmering first opening of the manuscript presents a series of two interdependent non-narrative scenes that immediately reveal their significance as visual and material extensions of the body of Christ on the box (see Fig. 2). These facing illuminations, like the pair immediately following them, are dynamic and animated by a kinetic force; the various figures and forms seem to be 38 Both Anna Bücheler and Christine Sciacca have published critical analyses of the revelatory qualities of simulated and actual textiles in manuscripts. See Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain on the Use of Textiles in Manuscripts,” in Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and Their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161–90; Anna Bücheler, “Veil and Shroud: Eastern References and Allegoric Functions in the Textile Imagery of a Twelfth-Century Gospel Book from Braunschweig,” Medieval History Journal 15, no. 2 (2012): 269–97; eadem, Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile Metaphors in Early Medieval Manuscripts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019).

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responding to the same sensory cues. This impression is heightened all the more by the nearly identical format of the facing pages; together these two illuminations appear to offer a glimpse into a heavenly space wrought of gold and embellished with sumptuous textiles and enamels. These illuminated spaces are entirely in keeping with the dazzling visuality of the case. The visual realms of this opening and those that follow are imagined as phenomenological renderings of Christ’s own body as a precious space, which the reader/ viewer is invited to contemplate and move through in her mind’s eye. In imagining how one might simulate the inner spaces of such a body, the illuminators drew from an aesthetics of reliquary and book cover design, and this would have been especially easy to do at St. Emmeram, since in the first quarter of the eleventh century the goldsmith workshop there was among the leading European centers of this art.39 In designing the manuscript component of the Uta Codex, that is, its makers imagined a reliquary turned outside-in. Since Christ left behind no physical remains, the Word contained in the four Gospels excerpted in the codex functions as a relic, which the case enshrines. On folio 1v, a golden right Hand of God rises up from the lower part of the central medallion, which is held up by two crowned female figures whose identity is unclear. The large golden initials that wrap around the inside of the roundel encircling the Hand of God remind the reader/viewer: “God, encompassing all time by his everlasting will, has from eternity hallowed all things, which he created by his Word.”40 This deeply symbolic image surely would have prompted eleventhcentury viewers to reflect on the eternal nature of the Divine, and the combination of triangular and circular forms on this and the facing folio would have called to mind the forms to which the Word gave shape, perhaps the most important of which was Christ’s own body. Viewers of this image would certainly have also 39 For studies addressing goldsmithwork and metalwork in Regensburg specifically, and for references to the broader literature, see Hernad, Prachteinbände 870–1685; Rainer Kahsnitz, “Ottonische Emails in Regensburg,” in Meisterwerke Bayerns von 900–1900, ed. Renate Eikelmann (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 2000), 8–35; Reinhold Baumstark, ed., Rom und Byzanz: Schatzkammerstücke aus bayerischen Sammlungen (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 1998); Victor H. Elbern, “Auftraggeber und Künstler in der Goldschmiedekunst des frühen Mittelalters,” in idem, Fructus Operis, vol. 1, Kunstgeschichtliche Aufsätze aus fünf Jahrzehnten, ed. Piotr Skubiszewski (Regensburg: Schnell and Steiner, 1998), 855–81; Hermann Fillitz, “Ottonische Goldschmiedekunst,” in Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen, ed. Michael Brandt and Arne Eggebrecht (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1993), 1:173–90; Victor H. Elbern, Die Goldschmiedekunst im frühen Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988); Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter; Percy Ernst Schramm and Florentine Mütherich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser: Ein Beitrag zur Herrschergeschichte von Karl dem Großen bis Friedrich II. 768–1250 (Munich: Prestel, 1962); and Schnitzler, “Zur Regensburger Goldschmiedekunst.” 40 Trans. in Cohen, Uta Codex, 30. “Perpetuo totu[m] nutu cingens d[eu]s aevu[m]; Sanxit ab aeterno: quae condidit omnia v[e]rbo+.” Cohen’s analysis of this inscription deals with its connections to Boethius.

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Fig. 10: Arnulf Ciborium. Reims, ca. 893, wood, gold, gemstones, pearls, porphyry, and enamel, 59 x 31 x 24 cm. Munich, Schatzkammer der Residenz, inv. 5 (WAF). Photo: © Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung Rainer Herrmann/Maria Scherf, München.

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recognized the parallels between this golden right hand and the golden Hand of God that reaches upward on one of the gables on the ninth-century Arnulf Ciborium (Fig. 10), which was among the many treasures kept at St. Emmeram, and which the illuminators represented in full in the following opening.41 On folio 1v, the sculptural model has been cleverly deconstructed: the triangular gable appears as an actual triangle, and, as on the ciborium, the Hand reaches upward from a semicircular cloudlike mass. Even such small points of continuity are significant, for it makes clear that the Uta Codex—both box and book—were deliberately conceived as functional and conceptual extensions of the Arnulf Ciborium. Facing this page on folio 2r, Abbess Uta offers her codex to an enthroned Mary and Child. The abbess is depicted as if her body were encased inside this virtual world, for her figure is superimposed over the space of the illumination; wearing a blue and white veil and a simple brown dress, Uta is the only figure in this opening depicted without gold adornments, save for the codex she offers to the Virgin and Child and holds away from her body. On both pages of this opening, female figures— including the Cardinal Virtues in the four corners of the Hand of God page—observe the encounter between God’s hand and Mary and Child, and respond in kind. Inside the central medallion on folio 2r, Mary and Child react to God’s presence: Mary, crowned and veiled, looks toward the hand on the facing page and raises her own right hand in a gesture of mimetic response and approbation. The Christ child nestled in Mary’s lap echoes the figure of Christ on the cover of the Uta Codex: clad in a gold mantle worn over a blue tunic, the child’s posture and gesture reproduce exactly those of the monumental Christ in Majesty on the case, right down to the golden codex he clutches at his side. As on the cover, Christ’s golden codex on this folio is rendered as if it is part of his body, an effect the artist accomplished by matching the gold of the book to the gold of his mantle. Is this codex he grips the Book of Life? Is it a depiction showing Christ already holding the codex that Uta offers up to him below? Or can one understand it as a reference to both texts? The answers to these questions were likely left open to accommodate numerous possibilities. If nothing else, the one key “truth” visualized here is that of the Incarnation, so that this figure of Christ enthroned could be read as a pendant to and extension of the monumental vision of Christ in Majesty on the case. This painted Throne of Wisdom presents the reader/viewer with a series of equivalencies that hinge on the web of theological ideas that connected Mary’s

41 For the most recent study of the Arnulf Ciborium and extensive references to the rest of the literature, see Uta Appel Tallone, Das Arnulfziborium in der Schatzkammer der Münchener Residenz: Eine monographische Untersuchung (Herne: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 2003). See also Peter Morsbach, “Die ‘Arnulfinische Schenkung’,” in Ratisbona Sacra: Das Bistum Regensburg im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Morsbach (Munich: Schnell & Steiner, 1989), 195–96; and Albert Boeckler, “Das Erhardbild im Utacodex,” in Studies in Art and Literature for Belle da Costa Greene, ed. Dorothy Miner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954), 219–30.

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flesh with Christ’s and Christ’s flesh with the Word and, furthermore, that connected the flesh of the parchment page with the flesh of Christ’s earthly body. Both in the act of viewing the golden book box and in the act of opening the book, the reader/viewer became a symbolic witness to the Incarnation, which she could also touch as she contemplated the meanings and allusions of the book’s numerous inscriptions. In closing the book, the reader/viewer played a role in symbolically sealing this holy family inside its own celestial sphere, in which father, mother, and child are united in shared gestures of blessing. In this scenario, the heavenly embellishments surrounding the Hand of God can be understood as the Dome of Heaven, while the citylike enclosure that frames Mary and Child suggests the heavenly city. The spaces of these two roundels thus constitute Heaven itself.42 The first opening presents the reader/viewer with a vision of Uta ensconced inside a space that speaks to the interiority of spiritual vision. It may not be coincidental that this intimate space is peopled by chiefly female figures who are ordered and contained by architectonic enclosures; the strict organization of the illuminations here makes manifest a spiritual space that is subject to a rigorous and sacred order.43 The visual suggestion that this illuminated realm is one of closeness and interiority anticipates trends in late medieval devotional imagery, particularly scenes that encourage the viewer to envision themselves inside Christ’s body.44 Further, the repeated visual emphasis on manual gestures may have also recalled for Uta the gestures she and her sisters at Niedermünster would have used to communicate with one another in the interest of maintaining their vows of silence. In the move from the coterminous heavenly spaces invoked in the first opening to the second illuminated opening, in which a Symbolic Crucifixion on folio 3v is matched with the Mystical Mass of St. Erhard on folio 4r, the viewer’s gaze processes to two

42 In his examination of this opening, Cohen asserted that the Hand of God illumination “symbolizes the eternal and cosmic nature of the Creator” and that Mary and Christ’s figures allude to a time when the Creator “made himself physically present on earth.” Cohen, Uta Codex, 190. Cohen’s analysis would seem to support my suggestion that the architectonic spaces of these two miniatures are imagined as coterminous. 43 The crowned female figures that surround and support the Hand of God on folio 1v are not identified by the inscriptions, but those perched in the four corners of the illumination are named as (clockwise from the upper left) Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. On folio 2r, neither the four female figures in the four roundels surrounding the central portion of the miniature nor the four in the square “galleries” at the corners of the image are identified. However, these figures are linked together by a titulus written in hexameter that wraps around the entire composition: “Stem[m]ata virtutu[m] comitantia / lumine xp[istu]m / Compta corollariis dantur p[ro] / munere iustis” (The wreaths of the virtues, accompanying Christ in light, / Adorned in garlands, are given to the just for their service). See Cohen, Uta Codex, 49–50 for this translation, as well as his examination of the dedication miniature at 38–51. 44 Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, esp. 101–76. It is extremely suggestive that the artworks Hamburger surveys in this pathbreaking study were all created within roughly eighty kilometers from Niedermünster.

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interconnected scenes situated in a carefully rendered yet abstract church interior (see Fig. 3). The matching frameworks of the first opening give way to two interdependent illuminations whose basic geometric order relates to the first two miniatures; the seemingly heterogeneous structures of the miniatures in this second opening nonetheless respond to each other formally. These formal responses are grounded in various repeated textual and visual emphases on the significance of Christ’s body as the body of the Church/Ecclesia and on Erhard’s own holy body as an integral part of the space of the abbey church of Niedermünster. In this shift from the first opening to the second, Cohen sees a progression from the realm of the divine to that of humankind.45 On the surface, this is surely true, and yet, like the first opening, the second presents the reader/viewer with a visionary space. Indeed, the events in these two scenes take place inside the abbey church of Niedermünster, and yet the centrality of Erhard’s figure makes reference to tales of his beneficent presence at the high altar of the church, as the two mid-eleventh century vitae of St. Erhard and St. Wolfgang relate.46 It is perhaps the suggestion of a kind of narrativity in this opening that led Cohen to characterize this space as somehow connected to the material world. Surely the repeated presence of Abbess Uta’s figure is what might root this image most easily in the eleventh-century present: on folio 4r she has moved from center to periphery, where she views the Mystical Mass from her own gallery on the upper right. Her movement inside the symbolic spaces of the manuscript also represents and evokes a procession from the cloister as a place of meditation and spiritual communion to the abbey church of Niedermünster, where Uta and her sisters could witness the celebration of the Mass. Both types of communion with the divine were understood as visionary experiences of sorts.47 The scenes on folios 3v and 4r are expansive and filled with action; various visual cues make clear that the reader/viewer is presented here with an idealized church interior in which the contents of the Niedermünster treasury have come alive. Both these pages either allude to or explicitly reproduce actual liturgical artworks; the crucifix that is noticeably absent from Erhard’s altar appears in monumental form on the facing folio. As in the first opening, the figures in these scenes are coordinated by their gestures and surrounded by golden architectonic scaffolding. But while the first illuminated opening can be understood to show a shared space of

45 See Cohen, Uta Codex, 190. 46 Ibid., 91–92. For Paul’s vita of Erhard, see B. Krusch and W. Levison, eds., Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici, vol. 4, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 6, (Hanover: Hahn, 1913), 1–21. For Otloh’s vita of Wolfgang, see G. H. Pertz, ed., Annales, chronica et historiae aevi Carolini et Saxonici, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores (in Folio) 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), 521–42. 47 Eric Palazzo, “Visions and Liturgical Experience in the Early Middle Ages,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art and History, ed. Colum Hourihane (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 15–29.

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Uta’s intimate communion with Christ, Mary, and God, the second opening reveals two connected liturgical spaces in which Uta’s figure—now donning a golden veil and identified as dom[i]na abbatissa—is pushed from the center to the margins, where she views and responds to the scene below. The appearance of first Mary and then Erhard, the patron saints of Niedermünster, in close succession was a clever device to present a visual inventory of the abbey church’s treasures. Like Christ’s vividly living crucified body on folio 3v, Erhard’s depiction on folio 4r also shows him in a transcendent form: he died around 715 after succeeding Emmeram as bishop, and his body lay interred at Niedermünster.48 Although the inscription that appears to rest above his shoulders and behind his body identifies him as S. HERHARD[US], he was not canonized until 1052. The reader/ viewer sees him and a deacon celebrating the Mass as they face—and respond to—the Symbolic Crucifixion. In keeping with her position as a privileged spectator, Uta faces a female personification of the Benedictine ideal of “love of piety alone” (unic[a]e pietatis affectus), who occupies the upper left corner of the image; two further female personifications of the ideals of “temperament of discretion” (discretionis te[m]peram[en]tu[m]) and “firmness and strictness” (districtionis rigor) are placed in the lower left and right corners of the miniature, respectively.49 Whereas the mirrored spaces in the first opening signaled in part that they were coterminous, the illuminators used slightly different devices here to suggest coextensive spaces in this opening: each miniature shares a similar underlying structure, which is expanded and loosened to make space for the dramatic confrontation between the two scenes. The organization of these two images thus combines points of view: the Symbolic Crucifixion allows us to view this event from Erhard’s perspective, while the Mystical Mass appears from the standpoint of a viewer in the nave looking toward the high altar.50 These staged points of view enjoin the reader/viewer to reflect on the coordinated acts of witnessing and vision that unfold on both pages. Indeed, the figures of

48 Erhard arrived in Regensburg at some point between 680 and 690, and by all accounts he appears to have been involved in missionary efforts in the region. Erhard succeeded Emmeram as bishop of Regensburg at some point in the late seventh century, and while he was not canonized until 1052, a charter issued by Otto I on April 27, 973, refers to him as “blessed.” See Cohen, Uta Codex, 90, for more details and literature. For the text of the charter, see T. Sickel, ed., Conradi I. Heinrici I. et Ottonis I. diplomata, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Diplomata regum et imperatorum germaniae 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1879–84), 585–86, no. 433. Klaus Schwarz’s excavations at the abbey of Niedermünster revealed that Erhard’s grave remained a focal point of the church throughout its various phases. See Klaus Schwarz, Die Ausgrabungen im Niedermünster zu Regensburg (Kallmünz: Lassleben, 1971). See also Cohen, Uta Codex, 90n55, and idem, “The Art of Reform in a Bavarian Nunnery around 1000,” Speculum 74, no. 4 (1999): 992–1020, esp. fig. 9. 49 See Rütz, Text im Bild, 117–18, for slightly more on these figures. See also Cohen, Uta Codex, 88. 50 The Reichenau illuminators of the Liuthar Gospels in the Aachen Cathedral treasury used a similar device to suggest different views from inside the palace chapel. See Garrison, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture, 47–49.

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Uta, Erhard, and the deacon react to messages and forms contained in the Symbolic Crucifixion. The crucified Christ is priestly and alert: nimbed, crowned, and clad in a stola and a rich purple garment that resembles a colobium, he gazes down to his right.51 Christ’s golden cross is placed in front of the upper of two vertically stacked mandorlas, and propped up behind the lower edge of the bottom mandorla. If the upper mandorla is embellished with a semicircular form at its apex, the addition of that very same shape at the bottom of the lower mandorla appears as an extension of Christ’s cross. This visual device makes it appear as if Christ’s cross were steadied by the frame of the lower mandorla. Here, the illuminator rendered the cross as a liturgical object brought to life in the celebration of the Mass.52 And yet the cross here is also suggestive of the historical Cross, for the small mound of earth at its foot evokes Golgotha. The living force of this Cross is particularly evident in the rogue offshoot that punches Mors in the chest and forces that figure to tumble from the illumination’s frame. Unlike contemporary liturgical crosses, in which Christ’s figure is often shown at the moment of his death (see, for example, the corpus on the Gero Cross in Cologne and the engraving on the reverse of the Lothar Cross in Aachen), the crucified Christ in this image appears not to suffer in the least, and that animating force guides the gazes of the personifications of Ecclesia, who appears in the semicircular roundel on the left edge of the miniature, and Vita, who stands at the foot of the cross and cranes her neck to meet his downward gaze. Vita’s reaction to Christ begins a visual chain of mimetic responses to the Crucifixion that resound throughout this opening: she raises her hands in an orant gesture that Erhard, the deacon, and Abbess Uta mimic on the facing folio. The personification of death, Mors, and a figure of Synagoga, which are positioned on Christ’s left, are cast into postures of weakness and submission, and their gazes are, accordingly, turned away from Christ. Minuscule inscriptions running down either side of the lower part of the cross relate that “Crux e[st] repa[ra]tio vit[a]e” (The cross is the renewal of life) and “Crux e[st] destructio mortis” (The cross is the destruction of death).53 Much in the same way that the Symbolic Crucifixion presents us with slippages between the real and represented, the Mass of St. Erhard envisions the Niedermünster treasury come alive, as if the cross on the facing folio had renewed and revivified the long-dead Erhard. Indeed, the illuminations paired in this opening are a forceful visual testament to the power that liturgical objects had for eleventhcentury Christians. Like Vita on the facing page, Erhard is an alert and devout orant and a type for Christ. In order to enhance the connections between these two figures

51 Cohen, Uta Codex, 55. Cohen refers to Christ’s purple robe as “colobium-like.” 52 This seems to be distinct from—but not entirely unrelated to—what Beatrice Kitzinger has discussed as an “instrumental cross.” See Beatrice Kitzinger, The Cross, the Gospels, and the Work of Art in the Carolingian Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 53 Cohen, Uta Codex, 59.

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as embodiments of the corpus ecclesiae,54 the designers of this opening positioned Erhard’s head at Christ’s feet, meaning that the interaction between them would have been activated in the opening and closing of the book. Erhard appears here, too, as a model bishop and celebrant. On Erhard’s right (and our left), we see an altar draped with a textile of apparent Near Eastern origin (like those that lined the interior of the case) and topped with golden liturgical objects necessary for the performance of the Mass.55 The ciborium that claims much of the space in this section of the miniature is a representation of the aforementioned Arnulf Ciborium, which was made in Reims, housed at the abbey of St. Emmeram, and used by the monks there as a traveling altar (see Fig. 10). Since the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram was among the most precious works in the abbey’s treasury (indeed, it was among the most precious works in the empire), scholarship on the Uta Codex has tended to assume that the golden codex propped against the miniature’s left border depicts this Carolingian Gospel book (see Fig. 5).56 Considering the appearance of Uta’s own codex in the previous opening, I think that we can just as easily understand that we are seeing the Uta Codex here among other treasury objects. To be sure, an artwork as complex as the Uta Codex could allow for a certain amount of deliberate ambiguity, for it is clear that its exquisite materials and the striking sophistication of its design were open responses to the overall preciousness and beauty of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram. Those who made and used this magnificent artwork surely thought of it as a “Codex Aureus of Niedermünster.” Whether or not we are seeing a portrait of the Codex Aureus next to the Arnulf Ciborium on folio 4r of the Uta Codex, the Carolingian manuscript’s majestic twopage dedication scene was—famously—a formal point of departure for the scene of St. Erhard celebrating the Mass (Fig. 11).57 If in the Carolingian scene the illuminator rendered the throne loge and cupola of the palace chapel of Aachen, the illuminators of the Uta Codex used the earlier model to simulate the interior space of the Niedermünster church in use by the abbey’s episcopal patron saint.

54 Ibid., 96. I thank Evan Gatti for encouraging me to think through this connection. 55 Much more work remains to be done on the multivalent functions of textiles in the Uta Codex; a richer treatment of this coalescence is beyond the scope of the present essay. Cohen first suggests that the textiles on the altar in the Erhard page are of Byzantine or Sasanian origin, but he does not provide a reference for this. See Cohen, Uta Codex, 78. Later in his study, he mentions that this textile is an example of a Byzantine textile that adapted a Sasanian motif, and that it could have also been associated with Arnulf. See Uta Codex, 94n71. Jennifer Kingsley summons this miniature’s depiction of the treasury of St. Emmeram in her own discussion of the representation of the treasury of St. Michael’s at Hildesheim. Jennifer Kingsley, “Picturing the Treasury: The Power of Objects and the Art of Memory in the Bernward Gospels,” Gesta 50, no. 1 (2011): 19–39, at 27–28. See also eadem, The Bernward Gospels: Art, Memory, and the Episcopate in Medieval Germany (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014), 15–35, esp. 29–32. 56 See Cohen, “The Book and Monastic Reform,” 173, and idem, Uta Codex, 93. 57 See Cohen, Uta Codex, 28–32, 137–45, 155–56.

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Recent work on this opening has proposed that the language of the inscriptions reinforced ideals of monastic behavior: this argument draws attention to the appearance of three books on the page of the Mystical Mass (with the Lamb in the upper roundel, on the altar, and in the square at the lower right) and relates this to reform efforts at Niedermünster, noting that the book as a symbol came to stand for reform.58 I would add that the visual repetition of books here—or really the Book— emphasizes their metaphorical correlation to Christ’s body and to the body of the Church. At the top of the folio, a partial roundel containing the Lamb of God astride an open golden codex rests above the vault of the altar. The inscription that physically links the Lamb to the figure of Uta derives from the text uttered before the Communion: “Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”59 The text inscribed on the Lamb’s golden codex, deriving from Matthew 11:29, asks the viewer to “learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart.”60 Such an emphasis on Christ’s body and its presence in the Eucharist appears again in the (now faded) red vault above the altar: here Christ is praised in the golden text as the “true bread” that “nourishes the Church with his body.”61 The intersection of body and Church (here both the Church writ large and the abbey church of Niedermünster) appears once again in the diagrammatic inscriptions in the golden roundels of Erhard’s rationale; these divide his figure. The scholarship on this scene has shown that this set of inscriptions derive from Eriugena’s translation of and commentary on PseudoDionysius’s Celestial Hierarchy.62 In the lowest roundel, we see the “shadow of the law” (umbra legis), which is surmounted by the “body of the Church” (corp[us] eccl[es]i[ae]) at the center of Erhard’s figure. The uppermost roundel—placed over his heart—speaks of the “light of eternal life” (lux aetern[a]e vit[a]e). In featuring this hierarchy on top of Erhard’s saintly episcopal body and along the middle axis of the illumination—an axis it shares with the body of the Lamb and its glorious codex—the designers of this page represented the space of the abbey church of Niedermünster as a heavenly body. These inscriptions map Erhard’s body onto the space of the church; likewise, the hierarchy of the texts in the roundels bespeaks a move from the earthly to 58 Cohen, “The Book and Monastic Reform,” 173–82. 59 “+ Agnus Dei + Qui tollis peccata mundi misere[re] n[ost]ri.” This phrase derives from John 1:29. See Cohen, “The Book and Monastic Reform,” 173–74; and idem, Uta Codex, 80 and 80n3. 60 “Discite a me quia mitis su[m] & [et] humilis corde [et] i[n]venietis [requiem animabus vestris].” The full text would thus read: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find [rest for your souls].” Cohen, “The Book and Monastic Reform,” 174. 61 “Iesus Christus verus panis veniens de celis” (Jesus Christ the true bread coming from heaven); “Hic pascit aec[c]lesiam corpore suo p[er] fidem in terris / Qui p[er] specie[m] suam a[n]gelos pascit i[n] celis” (He nourishes the Church with his body through faith on earth / Who nourishes the angels in the heavens through his form). Trans. in Cohen, Uta Codex, 80 and 81. 62 Cohen, Uta Codex, 83 and 83n29; Bernhard Bischoff, “Literarisches und Künstlerisches Leben in St. Emmeram während des frühen und hohen Mittelalters,” in Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966–67), 2:77–115.

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Fig. 11: Dedication scene. Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram. Court School of Charles the Bald, ca. 870. Munich, BSB, Clm 14000, fols. 5v–6r. Photos: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

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the celestial. Like Christ, his body is also a corpus ecclesiae. Here, in the final scene of the sequence prefacing the pericopes, the manuscript’s makers emphasized anew the spaces, objects, and figures in which Christ’s presence was enlivened and made manifest. Erhard’s role in this scene is manifold: he is an embodiment of Old Testament priestly ideals, he is a type for Christ and the Church, and he is a model celebrant for the male clerics who would use this book in the performance of the Mass. Not least, for the female monastic reader/viewers who might have used this text for the purposes of personal devotion, Erhard’s figure could serve as a visual proxy for the celebrant.

Conclusion Suffused with artistic and intellectual ambition, the Uta Codex’s components enjoined its users in various ways to reflect on Christ’s materiality, and the ways in which his presence was revealed in the celebration of the Mass and in the personal devotions of Uta and her sisters. Indeed, his very body could be imagined to form the foundations of the physical spaces they occupied in their day-to-day lives. On the case, and in the two monumental double-page openings to the manuscript, the reader/viewer was called to ruminate on the significance of the codex as a substitute for Christ’s body and thus as a kind of relic. The extraordinarily opulent spaces of these miniatures were structured with texts derived from every form of learning that Abbess Uta and her sisters cherished. They could not only reflect on the various meanings of the texts that order and decorate the miniatures, but they were invited to join these spaces with their bodies and eyes, anticipating devotional trends that would be verbalized by theologians in the twelfth century and visualized by artists with increasing intensity in the fifteenth century. In these openings, it is Abbess Uta who experiences both direct and mediated connections to the divine: we see her as visionary and witness to the Incarnation and Crucifixion in a book that was intended to honor her legacy at Niedermünster, just as it offered space for contemplation and devotion. At this point of closure and reflection, I would like to remind the reader that this terrifically sophisticated eleventhcentury Gesamtkunstwerk testifies to a desire to put female monastics in contact with liturgical processes from which they were excluded. Indeed, the movement of Uta’s figure from the center to a privileged spot in the periphery pictures this phenomenon: as the reader/viewer gets closer to the text of the pericopes, Uta’s figure moves from a direct encounter with the Holy Family to one mediated by a male religious authority. It is essential to the understanding of this artwork that Uta’s movement to the margins in a book made in her honor is a treatment and a device that her male peers would not need to employ. Nonetheless, in their use of the Uta Codex as a sumptuous devotional tool, Uta and the rest of the book’s female users could envision themselves and their abbess as united with the living force of the Word itself.

Sasha Gorjeltchan

The Matter of Memory: Illuminated Metalwork in the Vita of St. Albinus of Angers At the turn of the twelfth century, during a period of institutional upheaval and artistic invigoration, the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Aubin in Angers produced a luxurious illuminated vita of their patron saint, Albinus.1 Presently composed of seven folios each covered on recto and verso with a full-page miniature, the manuscript is characterized by dramatically expressive figures, richly pigmented surfaces, and a playfully imaginative array of ornamental and architectonic motifs. In its original state, the vita would have been even more impressive: codicological studies have suggested twenty folios, or forty miniatures, grouped together as an extended pictorial preface to a now-lost hagiography.2 The scope and technical sophistication of this project are

Note: I wish to thank my dissertation adviser, Adam S. Cohen, as well as Jill E. Caskey and Isabelle Cochelin for their thoughtful and stimulating commentary on this material at several stages. I am grateful to the editors of this volume and the two anonymous peer reviewers, whose critical feedback greatly clarified the arguments of this essay. An earlier version of this study was read at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in Boston, and I am thankful to David S. Areford for the opportunity and for the ensuing discussion. I am particularly grateful to Charlotte Denoël and the staff of the manuscripts department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France for the opportunity to study the manuscript. 1 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390. The manuscript is digitized at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105157428. 2 The codicological findings of Magdalena Carrasco, in “Some Illustrations of the Life of St. Aubin (Albinus) of Angers (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS n.a.l. 1390) and Related Works” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1980), 10–19 and 100–3, confirm those of Jean Porcher, “L’enluminure angevine,” in Anjou roman, ed. Pierre d’Herbécourt and Jean Porcher (La Pierre-qui-Vire [Yonne]: Zodiaque, 1959), 179–218. Foliation predating the present fragmentation of the manuscript evidences three quires, for a total of at least fourteen folios, and one quire missing from the beginning of the cycle. As per the foliation, quire “a” once contained the present fol. 4 (a2), fol. 1 (a4), fol. 2 (a5), fol. 3 (a6) and fol. 5 (a7); quire “b” contained fol. 6 (b3). We can extrapolate three now-missing folios from quire “a” (a1, a3, and a8) and a minimum of three missing folios from quire “b” (b1, b2, and b4). Fol. 7 was not foliated at this time, having already been separated from the main manuscript, but would have belonged to a quire with at least one other folio. The content of the illustrations of quire “a” (now fols. 1–5) correspond with paragraphs 12–18 of the Vita Sancti Albini by Fortunatus, with each paragraph of text earning at least one miniature; assuming that paragraphs 1–11 likewise each earned at least one miniature, a total of at least six additional leaves were already missing by the time of the foliation. The most conservative estimation of the illustrated portion of the manuscript would then be twenty folios. The relationship between the images and the text that they likely once accompanied is less clear. In comparable pictorial hagiographies, when full-page miniatures are interspersed throughout the text they are generally placed at the start of a chapter, and texts and images alternate so that the obverse of the illuminated folio is used for text or left blank. No original https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-011

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Fig. 1: The death of Albinus of Angers. Life of St. Albinus. Angers, ca. 1100. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390, fols. 3v and 5r. Original opening reconstructed by author. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

unmatched in Anjou, and scholars have traditionally related the manuscript’s style to a school of illumination and mural painting centered around Poitou.3 Many questions remain regarding the vita in the immediate context of Saint-Aubin, where it represents a novel artistic impulse suggestive of institutional change. The iconography of the surviving illuminations, identified by Latin captions added to the upper margin of each miniature in the sixteenth century, is largely derived from two distinct textual sources. Seven scenes depicting the saint’s living

text is found in the extant manuscript, and the two surviving multi-page cycles can only be read sequentially with no intervening text (fols. 1v, 2r, 2v, 3r; and 3v, 5r, 5v). It is therefore most likely that the illuminations were grouped together as a pictorial preface, similar to the late tenth-century Life of St. Wandregisel (Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque d’Agglomération du Pays de Saint-Omer, MS 764), the ca. 1130 Life of St. Edmund of Bury (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.736), and the ca. 1170 Life of St. Amandus (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 500). 3 Porcher, “L’enluminure angevine;” George Henderson, “The Sources of the Genesis Cycle at Saint-Savin,” Journal of the British Archeological Association 26 (1963): 11–26, at 12–16. On the material history of Saint-Aubin more broadly see Jacques Mallet, ed., Saint-Aubin d’Angers du VIe au XXe siècle (Angers: Association Culturelle du département de Maine-et-Loire, 1985).

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miracles and ecclesiastical influence are derived from the Vita Sancti Albini by Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530–ca. 600), while a collection of miracles recorded at Saint-Aubin throughout the eleventh century is the source for the four illuminations of posthumous miracles.4 Bridging the narrative periods of active ministry and posthumous interventions is Albinus’s death, an event briefly mentioned by Fortunatus but elaborated into a multi-page cycle by the illuminator. In an emotionally charged opening, now separated due to the modern rebinding, a group of laymen originally faced the dying saint attended by monks (Fig. 1). Turning the page, the sequence continues with a monastic procession celebrating Albinus’s funeral, headed by an abbot (Fig. 2). Originally, the funeral would likely have spread across an opening, with a missing folio including the continuation of the procession to parallel the death scene. One of just three multi-page sequences in the extant vita, Albinus’s transition from living saint to relic is the only episode with no textual source. As an invention of the late eleventh-century scriptorium responsible for the vita, the death and burial cycle is a particularly effective vehicle for an exploration of this book as a bearer of meaning for the community of Saint-Aubin. Like other hagiographic death cycles, that of Albinus is concerned with institutional origin, and it ratifies the relationship of the saint to the community claiming possession of his relics.5 The parameters of this relationship, however, warrant examination. Magdalena Carrasco’s analysis of the manuscript as a response to the spiritual and political ideals of the Gregorian Reform and Barbara Abou-El-Haj’s assessment of pictorial hagiographies as important tools in the public staging of saints’ cults both situate the vita of Albinus at the confluence of complex external influences.6 Yet the text, imagery, and function of the manuscript are decidedly attuned to internal rather than public concerns.7 Disentangling the liturgical and narrative threads of the illustrated death and burial cycle, this essay firmly situates the vita within its institutional context. In considering the interrelationship between the historiography, materiality, and praxis of the book, I propose that the illuminated funeral scene was designed to experientially embed the narrative of the vita into the collective memory of the monks of Saint-Aubin.8

4 Venantius Fortunatus, Vita Sancti Albini, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina 88 (Paris: Migne, 1850), cols. 479–86; Miracula S. Albini, in Acta Sanctorum, March 1 (Paris: Palmé, 1865), 1:60–63. 5 Barbara Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 46–49. 6 Magdalena Carrasco, “Spirituality and Historicity in Pictorial Hagiography: Two Miracles by St. Albinus of Angers,” Art History 12 (1989): 1–21; Barbara Abou-El-Haj, “Bury St. Edmunds Abbey between 1070 and 1124: A History of Property, Privilege and Monastic Art Production,” Art History 6, no. 1 (1983): 1–29; and Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints. 7 On the monastic audiences of saints’ lives, illuminated and not, see Tjamke Snijders, Manuscript Communication: Visual and Textual Mechanics of Communication in Hagiographical Texts from the Southern Low Countries, 900–1200 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). 8 The theoretical foundation of this article is heavily indebted to the writings of Pierre Nora in Les lieux de mémoire, 3 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92), and “Between Memory and History: Les lieux

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Fig. 2: The funeral of Albinus. Life of St. Albinus. Angers, ca. 1100. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390, fol. 5v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Fig. 3: Detail of the liturgical objects from the funeral of Albinus. Life of St. Albinus. Angers, ca. 1100. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390, fol. 5v (detail). Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Crucial to this narrative of institutional origin are the four gilded liturgical objects adorning the funeral of Albinus, which are rendered with an admirable degree of specificity (Fig. 3). A processional cross with flaring arms and a knopped socket at the base, patterned with red contours of oval, lozenge, and circular shapes suggesting gems, is shown attached to a silver stand at the head of the draped sarcophagus. In front of the cross are two meticulously rendered pricket candlesticks with annular knops, concave upper terminals, and bulbous shafts. A golden thurible in the abbot’s hand swings across the expanse of bare parchment: the lid of the footed incense burner is overlaid with a red-and-black grid pattern, suggesting an openwork surface, the individual links of its chains are articulated in black, and the three chains are suspended from a lily grip affixed to a ring. Viewed in person, the sheen of the metal illumination catches the light to bring the delicate golden objects into sharp relief

de mémoire,” trans. Marc Roudebush, Representations 26 (1989): 7–25. For an application of Nora’s concept to medieval artifacts see Mary Franklin-Brown, “The Speculum Maius, between Thesaurus and Lieu de Mémoire,” in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Culture, ed. Elma Brenner, Meredith Cohen, and Mary Franklin-Brown (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 143–62.

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Fig. 4: Bernward presents his codex to the Virgin. Bernward Gospels. Hildesheim, ca. 1015. Hildesheim, Dommuseum, DS 18, fol. 16v. Photo: © Dommuseum Hildesheim.

from their field of visually flat unpainted parchment, reinforcing that these treasures are substantively distinct from the remainder of the illuminated scene. The materiality of these objects relates the miniature to other illuminations of richly gilded liturgies. On the left folio of the dedicatory opening of the Bernward

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Gospels (ca. 1015), for example, the bishop of Hildesheim is depicted extending his codex toward an altar made ready for Mass (Fig. 4): a paten and chalice have been placed on a portable altar atop it, and five gold candlesticks with silver knops stand in front of it.9 Jennifer Kingsley has associated many of these depicted objects with actual objects commissioned by Bernward for the treasury of Hildesheim; of particular note are the candlesticks, the shape and material of which resemble a pair discovered in the bishop’s tomb in the twelfth century.10 Even more impressive is the collection of liturgical furnishings depicted alongside Bishop Erhard of Regensburg in the Uta Codex (ca. 1020–25): he is shown celebrating Mass on an altar set with a golden Gospel book, chalice, paten, ciborium, and portable altar.11 Several of these objects are recognizable as having belonged to the treasury of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, including the Arnulf Ciborium, a gift to the monastery from Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia in 893.12 Both manuscripts are dazzlingly opulent, with metallic pigment deployed throughout the narrative cycles, frameworks, inscriptions, and ornament on every decorated page. The sumptuousness of the illuminations transforms the sacred books themselves into treasures and their miniatures, as Eliza Garrison argues for the Uta Codex, into visionary spaces for the readers/viewers.13 In the Albinus vita, gold is deployed more austerely. Here, it is consistently used to embellish the cuffs and necklines of the tunics worn by Albinus and other high-ranking clerics, the ends of Albinus’s stole, the crooks of the crosiers, the gable of Albinus’s sarcophagus, small panels on the face of his tomb-shrine, a chandelier suspended near his shrine on folio 6r, a small pin at the throat of a nobleman on folio 1v, and Albinus’s halo on folio 5r (see Fig. 1). In general, gold is applied where one might expect to see real gold in a liturgical environment: on the tabletwoven bands decorating the clerical vestments in accordance with contemporary fashions,14 on decorative plates affixed to the casket of a major saint, and on objects made of or plated in the precious metal. The only instance in which gold is used symbolically rather than mimetically is in the scene of Albinus’s death: whereas his halo is painted in lively colours in illustrations of his living miracles, it takes on a golden aspect as the saint prepares to transcend to the afterlife. In every other example in the manuscript, gold is judiciously used to refer to metallic objects.

9 Hildesheim, Dommuseum, DS 18, fol. 16v. 10 Jennifer Kingsley, “Picturing the Treasury: The Power of Objects and the Art of Memory in the Bernward Gospels,” Gesta 50, no. 1 (2011): 19–39, at 27. 11 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601, fol. 4r. 12 Adam S. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 93–94; Eliza Garrison, “The Golden Spaces of the Uta Codex,” in this volume. 13 Garrison, “Golden Spaces.” 14 Maureen Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 157.

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Fig. 5: Processional cross. France, late eleventh or twelfth century, bronze and rock crystal. Saint-Marssur-la-Futaie (Mayenne), Saint-Médard. Photo: © Ministère de la Culture / Médiathèque du Patrimoine, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY (Luc Joubert).

Little French ecclesiastical treasure from before the twelfth century survives and, unlike those depicted in the Uta Codex and the Bernward Gospels, the liturgical objects in the Albinus vita cannot be linked to specific extant examples.15 Promising comparanda may be found in the famous Lothar Cross, with its flared finials and a large circular cameo at the crossing, and in the seventh-century cross of St. Eligius from SaintDenis, long gone but depicted, in the ca. 1500 Mass of Saint Giles panel and a 1706 engraving by Dom Michel Félibien, as having flared finials, a large central medallion, and gem-studded enamel.16 Closer to Saint-Aubin, temporally and geographically, would be the late eleventh-century cross in the parish church of Saint-Mars-sur-la-Futaie, which bears a corpus but otherwise is formed of gently flaring finials and a socket base with a

15 Émile Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 3, L’inventaire de la propriété: Églises et trésors des églises du commencement du VIIIe à la fin du XIe siècle (Lille: Facultés Catholiques, 1936), 155–66 and 180–273. For surviving ecclesiastical metalwork from Angers see PierreMarie Auzas, Les trésors des églises angevines (Angers: Les Presses artistiques, 1960). 16 On the Lothar Cross, see Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra 800–1200, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 101; and Eliza Garrison, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 39–86. On Saint-Denis and the Mass of St. Giles see Erik Inglis, “Expertise, Artifacts, and Time in the 1534 Inventory of the St-Denis Treasury,” Art Bulletin 98, no. 1 (2016): 14–42; and Lorne Campbell, The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings with French Paintings before 1600 (London: National Gallery Company, 2014), 777–807.

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Fig. 6: Censer with pierced geometric motifs. Germany, twelfth century, copper alloy, 15 x 11.7 cm (without chain). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1909, 09.152.6. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

spherical knop, and includes oblong crystals (Fig. 5).17 The censer with a pierced upper lobe depicted in the funeral miniature is the most common type in this period, comparable to a twelfth-century German example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 6) and those borne by angels on the late eleventh-century “A of Charlemagne” from Conques.18

17 Jean Taralon, Les trésors des églises de France (Paris: Caisse nationale des monuments historiques, 1965), 138, cat. no. 257. This form can be observed more frequently in Byzantine processional crosses, such as those held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1993.163), the Cleveland Museum of Art (70.36), the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Cl. 23295), and the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva (260); see Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 60–67, cat. nos. 24–27. 18 While surviving censers are most frequently gilt bronze, inventories of French churches enumerate examples manufactured of gilt silver and, occasionally, pure gold; see Lesne, L’inventaire de la propriété, 231–32. On Conques, see Amy G. Remensnyder, “Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory,” Speculum 71, no. 4 (1996): 884–906; Danielle Gaborit-Chopin and Élisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, Le trésor de Conques (Paris, Editions du Patrimoine, 2001), 50–53, cat. no. 8. On censers more broadly see Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, Mittelalterliche Weihrauchfässer von 800 bis 1500 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2014).

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Fig. 7: Candlestick from Saint-Denis. France (?), eleventh century, bronze and iron, 41.4 x 9 cm. Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), Unité d’archéologie de Saint-Denis, 16.5072.1. Photo: © Unité d’archéologie de Saint-Denis (Emmanuelle Jacquot).

An eleventh-century bronze candlestick from Saint-Denis has a knopped shaft and overall similar form to those shown in the Albinus vita (Fig. 7).19 But beyond their morphological verisimilitude it is their rendering in precious metal that gives the illuminated objects a substantive aspect that makes them read as real metallic objects. The glimmer, polish, and texture of the gold evoke the embossing, tracery, and the very matter of the processional cross, censer, and candlesticks that certainly would have been present in the treasury of Saint-Aubin. Suspended in the midst of ritual activation, the neat array of gold surfaces upon the illuminated page shares in the materiality of the liturgical treasures used at the abbey church. The startling tangibility of the illuminated metalwork in the vita of Albinus has profound implications for

19 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, ed., La France romane au temps des premiers Capétiens (987–1152) (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2005), 92, cat. no 42; Nicole Meyer-Rodrigues, “Un chandelier médiéval en bronze découvert à Saint-Denis,” Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France 1993 (1995): 71–77. For further examples see Otto von Falke and Erich Meyer, Romanische Leuchter und Gefässe, Giessgefässe der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1935), especially cat. nos. 2, 5, and 14.

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the manuscript’s role within the self-imaging of the community of Saint-Aubin. As material signs of legendary provenance were systematized, through collections and inventories, into institutional narratives, the holdings of medieval treasuries were ongoing and ever-changing bearers of meaning to their collectors.20 Illuminated metalwork has been interpreted in the same terms as its real counterparts: Kingsley, for instance, considers the pictured offertory in the Bernward Gospels as a gift pro anima, and Adam Cohen suggests that the venerable objects in the Uta Codex served anagogically to signal a glorious past for the nuns of Niedermünster.21 Metal pigment and leaf on parchment, however, must function differently from metalwork displayed upon a church altar, and the question arises: how does the material specificity of treasures qua illuminations impact their discursive possibilities as well as those of the book in which the illuminations are held and the real treasures they reference?

Narrative and Liturgy at Saint-Aubin Albinus’s life was known to the monks of Saint-Aubin from two main hagiographic sources. The first text, composed by Fortunatus in 555, relates that Albinus began his illustrious career as monk and abbot of the abbey of Tintillac, the precise location of which has never been identified, before rising to the bishopric of Angers, where he remained until his death on March 1, 550.22 According to Fortunatus, Albinus dedicated his bishopric to campaigns against episcopal laxity and incestuous marriage; played a decisive role in the councils at Orléans in 538, 541, and 549; and performed exorcisms and thaumaturgical interventions. His original burial site was a narrow cellula, the location of which Fortunatus does not specify.23 In 555 his remains were translated to a nearby church, likely originally dedicated to St. Germanus of Auxerre but promptly reconsecrated.24 The second source is Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594), who recounts a series of miraculous cures at his shrine and in the nearby town of Craon, giving an impression of a thriving early pilgrimage cult.25

20 Joseph Salvatore Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western Medieval Church Treasury Inventory, c. 800–1250,” Journal of Art Historiography 11 (2014): 1–37; Pierre-Alain Mariaux, “Collecting (and Display),” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 213–32. 21 Kingsley, “Picturing the Treasury,” 27; Cohen, Uta Codex, 79–84 and 93–96. 22 Fortunatus, Vita Sancti Albini, 479–86. 23 It is very unlikely that Albinus would have been interred at the cathedral of Angers, as cathedral burials were not standard practice until the twelfth century. 24 “Ex breviario monastico S. Albini Andegavensis,” in Jean Mabillon, ed., Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, vol. 1 (Mâcon: Protat, 1935), 112. 25 Gregory of Tours, Liber de gloria beatorum confessorum 96, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina 71 (Paris: Migne, 1949), cols. 899–900; Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum 6.16, in ibid., 388.

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These sources firmly establish Albinus’s reputation for episcopal sanctity and pastoral care both in life and as a relic. Neither Fortunatus nor Gregory of Tours make mention of any monastic presence at the church dedicated to Albinus or at his shrine. The earliest conventual structures excavated on the site of Saint-Aubin are Carolingian, and the first mention of a community of canons is in a donation dated to 769.26 Only in 966 were the canons definitively replaced by Benedictine monks, and in 972 the abbey was granted a series of liturgical privileges including the right to host the investiture of bishops of Angers.27 Saint-Aubin subsequently continued to benefit from its close relationship to the episcopate of Angers and the prestige of its pilgrimage cult, becoming the preeminent and best endowed monastic institution in the region.28 The fact that Albinus was not their historical founder was well known to the monks of Saint-Aubin from easily accessible, and oft consulted, hagiographic and diplomatic texts. Throughout the eleventh century, the monks readily promoted their saint’s local reputation, transcribing his hagiographies alongside those of other Angevin bishop-saints in the earliest illuminated manuscript attributed to the scriptorium (dated between 1006 and 1047),29 and recording a series of miracles associated with his relics.30 Likewise, all depictions of Albinus’s living miracles in the illuminated vita present him as a bishop par excellence, clothed in ornate episcopal vestments and leading clerical affairs (Fig. 8).31 Finally, Albinus’s identity as holy bishop was publicly reinforced at Saint-Aubin with the consecration of every bishop of Angers.

26 Bertrand de Broussillon, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Aubin d’Angers (Paris: Picard, 1903), 1:21 (no. 10). I am grateful to M. Daniel Prigent and M. Jean-Yves Hunot for their generosity in granting me access to the archeological site. 27 De Broussillon, Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, 1:4 (no. 2) and 1:35 (no. 20); Paul Marchegay and Émile Mabille, eds., Chroniques des églises d’Anjou (Paris: Renouard, 1869), 20. See also Olivier Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou et son entourage au XIe siècle (Paris: Picard, 1972), 1:129–38. 28 Guy Jarousseau, “L’abbaye Saint-Aubin d’Angers, lieu d’une tradition royale de l’investiture de l’épiscopat,” in Foi chrétienne et églises dans la société politique de l’Occident du Haut Moyen Âge, IVe–XIIe siècle, ed. Jacqueline Hoareau-Dodinau and Pascal Texier (Limoges: PULIM, 2004), 105–34. On eleventh-century Angers more broadly, see W. Scott Jessee, Robert the Burgundian and the Counts of Anjou, ca. 1025–1098 (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2000); and Louis Halphen, Le comté d’Anjou au XIe siècle (Paris: Picard, 1906). 29 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 465; see Jean-Michel Matz, “La construction d’une identité: Le culte des saints évêques d’Angers au Moyen Âge,” Hagiographica 13 (2006): 95–120. 30 Miracula S. Albini, in Acta Sanctorum, 60–63. Of the three chapters of monastic miracula, the first is undated, the second claims that the events occurred under Abbot Hubertus (1001–27) and were recorded under Abbot Gautier (1038–55), and the third dates the events and their recording to the abbacy of Otbran (1060–81). 31 On the hagiographic category of the bishop-saint see Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 132–71.

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Fig. 8: Albinus heals the blind monk Gennomar. Life of St. Albinus. Angers, ca. 1100. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390, fol. 4v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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At the close of the eleventh century, as the rise of competing monasteries and the whims of the mercurial counts of Anjou fractured Saint-Aubin’s sovereignty in the ecclesiastical arena of Angers, the abbey launched an energetic program of institutional reform.32 In 1070 the relics of Albinus were translated to a new shrine, and the abbey church was subsequently reconstructed according to the most modern of tastes.33 Sometime after 1082, and likely before 1096, the church was completed and a lay artist was engaged on a long-term basis to execute mural paintings and glass throughout the monastery and at its dependencies.34 In the scriptorium, between 1087 and 1095 a single scribe transcribed the monastic archives into a cartulary,35 and a team of illuminators produced several manuscripts for internal use, including a Giant Bible and the illustrated vita of Albinus.36 It was typical for monasteries undergoing reform in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries to produce or acquire Giant, or lectern, Bibles and illuminated vitae within the same campaign.37 The Saint-Aubin Bible is indeed giant, presently composed of 309 folios measuring 496 x 368 mm, and it is illuminated with a Maiestas Domini frontispiece and elaborate canon tables. It includes marginal lection

32 Belle Stoddard Tuten, “Politics, Holiness, and Property in Angers, 1080–1130,” French Historical Studies 24, no. 4 (2001): 601–19; Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, 1:129–200. 33 Marchegay and Mabille, Chroniques des églises d’Anjou, 26: “Corpora sanctorum praesulum Albini et Clari translata sunt cum aliis reliquiis.” On the abbey church see Mallet, Saint-Aubin d’Angers, 19–53. Traditionally, the chevet of the abbey church has been dated to the first quarter of the twefth century. In light of recent archeological findings and general reevaluations of traditional chronologies of medieval architecture, the fragments of the chevet and nave can be more confidently dated to the last quarter of the eleventh century. See Daniel Prigent, “Evolution de la construction médiévale en pierre en Anjou et Touraine,” in Anjou: Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology, ed. John McNeill (Leeds: British Archeological Association, 2003), 81–95. 34 De Broussillon, Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, 2:17–18 (no. 8). 35 Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 829 (745), edited in de Broussillon, Cartulaire de SaintAubin. See also Guillot, “Appendice I: Les parties les plus anciennes du cartulaire de Saint-Aubin,” in Le comte d’Anjou, 1:435–55. 36 The Giant Bible is Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MSS 3–4 [2]. A third notable manuscript from this campaign is a psalter, a fragment of which is extant (Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, Fonds de Lescalopier, MS 2). Jean Porcher’s stylistic analysis concludes that the three manuscripts of Saint-Aubin were produced by the same illuminator (Porcher, “L’enluminure angevine,” 179–219) but Magdalena Carrasco isolates technical divergences within the corpus that suggest more than one illuminator at work (Carrasco, “Some Illustrations,” 123–28). My observations confirm Carrasco’s findings. On the scriptorium of Saint-Aubin more generally see Jean Vezin, Les scriptoria d’Angers au XIe siècle (Paris: H. Champion, 1974), 78–241. 37 Snijders, Manuscript Communication; Diane Reilly, “Lectern Bibles and Liturgical Reform in the Central Middle Ages,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception and Performance in Western Christianity, ed. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 105–25; eadem, “The Bible as Bellwether: Manuscript Bibles in the Context of Spiritual, Liturgical, and Educational Reform, 1000–1200,” in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 9–29.

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marks throughout that subdivide the text into short sections of normative and equal length, and punctuation marks intended to guide the intonation of the text.38 Such features indicate that, like other lectern Bibles, Saint-Aubin’s was designed for reading aloud during the night office, or matins. Benedictine monasteries developed an idiosyncratic variety and number of texts intended for their local matins, but the standard service would have been composed of three nocturns on major feast days and Sundays and two shortened nocturns on ferial days (lesser feast days and weekdays with no feast). Each nocturn was made up of psalms and antiphons followed by four lessons or readings and responsories, and the first nocturn consisted of lessons from the Scriptures read from a lectern Bible.39 Similarly, the vita of Albinus was an essential tool in the night office. An inventory of the library of Saint-Aubin, recorded shortly after 1153, lists an impressive number of hagiographic texts and collections as well as several liturgical works including antiphonaries, hymnals, and graduals.40 No vita of St. Albinus is included in this list. But a library was not the only space for the keeping of books—a church’s most precious codices were usually safeguarded in the thesaurus (treasury) or the sacrarium (sacristy) and were inventoried alongside other objects necessary for the performance of the liturgy.41 The splendid illuminated vita was likely to have been placed among other church treasures, removed from the sacrarium to be read at matins. Hagiographic veneration in Benedictine monasteries could vary profoundly, but generally on the feast day of a minor saint, and on ferial days of winter, the second nocturn would be drawn from a saint’s vita; on the feast day of a major saint at least two, and

38 Malcolm B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 76–78. On the paleography of the Giant Bible see Vezin, Les scriptoria, 87–89, 127–28, 151–53, and 170. 39 Lila Collamore, “Prelude: Charting the Divine Office,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3–11. On the variability of length and number of lessons in medieval monastic churches see Anselme Davril, “La longueur des leçons de l’office nocturne: Étude comparative,” in Rituels: Mélanges offerts à Pierre-Marie Gy, ed. Paul de Clerck and Éric Palazzo (Paris: Cerf, 1990), 183–97. 40 Angers, Archives départementales de la Maine-et-Loire, H 15, edited in Leslie Webber Jones, “The Library of St. Aubin’s at Angers in the Twelfth Century,” in Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Edward Kennard Rand, ed. Leslie Webber Jones (New York: published by the editor, 1938), 143–61; see also Vezin, Les scriptoria, 215–21. 41 Éric Palazzo, “Le livre dans les trésors du Moyen Âge: Contribution à l’histoire de la memoria médiévale,” Annales 52, no. 1 (1997): 93–118; idem, “Le ‘livre-corps’ à l’époque carolingienne et son rôle dans la liturgie de la messe et sa théologie,” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae 15 (2010): 31–63; Émile Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 4, Les livres: “Scriptoria” et bibliothèques du commencement du VIIIe à la fin du XIe siècle (Lille: Facultés Catholiques, 1938), 1–3 and 770–71; Albert Derolez, Les catalogues de bibliothèques (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), 26; Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western Medieval Church Treasury Inventory,” 19.

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sometimes all three, nocturns would be hagiographical in nature.42 It is therefore likely that the Albinus vita would have been used on at least four days of the liturgical calendar of Saint-Aubin: on the occasion of the saint’s death on March 1, his ordination and sixth-century translation on June 30, his octave on July 7, and his translation of 1070 on October 25.43 Two surviving texts written at Saint-Aubin in the eleventh century provide further evidence for additions to and liturgical use of Albinus’s hagiography. The first is a mid-eleventh-century sermon for the feast commemorating the sixth-century translation of Albinus’s relics, celebrated on June 30.44 The sermon extols Albinus as an example for the monastic audience’s emulation, and concludes with his election as abbot of his monastery (which is unnamed).45 It makes no mention of Albinus’s later episcopacy, interventions in secular affairs, or miracles for lay supplicants. Emphasizing his ascent to abbacy as inexorable and his relics as a blessing to the monastic community and present abbot of Saint-Aubin, the sermon effectively reframes Albinus as a monastic saint and founder.46 The second text of interest, recorded between 1036 and 1062, is dedicated to the healing of a paralytic named Girmundus in the abbey church of Saint-Aubin.47 As the miracle relates, following matins on Albinus’s feast day the monks left the choir for their daily chapter, and Girmundus slipped away from the throngs of lay worshippers to pray at the altar dedicated to the saint. Subsequently returning to the dominical altar, Girmundus was cured at the chancel screen; the rejoicing of the witnesses interrupted the monks’ chapter, and Girmundus was immediately made a lay brother.48 The text is divided into eight lessons of regular length and closes with a prayer, following the formula of readings intended for festal matins.49

42 Thomas J. Heffernan, “The Liturgy and the Literature of Saints’ Lives,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), 65–94, at 88–92. On the use of hagiographic texts in monastic liturgy see Snijders, Manuscript Communication, 347–81. 43 Jean-Michel Matz, “Le calendrier et le culte des saints: L’abbaye Saint-Aubin d’Angers (XIIe–début XVIe siècle),” Revue Mabillon, n.s., 7 (1996): 127–55, at 134–35. 44 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 1025, copied in the thirteenth century in Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 123 (115), fols. 208r–211v. The latter text is edited in Joseph van der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques d’Orléans, Tours et Angers, avec plusieurs textes inédits (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1982), 276–80. 45 Angers, BM, MS 123 (115), fol. 210v, in Van der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques, 279: “Defuncto namque sub quo militabat abbate, totius congregationis electione vel potius gratie Dei predestinatione successit illi in regimine et de filio pater, de discipulo factus est magister.” 46 Angers, BM, MS 123 (115), fol. 211v, in Van der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques, 279–80: “Proinde nos, quibus gratia Dei tam vicinum de sacri corporis eius presentia contulit adiutorium, assiduis precibus presentem patronum in tuitionem nostri suscitemus.” 47 Miracula S. Albini, in Acta Sanctorum, 61D–62B. 48 Ibid., 62B: “Quo clamore, Capitulum interrumpitur monachorum.” 49 Heffernan, “The Liturgy and the Literature of Saints’ Lives,” 92–99.

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Fig. 9: The cure of Girmundus at the shrine of Albinus. Life of St. Albinus. Angers, ca. 1100. Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390, fol. 6v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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The vita illuminates this miracle: on folio 6v Girmundus, his crutch discarded at his feet, leads a crowd of pilgrims before the tomb-shrine of Albinus, a gabled and draped sarcophagus raised upon a platform with a table-altar (Fig. 9). The sarcophagus itself takes the appearance of the one represented in the funeral procession (see Fig. 2), while the overall structure corresponds with a seventeenth-century drawing of Albinus’s tomb, which is no longer extant (Fig. 10).50 Shrines composed of tombs with dedicated altars such as this one are also recorded for St. Martin in Tours and for St. Benedict at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire in the eleventh century, and a spectacular example can be seen in the eleventh- or twelfth-century crypt of Saint-Sylvain in Ahun (Fig. 11).51 Like the gilded metalwork, the shrine of Albinus in the vita clearly illustrates its real counterpart in the church of Saint-Aubin—and, by extension, identifies the saint’s original sixth-century tomb with the one that had recently been incorporated into the shrine upon the translation of Albinus’s relics in 1070. Viewed in sequence, the painted sarcophagi suggest a visual as well as material continuum between the historical origin of the relics and their continuous presence in the abbey church. Yet the promotion of pilgrimage appears to have been of secondary interest in the material and liturgical network developed around the commemoration of Albinus. The textual narrative of the healing of Girmundus reveals that a chancel screen restricted the laity’s access to the main altar and its liturgies, thereby maintaining hierarchies of spirituality, class, and vision within the choir.52 In turn, the sermon makes no reference to posthumous miracles, nor to the utility of the relics to anyone other than the monks of Saint-Aubin. The intended audience of these texts, like the audience of the illuminated manuscripts and the choir of the abbey church, was monastic: it was the monks who handled the books, intoned their lessons, and gazed upon their images, all within the newly painted choir of the abbey church. The vita and the Giant Bible may be considered in interwoven relationship with the relics of Albinus and the very fabric of the church of Saint-Aubin: symbiotically structuring the daily lived experience of the monks, these spatial, material, and visual vehicles for the veneration of the patron saint were agents in the ritual expression of monastic identity.

50 Jacques Bruneau de Tartifume, Angers: Contenant ce qui est remarquable en tout ce qui estoit anciennement dict la ville d’Angers (Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 995), 1:187. 51 See especially Claude Andrault-Schmitt, “Le tombeau de Saint Martin,” Bulletin Monumental 149, no. 3 (1991): 317–18; Robert-Henri Bautier, “Le monastère et les églises de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire,” Mémoires de la société nationale des antiquaires de France 4 (1968): 71–156, at 92; Alain ErlandeBrandenburg, “L’autel des reliques et la sanctuarisation du chevet,” in Hortus Artium Medievalium 11 (2005): 183–88; and Christian Sapin, Les cryptes en France: Pour une approche archéologique, IVe–XIIe siècle (Paris: Picard, 2014), 163–65. 52 Elevation of the host and other considerations of lay vision were incorporated into the liturgy only in the thirteenth century; see Barbara Newman, “What Did It Mean to Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture,” Speculum 80 (2005): 1–43. On the medieval choir screen more broadly see Jacqueline E. Jung, The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200–1400 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Fig. 10: Drawing of the sarcophagus of St. Albinus. Bruneau de Tartifume, Angers: Contenant ce qui est remarquable en tout ce qui estoit anciennement dict la ville d’Angers, 1606. Angers, BM, MS 995, t. 1, p. 187. Photo: © Ville d’Angers.

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Fig. 11: Tomb with altar. Eleventh or twelfth century. Ahun (Creuse), crypt of Saint-Sylvain. Photo: J. F. Amelot, from Christian Sapin, Les cryptes en France, fig. 201.

Ritual Time on the Illuminated Page On folio 5v of the vita, the painted monks perform their own liturgy over the draped sarcophagus (see Fig. 2). The candles are lit, the abbot—identifiable by his golden crosier—swings the thurible, and the golden cross is attached to a silver base that, clearly not integral to the cross itself, reminds the viewer of the procession that had just occurred. Immediately behind the abbot, a younger monk opens his mouth wide—chanting, most likely. Beyond the vicissitidues of the page itself, the liturgical objects are free of marks of temporality, such as the dented surfaces, missing gems, and inconsistent workmanship recorded in inventories of church treasuries.

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Frozen in media res, the ritual moment of the funeral of Albinus is suspended beyond the ravages of historical time. In their details, however, these painted rites are temporally specific. Together with the preceding opening (see Fig. 1), the funeral scene corresponds in many respects to conventional Benedictine death rites as described in the late eleventh-century customary of Bernard of Cluny and reconstructed by Frederick Paxton.53 The dying Albinus is depicted at the institutionally crucial moment of naming his successor, gesturing toward the senior monk in a green tunic who, in turn, places his hand over his heart in apparent acceptance. Meanwhile, an attendant monk lifts Albinus off his white cushion as the pall covering the convalescing saint cascades downward, emphasizing his elevation off the ground. This likely refers to the climactic moment in the death of a Cluniac monk when he was moved from his bed onto a hair shirt on the ground, and positioned so that the rest of the community could encircle him and accompany him with chants through his final moments.54 The burial of Albinus also alludes to the Cluniac rites in which the prepared body was placed in a bier which was then covered with a pall and brought to church in a procession headed by conversi carrying a processional cross, two candlesticks, a thurible and incense, and holy water. Next—as in the depicted scene—the draped bier was placed upon a catafalque, the cross and the two candlesticks were attached at the head of the bier, High Mass was celebrated, and the priest censed the dead monk.55 Certainly, the similarity to the Cluniac ritual need not suggest Saint-Aubin had formal ties to the great motherhouse; the orbit of Cluny’s liturgical influence was wide, and the death ritual systematized in the eleventh century is known to have existed outside the institutional and chronological scope of the Cluniac customaries.56 The sacramentary commissioned by Bishop Warmund of Ivrea (966–1002), for instance, includes a cycle of ten illuminations of the Ordo in agenda mortuorum, the 53 Bernard of Cluny, Ordo cluniacensis, chap. 26: “De obitu fratris, et sepultura” (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 13875, fols. 47v–55v); Frederick S. Paxton, The Death Ritual at Cluny in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 55–171. 54 Bernard of Cluny, Ordo cluniacensis, in Paxton, Death Ritual at Cluny, 56 and 90. 55 “Mox autem ut obierit, secretarius assumptis secum conversis, vadit ut omnia signa pulsentur, et ut apportetur processio id est aqua benedicta, turribulum et accera, crux atque candelabra” (ibid., 108). “Tunc lavato et parato corpore, domnus abbas, aut prior, spargit in feretrum aquam benedictam et incensat, et corpus similiter, ponitur in feretrum, quod clausum desuper coopertorio operato operitur” (ibid., 110). “et mox incepto ab armario responsorio Subvenite sancti Dei . . . precedit processio quam semper consuetudinaliter deferunt conversi” (ibid., 114). “ponitur feretrum super formas, ad hoc solummodo destinatas, et crux cum candelabris, et cereis duobus jugiter ibi ardentibus ad caput ejus affigitur” (ibid., 116). 56 See Isabelle Cochelin, “Customaries as Inspirational Sources” and “Appendix: The Relation between the Last Cluniac Customaries, Udal and Bern,” in Constitutiones et Regulae: Sources for Monastic Life in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, ed. Clark Maines and Carolyn Malone (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 27–72; and Susan Boynton, “A Monastic Death Ritual from the Imperial Abbey of Farfa,” Traditio 64 (2009): 57–84.

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liturgy for the dying, where the stages from the sickbed to the grave mirror those indicated in the customaries of Cluny.57 The chronicle of the bishopric of Guillaume Le Maire of Angers (1291–1316?), written contemporaneously with the events described, details the death and burial of Bishop Nicolas Gellent in 1291 according to the same structure.58 In the chronicle’s only narrative illustration, the funeral cortège en route to Mass at the cathedral of Angers includes a cleric carrying a processional cross and two novices with a candle each (Fig. 12). The parallel between these two manuscripts of vastly different periods and genres seems to indicate the continuity of Cluniac death rites across a range of contexts. Despite Albinus’s episcopal status, the funeral depicted in his vita is decidedly monastic. A major aspect of the episcopal office was its public nature; hagiographic texts well into the thirteenth century emphasize the civic manifestations surrounding the deaths of bishops, and in illuminated vitae the ceremonial burials of bishopsaints typically involve lay and clerical members of the community.59 In Albinus’s vita lay mourners are relegated to their own architectonic space as Albinus lies dying; conversely, the funeral procession is made up of only monks, their great number signalled by the hillock of tonsures receding into the background. Conversing with him, clinging to his tomb in grief, and celebrating his funeral under the guidance of an abbot, the monks have exclusive access to the space and body of the saint. The liturgical framing of the cycle suggests a direct reference to the rites practiced at late eleventh-century Saint-Aubin: the rites in which every monk would have participated at the death of every frater and pater, and that were celebrated in the choir of the abbey church using its liturgical treasures. In sum, the vita’s death and funeral cycle overwrites the sixth-century hagiographic sources to visually bolster the historiographical claims made some decades earlier in the laudatory sermon discussed above. While the sermon overlooks entirely Albinus’s status as a bishop, these illuminations depart from the manuscript’s overall illustrative program to bury the bishop-saint as an abbot. The cycle situates

57 Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS LXXXVI/31, fols. 191r, 193v, and 199v. On this manuscript see, most recently, Gillian Mackie, “Warmundus of Ivrea and Episcopal Attitudes to Death, Martyrdom, and the Millennium,” Papers of the British School at Rome 78 (2010): 219–63; and Evan A. Gatti, “In a Space Between: Warmund of Ivrea and the Problem of (Italian) Ottonian Art,” Peregrinations 3, no. 1 (2010): 8–48. 58 Angers, Archives départementales de la Maine-et-Loire, G 7. See the introduction to the Livre de Guillaume le Maire, ed. Célestin Port (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1874), 5–17. 59 Jacques Dalarun, “La mort des saints fondateurs, de Martin à François,” in Les fonctions des saints dans le monde occidental (IIIe–XIIIe siècle): Actes du colloque de Rome (27–29 octobre 1988) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1991), 193–215; Michel Lauwers, “La mort et le corps des saints: La scène de la mort dans les vitae du haut Moyen Âge,” Le Moyen Âge 95 (1988): 21–50; Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 163–71.

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Fig. 12: The funeral procession of Nicolas Gellent, Bishop of Angers. Livre de Guillaime le Maire. Angers, ca. 1291–1316 (?). Angers, Archives départementales de Maine-et-Loire, G 7, fol. 1r (detail). Photo: Archives départementales de Maine-et-Loire.

Albinus’s death and burial within the abbey by modeling the illuminated tomb on the real pilgrimage shrine at Saint-Aubin (see Fig. 9), and, like the sermon, it emphasizes continuity between the patron saint and subsequent abbots: the abbot leading the funeral procession, recognizable as Albinus’s chosen successor by the green tunic beneath his chasuble, is now virtually identical in vestments, gesture, and face to Albinus in his living miracles (see Fig. 8). Together, the sermon and the vita redact the four centuries separating the bishop-saint’s death from the installment of the first regular abbot at Saint-Aubin and invent a monastic hagiography wherein Albinus dies as the founder and abbot of Saint-Aubin.

Metalwork and Transcendent Historiography In the semantics of its visual argument, the vita’s funerary sequence is a concise summation of a new historiography of institutional origin, a historiography that introduces an indissoluble relationship between Albinus and the monastic community of eleventh-century Saint-Aubin. But the history invented upon the illuminated page is not relegated to the distant past: the lustrously gilded metalwork maintains a material

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bridge between the pictorial space of the manuscript and the built space of the choir of Saint-Aubin; between the sacred history of the abbey and its lived reality. The liturgical signification of the cycle is polyvalent, evoking multiple temporal and ritual spheres while subverting the imposition of a linear reading to its imagery. The funeral of a Merovingian bishop and that of a common frater, monastic matins and public festal commemorations, hagiography and reform historiography, the quotidian passage of time measured by the canonical hours and the timelessness of golden artifacts: all are united on the page as a single transhistorical moment. In addition to signaling ritual action, the illumination evokes the rich multisensory dimension of medieval liturgy.60 The swinging censer invokes the fragrance of incense; the chanting monk, the litanies and music that accompanied all liturgy.61 The lit candles allude to the scent of candlewax and the warmth of fire, while the senior monk’s grief-stricken grasp of the sarcophagus emphasizes the tangibility of the objects employed in such rites. As it catches the light, the gold on the page effectively captures the visual dazzle of metalwork staged upon an altar. The readers of the Albinus vita would have viewed this folio in a similar multisensory context as the manuscript was used in the liturgy: they would have felt the parchment of the pages, inhaled the scent of incense and candlewax, contemplated the ecclesiastical treasures upon their altar, and intoned hagiographic lessons within the choir of Saint-Aubin. Within this performative framework, the illuminated funeral visualizes a complex historiography as a collective process, experienced and lived by the users of the book during monastic burials, during the public veneration of the saint, and whenever the miniature was viewed. Medieval liturgy, at its core, was a means of reconciling temporal, sacral, and cognitive categories. After all, the central liturgical object in Christianity—the Eucharist—was a contradiction, a sacred body concealed by the appearance of a small wheaten disk. When, in the latter half of the eleventh century, the arguments of Berengar of Tours provoked a widespread re-interrogation of the degree and method of transubstantiation, the orthodox respondents proposed the Mass as the praxis of an imperceptible transcendence.62 For theologians including Rupert of

60 On this subject see Éric Palazzo, “Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages,” Viator 41, no. 1 (2010): 25–56; and idem, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge (Paris: Cerf, 2014). 61 Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, “The Two Censers in the Schedula diversarum artium of Theophilus and Their Place in the Liturgy,” in Les cinq sens au Moyen Âge, ed. Éric Palazzo (Paris: Cerf, 2016), 189–212. 62 On the Berengarian controversy see Charles M. Radding and Francis Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics in the Eucharistic Controversy, 1078–1079: Alberic of Monte Cassino against Berengar of Tours (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003); Gary Macy, “Theology of the Eucharist in the High Middle Ages,” in A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, ed. Ian Christopher Levy, Gary Macy, and Kirsten van Ausdall (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 370–78; and Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 17–19.

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Deutz and Honorius Augustodunensis, a properly enacted consecration could dissolve the ontological distinction between substance and appearance by revealing within the church the historical and material origin of the sacrament.63 Like the Eucharist itself, the treasures staged upon the altar—the paten and chalice, the cross and the candlesticks, the ciboria and the censers, and other objects necessary for the celebration of the sacrament—were imbued with a sacred charisma that transcended their already precious materiality.64 Long before twelfthand thirteenth-century thinkers grew concerned with systematically defining the status and operations of vasa sacra, practice and restriction indicated that the very materials of liturgical vessels were rarefied. Already in the early Middle Ages, but increasingly by the second half of the eleventh century, we find clearly defined prohibitions against the alienation of ecclesiastical goods employed in liturgy.65 The furnishings and architectural fabric of churches gained their own sacramental status, and treasury inventories were not infrequently contained within the most prestigious and richly decorated liturgical books of the church.66 These signs are powerful indices that beyond their proximity to the sacrament or their costly manufacture, liturgical objects possessed their own sacred materiality, an integral transcendental charisma that required special care and disposition. What was, then, this sacred material property, and by what means did it operate? As with the Eucharist, the ontological distinction between appearance and substance was fundamental to the function of liturgical treasure. Abbot Suger’s meditations on the treasures of Saint-Denis are cited often for good reason: his rhetoric places into evidence the agency of the dazzling materiality of objects in guiding the spirit anagogically beyond the material, toward that “radiance of delightful allegories.”67 In a culture that struggled with visually interpreting the invisible Godhead,

63 Rupert of Deutz, Liber de divinis officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke (Turnhout: Brepols, 1967), 2.2. 47–49; Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae 1.52, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina 172 (Paris: Migne, 1854), col. 559D. See Richard Parmentier and Massimo Leone, “Representing Transcendence: The Semiosis of Real Presence,” Signs and Society 2, no. S1 (2014): S1–22; Aden Kumler, “Manufacturing the Sacred in the Middle Ages: The Eucharist and Other Medieval Works of Ars,” English Language Notes 53, no. 2 (2015): 9–44. 64 Aden Kumler, “Imitatio Rerum: Sacred Objects in the St. Giles’s Hospital Processional,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44 (2014): 469–502, at 480–86. 65 In practice, vasa sacra were often alienated; see the fascinating discussion in Michel Lauwers, “Des vases et des lieux: Res ecclesie, hiérarchie et spatialisation du sacré dans l’Occident médiéval,” in Le sacré dans tous ses états: Catégories du vocabulaire religieux et sociétés, de l’Antiquité à nos jours, ed. Manuel de Souza, Annick Peters-Custot, and François-Xavier Romanacce (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2012), 259–79. 66 Dominique Iogna-Prat, La Maison Dieu: Une histoire monumentale de l’Église au Moyen Âge (v. 800–v. 1200) (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2006), 408–41; Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western Medieval Church Inventory,” 17. 67 Trans. in Erwin Panofsky, ed., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 63.

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as Herbert Kessler has emphasized, those images most reticent to represent divinity were also the most suitable: representations that clearly signaled their materiality negated “any possibility that they would be taken as real presences,” and by that paradox allowed the viewer’s faculties to rise to contemplation of the intangible.68 By emphasizing their materials qua substance, liturgical objects displayed their capacity to ontologically transcend their physical form and to become vectors of sacred reality within the church.69 Similar to their real counterparts, the illuminated treasures in the Albinus vita display a paradoxical materiality. The likeness of the pictured objects to the real treasure of Saint-Aubin would have been immediately acknowledged by the monastic viewers. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the illuminated objects are designed in a way that clarifies their nature as artifice. They mimic the very qualities of real liturgical objects that signal transcendental agency—the opulence of gold and gems, the workmanship of embossed and pierced surfaces—but the even polish of the metal, the sharp black outline along their contours, their miniature scale, and the startling contrast of gold upon bare parchment disclose their nature as two-dimensional representations. To their medieval viewer the objects would have read as doubly familiar yet doubly foreign—visually present at once upon the page and upon the altar of the late eleventh-century abbey church, yet materially neither of the historical world of Saint-Aubin nor of the virtual realm established within the pages of the vita. The illuminated metalwork thus embodies the nature of liturgical treasure as insufficient representations of, and yet catalysts of, divine truths. The attentive, if inherently limited, verisimilitude of the illuminated treasure is to be understood not as a matter of convenient visual reference, but as a means of imbuing the representation with the property shared by all liturgical objects: the potential to create a link between temporal and spiritual realms, and to bring the sacred into the church and the past into the present. Regular monastic death rites, the liturgical performance of the night office, and the transformation of a Merovingian bishop into a founding abbot-saint are all synthesized into a single experience enacted with shared golden implements. Dissolving, as treasures do, the boundaries between the temporal and spiritual, the illuminated objects transform hagiographic past into a sacred truth revealed through liturgical praxis. It is therefore especially significant that

68 Herbert L. Kessler, “Real Absence: Early Medieval Art and the Metamorphosis of Vision,” chap. 6 in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 117–48, at 144. 69 Kristin B. Aavitsland, “The Ornamenta Ecclesiae in the Middle Ages: Materiality as Transcendence,” in Transcendence and Sensoriness: Perceptions, Revelation, and the Arts, ed. Svein Aage Christoffersen, Geir Hellemo, Leonora Onarheim, Nils Holger Petersen, and Margunn Sandal (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 111–30, at 121; Jean-Claude Bonne, “Entre l’image et la matière: La choséité du sacré en Occident,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 69 (1999): 77–112.

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every detail in the illuminated funeral is in some form mimetic. The painted sarcophagus resembles the real tomb of Albinus. The abbot’s gold crosier is of the same generic type as many surviving exempla; his vestments, with golden tablet-woven bands on the neckline and cuffs, accord in form and ornament with those worn by medieval clergy; and the textiles are delicately patterned with motifs found on real (and surviving) silks.70 The entire folio thereby becomes a treasury, a depository of material splendor shared between the hagiographical episode and Saint-Aubin ca. 1100. Upon liturgical activation the treasure-page embeds its historiography in the present lived experience of the viewing subject—in turn allowing the monks of SaintAubin to remember and recognize themselves within that past. As a visual synthesis of the material fabric and historiographical discourse of late eleventh-century Saint-Aubin, the illuminated funeral ensures that institutional rhetoric could be internalized, reenacted, and confirmed in the cyclical experience of daily life. In the space of the abbey church, regular funeral rites would have recreated the events of the illuminated cycle, and performances of the Divine Office would have verbalized its themes for the monks. The gilded treasures of the illuminated page would have been activated through liturgical praxis, thereby enabling a commingling between the page and the abbey church. The vita’s treasure-page locks together time and space, so that the architectural space of Saint-Aubin, with its carved capitals, painted columns and walls, glorious shrine to Albinus, and glimmering liturgical vessels and textiles, becomes the very site of the saint’s historical death and burial, a monumental reification of historiographical claims. At a time of monastic reform, illuminated metalwork bridged the distance between imagined past and lived present and transformed the invented historiography of Saint-Aubin into something quite mundane: a collectively agreed-upon institutional identity.

70 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 102–6. For surviving examples of small-scale patterns on silk see Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving AD 400 to AD 1200 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 1997).

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Packaging the Sainte-Chapelle Relic Treasury, Paris ca. 1500 In 1238, faced with financial hardship, the Latin emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II offered to King Louis IX of France (r. 1226–70) an important group of physical remnants of the Passion, which came to be widely considered a complete collection of relics of Christ in the West.1 The translation of the relics to Paris prompted the construction of a new palace chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle, which was finally consecrated in 1248.2 Already in the thirteenth century artists began developing strategies for representing items from the treasury and for showing the collection staged for veneration within the Sainte-Chapelle; however, it was not until around 1500 that the assemblage of relics was distilled into an iconographic type.3 A group of four known miniatures attests to the working out of the new image-type in book arts at this moment.4 Each of the four miniatures opens onto a series of reliquaries whose arrangement and shadowing against a dark ground suggest a setting within a recessed, enclosed space (Figs. 1–3).5 Captions in Latin accompany several of the vessels, itemizing their Note: I thank Jeffrey Hamburger, Christina Normore, Martha Wolff, and the volume editors and peer reviewers for offering feedback on versions of this essay. I thank Richard Kieckhefer for consulting on Latin paleography and the translations that appear here. 1 For Baldwin’s letter, see Alexandre Vidier, “Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle [part 3],” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France 36 (1909): 245–395, at 257–58. For the treasury as a type of collection, see most recently Philippe Cordez, Treasure, Memory, Nature: Church Objects in the Middle Ages, trans. Chloe Morgan (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2020). 2 The Crown of Thorns arrived in 1239, the Cross in 1241, and twenty more relics followed over the next seven years. See Emily Guerry, “The Wall Paintings of the Sainte-Chapelle” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2013), 50–84. 3 For representations of the Crown of Thorns, see Cynthia Hahn, “‘The Sting of Death Is the Thorn, but the Circle of the Crown Is Victory over Death’: The Making of the Crown of Thorns,” in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Cynthia Hahn and Holger Klein (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2015), 193–214. See also Alyce A. Jordan, Visualizing Kingship in the Windows of the Sainte-Chapelle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 57–70; and Willibald Sauerländer, “Architecture gothique et mise en scène des reliques: L’exemple de la Sainte-Chapelle,” in La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris: Royaume de France ou Jérusalem céleste?, ed. Christine Hediger (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 113–36. 4 New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.67, fol. 1r; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8890, fol. 65v; Clitheroe (Lancashire), Stonyhurst College, Ms. 45, fol. 50v; private collection, book of hours, s.n. (Hours of Jean II Nicolaï?), fol. 137v. 5 The private collection example is published in Jannic Durand and Marie-Pierre Laffitte, eds., Le trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001), 132–33; and Teresa d’Urso, Giovanni Todeschino: La miniatura ‘all’antica’ tra Venezia, Napoli e Tours (Naples: Arte Tipografica, 2007), 259–64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-012

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Fig. 1: Frontispiece showing the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle. Psalter-hours of the Petit family. Loire Valley, ca. 1460–80; frontispiece probably added in Paris, ca. 1500. New York, PML, MS M.67, fol. 1r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1905. Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

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unseen contents. The composition of the miniatures corresponds closely to the actual installation of the reliquaries, which were enshrined in niches within a monumental gilt silver and copper reliquary placed behind and above the high altar. Although the metalwork components of this “Grande Châsse” were melted down in 1791 during the Revolution, its appearance and contents have been reconstructed in some detail from prior descriptions and representations. A pen-and-ink-wash drawing made for the collector François Roger de Gaignières toward the end of the seventeenth century offers a frontal view of the architectural reliquary in situ (Fig. 4).6 An engraving made by a canon at the Sainte-Chapelle on the eve of the liquidation of the treasury shows the châsse in its open state, revealing the group of precious objects housed inside (Fig. 5). While many inaccuracies have been noted in these seemingly neutral antiquarian treatments of the treasury, they have largely been understood as the culmination of a continuous tradition of recording the Paris treasury in printed and painted media dating back to its thirteenth-century formation.7 Based on the naturalistic style of the four manuscript miniatures, along with their partial captioning of the contents of the Grande Châsse, scholars have treated them primarily as documentation for reconstructing and itemizing the lost treasury.8 Whereas such readings take the descriptive aspects of the miniatures at face value, I argue instead that the type demonstrates a timely visual repackaging of the treasury as an indivisible whole. The patrons associated with the origins of the image-type played an active professional role in the administration of the treasury. In this context, the image-type was constructed to serve as an identifiable sign of their privileged connection to the treasury: this signifying unit was thus more than the sum of its parts. The image-type was then taken up in the sphere of royal patronage, where its visual treatment bespoke larger concepts surrounding the legitimacy and continuity of French royal power, particularly by stressing the character of the treasury as a whole existing in identity with the arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion that came to be construed as Christ’s own heraldic arms and as a cohesive Christological collection poised outside of time. The development of the type conveying the intactness of the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle ca. 1500 must therefore be understood in relation to the sorts of power structures that so often found expression through treasuries. Rather than passively reflecting preservation, the type actively projected continuity and permanence. To make a case for the constructed nature of the miniatures, this essay closely considers the examples in the Morgan Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the former an elite prayer book and the latter a royally commissioned missal (see Figs. 1–2).

6 On the reliquary’s iconography, see Robert Branner, “The Grande Châsse of the Sainte-Chapelle,” Gazette des beaux-arts 77 (1971): 5–18, at 8; and Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 111–18. 7 For the inaccuracies, see Branner, “The Grande Châsse,” 5–7. 8 For the method in question as well as the first linking of the four manuscripts, see Durand and Laffitte, Le trésor, cat. nos. 28–30 and 71. See also Pierre Dor, Les reliquaires de la Passion en France du Ve au XVe siècle (Amiens: Le Cahmer, 1999), 131–37.

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Fig. 2: The arma Christi, Sainte-Chapelle treasury, and Man of Sorrows alongside the start of the Mass for the Holy Relics of the Sainte-Chapelle. Missale festivum ad usum capellae regiae Parisiensis. Paris, ca. 1503. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8890, fol. 65v. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Fig. 3: Full-page miniature of the Sainte-Chapelle treasury. Preces variae. Probably Paris, ca. 1500. Clitheroe (Lancashire), Stonyhurst College, Ms. 45, fol. 50v. Photo: By permission of the Governors of Stonyhurst College.

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Fig. 4: The tribune of the Grande Châsse. Paris, late seventeenth century, pen and ink with watercolor. Paris, BnF, Gaignières 78. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Fig. 5: The treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle. Sauveur-Jérôme Morand, Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle royale du Palais (Paris: Clousier, 1790), plate opposite p. 40. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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The Morgan Psalter-Hours: Treasury Image as Sign of Prestige Three of the four known instances of the Paris treasury miniature appear in personal manuscripts produced in connection with high officials in the Paris Chambre des comptes (Chamber of Accounts), the sovereign court that audited royal finances and oversaw their administration. This connection suggests that the noblesse de robe was the social environment in which the Paris relic collection’s dedicated image-type first arose and circulated.9 The Morgan frontispiece has been lumped into certain accounts of early modern representations of reliquaries that made the contents of the treasury available to a wider public than ever before.10 However, all evidence suggests that the treasury image-type in Paris circulated exclusively within the upper registers of the Chambre des comptes, before being taken up in the sphere of royal patronage in the isolated case of the BnF missal. In this context, this imagery did not signal an unprecedented availability of the contents of the treasury, but rather gestured to a privileged few who had access to this collection and who had the means to express that privilege through the creation of a new iconography in luxury book arts. At the center of the Morgan frontispiece stands the Crown of Thorns, enshrined within an ornamented vessel (see Fig. 1). The crown is surrounded by three crossshaped reliquaries. Their inscriptions make clear that only the double-transept cross to the left contains part of the True Cross itself, while the other two contain relics of the lance of Longinus and the rod of Moses.11 The latter cohered with this Christological group as it was believed to be made of the same wood as the Cross.12 Between the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns, a bust reliquary for part of the head of Saint John the Baptist is shown turned toward the right edge of the page. Together with the spatially central Crown of Thorns, the bust and three cross reliquaries make up a core grouping. Five tablet reliquaries, only one of which is captioned, populate the background of the composition. That the one with quatrefoils directly behind the Crown of Thorns is inscribed “lintheum domini” (referring to the cloth used by Christ to wash the

9 For the noblesse de robe, see Françoise Autrand, Naissance d’un grand corps de l’État: Les gens du Parlement de Paris, 1345–1454 (Paris: Sorbonne, 1981), 248–61. 10 See Alexander Nagel, “The Afterlife of the Reliquary,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 211–22, at 213. For a reading of the Morgan miniature along the lines of non-site specificity, see also Alexander Nagel, Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), 116–32. 11 The inscriptions on the frontispiece read: “de sa[n]guine mi[ra]culoso”; “catena de qua fuit ligatus”; “de lacte virginis marie”; “de sanguine proprio”; “de spongia”; “lintheum domini”; “crux victorie”; “de cruce domini”; “corona spinea”; “virgu[l]a moysy”; “de capite beati Joh[ann]is batiste.” 12 Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 71.

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disciples’ feet) suggests that each of these five similar reliquaries housed a textile relic. Textual sources attest to the presence of five textile relics in the Paris treasury: the linteum, the swaddling clothes, the burial shroud, the mandylion, and the scarlet or purple cloak.13 Shown hanging toward the upper right foreground of the miniature is a small cross reliquary outlined with pearls, labeled “crux victorie” (cross of victory). Finally, five bell-shaped reliquaries hang across the top border. The inscriptions identify the relics within as holy blood that emanated from an image of Christ, the iron chains used in the Flagellation, the milk of the Virgin, a relic of Christ’s blood from the Crucifixion, and the sponge of the Crucifixion. The bust reliquary of the Baptist overlaps the lower border of the miniature, where an inscription in French reads: “this is the figure and likeness of the relics of the Passion of our Lord in the palace chapel in Paris.”14 As the inscription progresses, it is interrupted by the coat of arms of Étienne II Petit. A well-documented member of the noblesse de robe, Petit ultimately served as maître ordinaire of the Paris Chamber of Accounts. He entered royal service as a notary and secretary in 1467, achieving by 1484 such specialized posts as minute-taker of the council of the king and, during the regency of Charles VIII, as treasurer of France.15 He became comptroller of the Chambre des comptes in 1497, rising to master of accounts the following year and holding this post for twenty-four years. From 1502 until his death in 1523, Petit served as secretary and treasurer of the Ordre de Saint-Michel, then the highest chivalric order of France. After donating all his properties in his hometown of Montpellier in 1493, his life was based in or around Paris: although the royal court was largely itinerant during this period while maintaining a symbolic center in the Loire valley, the notaries and secretaries were seated in Paris, the administrative and judicial center of the kingdom.16 Aspects of Petit’s biography inform our understanding of the Morgan manuscript. The codicology reveals that the treasury miniature and the quire that it opens onto are a later addition to this psalter-hours. This opening quire is followed by the original calendar opening to the manuscript, and Petit’s coat of arms appears below what would have originally been the first miniature, which features King David making music. The manuscript, apart from the opening quire, was produced in Bourges or the Loire valley ca. 1470, and it has been argued both on stylistic and

13 See Baldwin’s letter (note 1 above); see also a 1534 inventory of the châsse in Vidier, “Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle [part 2],” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France 35 (1908): 189–339, at 297. 14 “cest la figure et le semblance des reliques de la passion no[tre] segneur en la chapelle du palais a paris.” 15 André Lapeyre and Rémy Scheurer, Les notaires et secrétaires du roi sous les règnes de Louis XI, Charles VIII et Louis XII (1461–1515): Notices personnelles et généalogies, vol. 1, Documents inédits sur l’histoire de France (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1978), 251. 16 Ibid.

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biographical grounds that Petit had the quire with the treasury miniature added in Paris around 1500.17 The coat of arms on the frontispiece serves to refine this dating slightly. Petit was authorized in 1502 to use the fleur-de-lis in his arms in connection with his new role in the dynastic Ordre de Saint-Michel. Since the fleur-de-lis is lacking from the arms on the Morgan treasury image, we must assume that the quire was added to the manuscript prior to 1502. In terms of accounting for the origins of the new image-type at Paris, narrowing the date of the Morgan frontispiece to before 1502 rules out the proposal that the treasury image copies a 1503 painting installed in the palace chapel.18 The painting in question featured Saint Louis in prayer before the contents of the Grande Châsse, which one source describes as having been hung in the palace chapel.19 Although this work does not survive, an initial painted ca. 1424–32, transmitted only in a nineteenth-century copy, imparts a sense of how this elite experience of viewership and veneration could have been structured in the painting (Fig. 6). As Robert Branner argued, the châsse was placed on a revolving base, allowing for exposure of the relics toward the nave as needed.20 The painted initial shows an occasion on which an official visitor to Paris was afforded a private viewing of the sacred contents: the regent of France, the Duke of Bedford (d. 1435), kneels to honor the exposed assortment of relics, visible above and behind the high altar within the open châsse. Here the arrangement and appearance of the relics resonates with the treasury imagetype that appears in the corpus of four manuscripts. In contrast to the lost images of King Louis and the Duke of Bedford praying before the châsse, however, the Morgan frontispiece reflects a distinct decision to present the contents of the châsse absent their spatial surroundings in order to construct a more enclosed image-type along

17 The locale of Bourges or the Loire has been determined based on idiosyncratic saints included in the calendar, while dating has been largely on a stylistic basis. Durand and Laffitte, Le trésor, 128; John Plummer, The Last Flowering: French Painting in Manuscripts 1420–1530; From American Collections (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1982), 46–47. For the miniature having been added in Paris around 1500, see Roger S. Wieck, The Medieval Calendar: Locating Time in the Middle Ages (New York: Morgan Library & Museum, 2017), cat. no. 38, where an attribution to Jean Pichore is given. Pichore is first documented in Paris in 1502, but he probably began working in the 1490s. See Caroline Zöhl, Jean Pichore: Buchmaler, Graphiker und Verleger in Paris um 1500 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 29–32. For Petit and his connections to book production in the Loire valley, see Jane Alden’s analysis of the chansonnier genre and the Wolfenbüttel Chansonnier in particular (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 287 Extrav.), made for Petit likely around 1470 in this region: Jane Alden, Songs, Scribes, and Society: The History and Reception of the Loire Valley Chansonniers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), esp. 203; and Jane Alden, “Ung Petit cadeau: Verbal and Visual Play in the Wolfenbüttel Chansonnier,” in Essays on Renaissance Music in Honour of David Fallows, ed. Fabrice Fitch and Jacobijn Kiel (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), esp. 33–43. 18 See Dor, Les reliquaires, 135–36. 19 Gilles Corrozet, Les Antiquitez, histoires, croniques et singularitez de Paris (Paris: Bonfons, 1576), 76. 20 Branner, “Grande Châsse.”

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Fig. 6: Copy of an initial from the now lost fifteenth-century benedictionary-missal of the Duke of Bedford, showing the duke in prayer before the relics of Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, 1837. Paris, Musée de Cluny, Cl. 22847. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY (Gérard Blot).

the lines of a devotional image (Andachtsbild), setting the viewer into direct dialogue with the group of Christological relics.21 While the small scale of the Morgan psalter-hours (152 x 110 mm) underscores its personal nature, the addition of the treasury image as a frontispiece demonstrates that this image was meant to be shared and seen. In this context, the reality effect claimed by the descriptive style and the inscriptions of the Morgan treasury image could have served multiple ends, including the social display of the patron’s memory or knowledge of the treasury and the facilitation of devotional exercises that

21 For the Andachtsbild, see Hans Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter: Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion (Berlin: Mann, 1981).

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centered on the instruments of the Passion and their role in humanity’s redemption.22 In the context of the treasury image-type that appears to have been reproduced selectively within a specific professional stratum, the manner in which the inscription lays claim to knowledge or memory of the treasury must be understood in relation to questions of official identity and related registers of participation and access. On the page, the overlapping of Petit’s heraldry and the French inscription characterizing the image as a “figure and likeness” of the treasury points to this relationship. The circulation of the image-type within the highest registers of the gens des comptes presents the question of how modes of access to the treasury would have been socially conferred and circumscribed within this stratum, rendering the treasury image a selective marker of memory or knowledge of these precious objects in situ.23 The work of the Chambre des comptes was conducted directly adjacent to the Sainte-Chapelle within the palace complex, and this proximity bespoke a longstanding mutual affiliation between the two entities on both a structural and a functional level. When the palace chapel was built in the 1240s, the royal archive was originally placed in direct proximity to the Passion relics, in the Bâtiment du Trésor, which was linked to the chapel’s northern flank by a passageway.24 It has been noted that this choice on Louis IX’s part followed the precedent of the Gallic kings: since the time of Childebert III, it had been conventional practice for documents to be placed near or even in sacred treasuries.25 By the later Middle Ages, however, the royal archive (Trésor des chartes) and the archives of the Chambre du trésor and of the Chambre des comptes were independently organized parts of a considerable administrative system based in the Palais at Paris.26 Already under Philippe le Bel (r. 1285–1314), Louis IX’s grandson, the Sainte-Chapelle was placed under the immediate jurisdiction of the Chambre des comptes, without the mediation of any other authority.27 This system of

22 For a larger argument about fifteenth-century courtly naturalism as deployed to meet certain needs in certain contexts, see Stephen Perkinson, The Likeness of the King: A Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 23 Étienne II Petit and one of his superiors, président clerc Jean II Nicolaï, are the gens des comptes believed to be associated with the known examples of the image-type. See Durand and Laffitte, Le trésor, 132–33; d’Urso, Giovanni Todeschino, 259–64. 24 Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 93–94. 25 Henri-François Delaborde, “Les bâtiments successivement occupés par le Trésor des Chartes,” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris 29 (1902): 159–72. 26 See Philippe Contamine, Des pouvoirs en France 1300–1500 (Paris: L’École normale supérieure, 1992), 237–50. 27 Arthur Michel Boislisle, Chambre des comptes de Paris: Pièces justificatives pour servir à l’histoire des premiers présidents (1506–1791) (Nogent-Le-Rotrou: Gouverneur, 1873), xxxv–xliii, at xxxvii. For a related discussion, see Yann Potin, “Le roi trésorier: Identité, légitimité et fonction des trésors du roi (France, XIIIe–XIVe siècle),” in Le trésor au Moyen Âge: Questions et perspectives de recherche /

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oversight applied to all material dimensions of the palace chapel including the relics, all inventories of which were drawn up by the gens des comptes.28 The affinity between the Chambre des comptes and the palace chapel was reinforced through a series of building campaigns undertaken by Louis XII at the turn of the sixteenth century. At this time, construction was completed on a new twopart building for the Chambre des comptes.29 Perhaps only with the exception of the new western facade of the Sainte-Chapelle, which it faced, the facade of the new Chamber of Accounts was the most richly decorated in the entire Palais.30 Opposite the palace chapel was the covered staircase of the original building commissioned by Philippe le Bel, which was substantially renovated but not replaced in the building campaign.31 The renovated grand bureau of the Chambre, like the apse of the Sainte-Chapelle, featured a Crucifixion scene on the wall opposite the entrance. The presidents of the comptes sat beneath the Crucifixion at the head of a large table upon which the accounts were set out for review, as shown in an early sixteenthcentury miniature portraying the Chambre in session (Fig. 7). Under Louis XII, the mutual interaction of the two structures was additionally highlighted, particularly from a processional standpoint, by the renovation of the ceremonial staircase along the southern flank of the Sainte-Chapelle, which was modeled on the renovated staircase of the Chambre des comptes.32 Amid these royal architectural commissions at the palace complex, the iconography of the relic treasury that emerged at this moment referred to a symbolically important part of the Crown’s fiscal properties and to those official persons and entities responsible for keeping those properties intact. Within this local Parisian palatial context, the quire added to the Morgan psalter-hours functioned in the more specific liturgical context of the Sainte-Chapelle itself. The structure of the quire and the decision to have it added at the front of an existing manuscript suggest the importance of having a visible image of the chapel’s relics that opened onto an easily accessible, condensed selection of texts, both liturgical and paraliturgical. The series of psalms and the Hours of the Virgin that make up the structure of the original manuscript from the Loire valley or Bourges

Der Schatz im Mittelalter: Fragestellungen und Forschungsperspektiven, ed. Lucas Burkart, Philippe Cordez, and Pierre-Alain Mariaux (Neuchâtel: Institut d’histoire de l’art et de muséologie, 2005), 89–118. 28 Boislisle, Chambre, xxxiix–xxxix. 29 See Katherine Fischer Taylor, “The Palais de Justice of Paris: Modernization, Historical SelfConsciousness, and Their Prehistory in French Institutional Architecture 1835–69” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1989), 1:115. 30 Taylor, “Palais de Justice,” 1:113–14. 31 Ibid. See the views including the Chambre des comptes in B. Sauvan and J. P. Schmit, Histoire et description pittoresque du Palais de Justice, de la Conciergerie, et de la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris (Paris: Engelmann, 1825). 32 Taylor, “Palais de Justice,” 1:116.

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Fig. 7: Frontispiece showing the Chamber of Accounts in session. Privilèges de la Chambre des comptes de Paris. Paris, early sixteenth century. Paris, Archives nationales de France, AE II 634. Photo: Archives nationales de France.

are of Roman use.33 The quire added in Paris, by contrast, was specifically for Parisian use. Beginning on the reverse of the folio depicting the treasury is the text of the Mass for the group of holy relics enshrined in the Grande Châsse. The Mass is followed by four commemorative texts dedicated to the relics in various constellations. In one of the entries, the milk of the Virgin is isolated, providing the Marian 33 See Plummer, Last Flowering, 47–48.

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content that would have been more or less indispensable to fifteenth-century devotions. Elsewhere, the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the lance are featured as a subgroup of relics evoking sovereignty in their capacities as vexilla regis and arma regis. In another of these texts the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle is itemized in its entirety, with the whole being characterized as the insignia of human redemption left by Christ as a sign of love. Three of the four texts following that of the Mass include vespers antiphons with a thirteenth-century origin at the palace chapel in connection with the Feast of the Holy Relics.34 An antiphon is a chant text that is followed by the reading of a psalm or sometimes the singing of a short scriptural passage.35 The four texts added to the Morgan psalter-hours follow this structure and were likely amended to serve Petit in his own private meditations on the instruments of the Passion. But evidence suggests that these sorts of commemorative chant texts would also have been an important part of daily ritual at the Sainte-Chapelle and could therefore have served Petit in situ. One of the two earliest surviving ordinals of the palace chapel, dating to 1471, demonstrates that such votive and commemorative rituals—whether requiems or other votive Masses, offices, antiphons, and memorials—in fact dominated the daily workings of the chapel during the late fifteenth century.36 The ordinal provides detailed instructions for memorials—special votive prayers added to the end of the Hours, especially after matins and vespers—including daily memorials for the relics of the Grande Châsse. None of the memorial antiphons for the relics mentioned in the ordinal corresponds to those antiphons in the Morgan manuscript. However, the first antiphon following the Mass of the Holy Relics in the psalter-hours also appears in the ordinal, confirming that the antiphon was in use at the Sainte-Chapelle in the late fifteenth century.37 It appears as part of a weekly Friday procession founded in reverence of the Passion of Christ and for the remission of the sins of the procession’s founder, Jehan Mortis (d. 1484), a counselor of the king and member of his Parlement who was also a cantor and canon at the Sainte-Chapelle.38 The procession would begin with a chant just outside the doors of the upper level of the

34 See Bari, Archivio di San Nicola, MS 3 (81), fols. 349r–356r, glossed in Elsa De Luca, “I manoscritti musicali dell’Archivio di San Nicola a Bari: Elementi francesi nella musica e nella liturgia” (PhD diss., University of Salento, 2011), 250–55. See also Branner, “Two Parisian Capella Books in Bari,” Gesta 8, no. 2 (1969): 14–19. 35 Edward Foley, ed., Worship Music: A Concise Dictionary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 17–18. 36 The oldest is Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 1435, from the second half of the fourteenth century. The 1471 ordinal is Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 114. Here I draw upon Barbara Haggh, “An Ordinal of Ockeghem’s Time from the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris: Paris Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 114,” Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 47, no. 1/2 (1997): 33–71. 37 Haggh, “An Ordinal of Ockeghem’s Time,” 54–55. 38 Ibid., 47.

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chapel, before moving into the nave to stand before a crucifix (presumably on the choir screen).39 In the nave, the choirboys chanted the Miserere nostri Ihesu and the Adoramus te Christe, whose verses are not featured in the ad hoc addition to the Morgan manuscript but are featured in the more extensive program of the Stonyhurst manuscript.40 Processing from the nave into the choir, they chanted solemnly before the Grande Châsse the antiphon and verse provided in the Morgan psalter-hours—O Christo plebs and Omnes terra adoret te Deus, respectively.41 The endowed procession concluded with a series of prayers for the founder. The ordinal explicitly mentions the Chambre des comptes with respect to the processions associated with two related occasions: the Feast of the Translation of the Crown of Thorns and the Feast of the Holy Relics. The rituals surrounding each of these Masses entailed a similar processional route through the palace complex: exiting the upper level of the Sainte-Chapelle, passing through the gallery of the merchants (Salle aux merciers) into the palace, proceeding down the stairs next to the royal kitchen, and returning to the Sainte-Chapelle using the stairs leading toward the offices of the Chambre des comptes (“versus cameram compotorum”).42 A plan of the palace grounds from around 1700 provides a sense of the trajectory of these two processions whose prescriptions explicitly mention the Chambre des comptes (Fig. 8). It shows the staircase on the southern face of the chapel that led directly to the upper chapel (dedicated to Christ) from the courtyard below; this ceremonial entrance allowed for the bypassing of the lower chapel (dedicated to the Virgin). At the opposite (northern) side of the Sainte-Chapelle is the Salle aux merciers, through which the two processions in question advanced. The royal kitchen was directly northwest of the Grand-Salle, beyond the scope of this map.43 While the full route of the processions cannot be traced with exactitude following the prescriptions provided and working with this later map, the staircase versus cameram compotorum, by which these processions would have reemerged into the courtyard to enter the Sainte-Chapelle for Mass, is visible leading up toward the staircase of the Chambre des comptes itself.

39 Guerry notes that the existence of a Gothic screen in the Sainte-Chapelle before the fifteenth century, as speculated by Branner, remains unconfirmed. Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 32–33; Branner, “The Painted Medallions of the Sainte-Chapelle,” American Philosophical Society (1968): 1–44. 40 For a codicological overview, see N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 4:425–32. 41 Haggh, “An Ordinal of Ockeghem’s Time,” 58. These are provided on Morgan fols. 4v–5r and Stonyhurst fols. 56r–58r, under the rubric “Commemoratio de reliquijs a[li]a.” 42 Ibid., 51–52. 43 Taylor, “Palais de Justice,” 1:110–11.

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Fig. 8: Terrier du Roi, ca. 1700, detail of the “Cour du Palais.” Paris, Archives nationales de France, Q1*10991, fol. 67v. Photo: Archives nationales de France.

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Aside from their processional routes, these two relic-oriented Masses were very distinct from one another in character. The Mass for the Crown of Thorns was among the most solemn annale feasts, while the Mass for the Holy Relics was a festum duplex of lesser solemnity. It was the custom of the Sainte-Chapelle to celebrate the Mass for the Holy Relics each day that was not a feast of nine lessons or of higher rank, and this daily liturgical practice dedicated to the group of relics as a whole was reinforced by liturgical reforms under Charles VI in 1401.44 Compared to that for the Crown of Thorns, the Mass for the relics was thus deeply embedded within the daily ritual of the palace chapel. It is the latter Mass that is consistently linked to the replication of the treasury image across the manuscript corpus. This suggests that what was important in connection with the image was not the most solemn of the relic-oriented liturgies, but rather the one that punctuated the daily life of the palace chapel and of those who worked in its direct vicinity. In addition to this daily Mass, the relics were also commemorated on their annual feast day on September 30, when the precious contents of the Grande Châsse were probably made visible to a wide public.45 One fifteenth-century source conveys the still strongly mediated nature of this display of the contents of the Grande Châsse, noting that its “doors remain open and turned toward the choir so that one is able to see the holy relics through the grill.”46 Contemporary sources also attest to private occasions of display for special visitors to the palace, as shown in the Bedford initial. The daily Mass for the relics and other routine, endowed relic-based commemorations at the Sainte-Chapelle would likely have occupied a middle ground between the annual festive displays for a wide public and exceptional private displays. The selective repetition of the iconography of the French royal relic treasury in manuscripts associated with the gens des comptes and its link to the daily Mass for the Holy Relics indicates that it functioned as a marker of prestige for the books’ owners. In the Morgan psalter-hours, the use of the image-type as a frontispiece bearing Petit’s coat of arms indexed the everyday access that was a privilege of his rank and physical situation in the palace complex. Perhaps counterintuitively, more routine access to the chapel to participate in the daily and weekly commemorative activities would in reality have created an even greater demand for an image that made visible the precious contents of the châsse, which in everyday practice remained locked away, removed from sight. As we saw, the Friday procession for Jehan Mortis entailed a move into the privileged space of the chapel’s choir, where the treasury was enshrined. Yet, despite this

44 See Sauveur-Jérôme Morand, Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle royale du palais (Paris: Clousier, 1790), 4–5. 45 Meredith Cohen, “An Indulgence for the Visitor: The Public at the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris,” Speculum 83, no. 4 (2008): 840–83, at 875. 46 “volets demeurèrent ouverts et tournez vers le choeur afin que l’on put voir les SS reliques au travers de la grill,” cited in Durand and Laffitte, Le trésor, 112n27.

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proximity, the relics remained at a distance, enclosed within the opaque gold châsse. The treasury image-type, with its descriptive, naturalistic style and its inscriptional claim to likeness, thus functioned as a means of visually accessing the Christological relics during, and apart from, such liturgical scenarios. That this image-type was selectively reproduced in personal manuscripts commissioned in connection with the Chamber of Accounts—an institution bound to the chapel and its treasury from an administrative, spatial, and ritual perspective —points to the inextricability of its functions as a devotional aid and as a sign of privileged connection to the treasury. The image-type assigned prestige to the roles of these officials in managing and inventorying the treasury, roles that brought with them an everyday participation in the ritual life of the chapel. Both as devotional images and as signs of prestige, the Paris treasury miniatures of ca. 1500 engaged with contemporary interests in abstract signs of royal power and mystique on the part of the gens du roi.47 The inscription designating the Morgan frontispiece as an accurate “figure and likeness” of the treasury departs from the other inscriptions in its use of French, a language whose patriotic adoption by the gens du roi in the wake of the Hundred Years’ War has been amply discussed.48 The case of the BnF missal, the only royally commissioned and institutionally dedicated manuscript in which the treasury image appears, speaks to some of the larger, abstract meanings broadcast by the treasury ca. 1500 and by its representation as an intact and inextricable whole with a conventionalized iconography.

The BnF Missal: The Sainte-Chapelle Treasury, the arma Christi, and Royal Power Since its thirteenth-century formation, the Christological treasury installed in Paris by Louis IX was emblematically bound to the French monarch in his capacity as rex christianissimus. In keeping with a larger body of recent scholarship on royal relic treasuries,49 Edina Bozóky has demonstrated how Louis used relics to posit a parallel between terrestrial and celestial power, with himself as a Christlike figure.50 Art historians have parsed the integrated artistic program of the Sainte-Chapelle, 47 See Kathleen Daly, “Mixing Business with Leisure: Some French Royal Notaries and Secretaries and Their Histories of France, c. 1459–1509,” in Power, Culture, and Religion in France, ed. Christopher Allmand (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989), 99–115; and Kathleen Daly, “‘Pour vraye congnoissance avoir’: Historical Culture and Polemic in the French Royal Chambre des comptes in Paris in the Fifteenth Century,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 49 (2005): 142–89. 48 Daly, “Mixing Business with Leisure,” 103. 49 This literature is extensive. For a useful background, see Julia M. H. Smith, “Rulers and Relics c. 750–c.950: Treasure on Earth, Treasure in Heaven,” Past and Present 206, no. 5 (2010): 73–96. 50 Edina Bozóky, La politique des reliques de Constantin à Saint Louis: Protection collective et légitimation du pouvoir (Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 2007), 244–54; Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 125. See

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wherein the king’s relics were represented as the ultimate material witnesses to the Redemption.51 Even to an outsider like the English chronicler Matthew Paris, the arrival of the relics in Paris bolstered Louis’s reputation to that of “king of earthly kings, both because of his heavenly anointment and because of his power and military prominence.”52 In fact, one of the earliest applications of the term rex christianissimus to the French monarch appears with reference to the translation of the Crown of Thorns: Gérard de Saint-Quentin’s 1242 account of the event is addressed to “Christianissimus Ludovicus Rex.”53 The special status attached to the Crown of Thorns coexisted with an emphasis on the treasury as a coherent whole, the contents of which were enshrined in more or less fixed positions within the cabinet-like interior of the Grande Châsse and elevated over the altar of the palace chapel. Because of its broad reputation as a complete Christological treasury, exaggerations were not uncommon: the thirteenthcentury historian Durandus, for example, assumed that Louis possessed certain Passion relics that he had never actually acquired.54 Royal efforts to project the coherence and completeness of the treasury drew upon the paradigm of the arma Christi. The attachment of a first indulgence to the arma Christi in 1245 overlapped squarely with the arrival of the Passion relics in Paris—although this is just one small dot on a complicated map of the relic treasuries being amassed in western Europe after 1204 and the independently evolving trajectory of the arma Christi.55 The constructed dynamic, even equivalence, between the treasury of Saint Louis and the arma Christi is particularly evident in the eschatological significance that was attached to the Paris collection early on, which drew upon contemporary understandings of the arma Christi as symbols of the exalted Christ of the Second

also Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study of Mediaeval Political Theology, 7th ed. (1957; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 42–86. Kantorowicz argued that the (lost) crown of the French kings came to house a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, thus underscoring the existing association between the two crowns (339). 51 Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 85–89. 52 Cited in Robert Branner, Saint Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture (London: Zwemmer, 1965), 3. 53 See Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 83. On the Crown of Thorns in France, see for example Percy Ernst Schramm, Der König von Frankreich: Das Wesen der Monarchie vom 9. zum 16. Jahrhundert (Weimar: Böhlau, 1939), 1:204–21; Ralf Lützelschwab, “Ludwig der Heilige und der Erwerb der Dornenkrone: Zum Verhältnis von Frömmigkeit und Politik,” Das Mittelalter 9 (2004): 12–23; and Chiara Mercuri, “‘Stat inter spinas lilium’: Le Lys de France et la Couronne d’Épines,” Le Moyen Âge 110, no. 3 (2004): 497–512, at 499. 54 Cited in Guerry, “Wall Paintings,” 78. 55 Flora Lewis argues that papal support for the indulgence was probably connected directly with the Sainte-Chapelle relics: Flora Lewis, “Rewarding Devotion: Indulgences and the Promotion of Images,” in The Church and the Arts, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 179–94, at 181–83. Innocent IV made the connection between the Crown of Thorns and the crown of France, and this had immediate political as well as iconographic implications: Branner, “Grande Châsse,” 15.

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Coming.56 In a set of liturgical sequences composed around 1260 for the itinerant chapel of Louis IX and still used in the ca. 1500 corpus of manuscripts at hand, the constituents of the Paris collection are repeatedly positioned as protagonists in an imminent end of days:57 “The evening of the world impending, Gallia shimmers with the gift of the cross and the crown. For she has been garlanded by the glory of the reed scepter and of the scarlet-dyed robes.”58 The composition proceeds to itemize each object within the collection, before reinscribing the whole as “the precious treasury that has been entrusted to her [Gallia].”59 This fluctuation between an enumerative approach to the treasury’s contents and an understanding of the whole as an emblematic totality would resonate in visual treatments—heterogeneous as they were—of the arma Christi in the West.60 The inclusion of the recently established image-type in the BnF missal—a royally commissioned manuscript intended for use at the Sainte-Chapelle on the high feasts of its liturgical year—sheds light on how the indivisibility of the treasury was construed in direct relation to the paradigm of the arma Christi. The treasury is depicted in the upper right corner of folio 65v. The relatively large scale of the manuscript (390 x 275 mm) renders the seven-line-high miniature legible in its details (see Fig. 2). Nineteen relics, each housed within a precious container, are shown arrayed within a recessed space.61 As important as the discrete details of the miniature is the positioning of the whole in relation to other images and texts on the same folio, as well as its context within this royally commissioned and institutionally dedicated manuscript. 56 Rudolf Berliner, “Arma Christi,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 3, no. 6 (1955): 35–152, at 35–36; Mercuri, “Stat inter spinas lilium,” 498. 57 Bari, Biblioteca di San Nicola, sequencer, s.n., 156 fols. See Karen Gould, “The Sequences De sanctis reliquiis as Sainte-Chapelle Inventories,” Mediaeval Studies 43, no. 1 (2009): 315–41. Note that Gould mistakes the compositions as evidence of the treatment of the relics in the SainteChapelle rather than in the capella regis, the itinerant royal chapel. Branner clarified the distinction in “The Sainte-Chapelle and the Capella Regis in the Thirteenth Century,” Gesta 10, no. 1 (1971): 19–22. 58 “Vergente mundi vespere, / Crucis Coronae munere / Nostra coruscat Gallia. / Quae sceptri arundinei, / Vestimenti coccinaei, / Redimita est gloria.” Sequence De sanctis reliquiis 21:1a–b. The Latin sequence is published in R.-J. Hesbert, Le prosaire de la Sainte-Chapelle: Manuscrit du chapitre de Saint-Nicolas de Bari, vers 1250 (Mâcon: Protat, 1952), 70–71. 59 “Et sepulcri gloriosi / Partem pars est pretiosi / Thesauri sibi credita” (And part of the glorious sepulcher, which is part of the precious treasury that has been entrusted to her). Sequence De sanctis reliquiis 21:3a. 60 Rudolf Berliner notes that it is hard to untangle the timeline of the arma Christi; his survey indicates an ongoing fluctuation between these two modes: Berliner, “Arma Christi,” 37–53. On the fluctuation between singularity and totality, see Heather Madar, “Iconography of a Sign: A Semiotic Reading of the Arma Christi,” in ReVisioning: Critical Methods of Seeing Christianity in the History of Art, ed. James Romaine and Linda Stratford (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2014), 115–32. 61 The difference in sum between the two miniatures—sixteen in the Morgan psalter-hours and nineteen in the BnF missal—results from the inclusion of three unlabeled reliquaries in the lowerleft background of the miniature in the missal.

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Modern scholarly habits of approaching the image-type as a source for reconstructing, piece by piece, the dismantled treasury have prevented this more contextual understanding of how the image is working within the manuscript. The single illuminator of the BnF missal couples the relic treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle with the arma Christi, which are arrayed within a pilaster that runs the vertical length of the left margin of the composition. Each of the two groups of objects is enclosed on its respective side of the page, coherent in its own right and at the same time part of a visual pair. Directly beneath the treasury miniature, the Man of Sorrows is represented in an initial: the living-dead Christ stands within his open tomb, raising his left hand to display the nail wound and, with his right hand, gesturing to the lance wound in his side. The two Christological object-groups converge on this complex devotional iconography. In the pilaster along the left border of folio 65v, the inclusion of scenic references—such as the moneybag containing the thirty coins collected by Judas at the time of the betrayal or the lantern carried by the arresting soldier—is typical of treatments of the arma Christi at this date and demonstrates an attempt to itemize the full spectrum of the events surrounding Christ’s Passion.62 Roughly from top to bottom are depicted the dice, hammer, face of a Roman soldier, reed scepter, bundle of birch, veil of Veronica, chain, lantern, sword, vessel and cloth for feet washing, two vessels of the Last Supper, Judas with the coin purse, sponge, three nails, ladder, and pincers. Even in this extensive group, a few important arma Christi are not included, namely the Crown of Thorns, the lance, and the Cross itself. These particular relics make up part of a central cluster in the Sainte-Chapelle treasury miniature on the opposite side of the folio. There is, however, overlap between the two groups of objects shown on this folio—for example, the sponge of the Crucifixion and the chain of the Flagellation figure in each group—indicating that the arma Christi are presented here not as a supplement to the Paris treasury but rather as an autonomous group of objects. Although configurations of the arma Christi varied in this period, it would nevertheless be surprising to find the Cross, the lance, and especially the Crown of Thorns—omitted in this context. These three relics are, however, depicted together earlier in the manuscript, on folio 35r, in connection with the Mass for the Feast of the Crown of Thorns, which took place on August 11 (Fig. 9).63 This folio mirrors the compositional structure of folio 65v. A seven-line-high miniature in the upper-left corner features the reliquary for the Crown of Thorns, presented by two angels who flank the object, within a

62 On related devotions surrounding the Stations of the Cross, see Berliner, “Arma Christi,” 48–53. For Robert Suckale, this scenic-narrative dimension marks a shift away from the medieval representational sphere of Zeichen (signs; characters): Robert Suckale, “Arma Christi: Überlegungen zur Zeichenhaftigkeit mittelalterlicher Andachtsbilder,” Städel-Jahrbuch 6 (1977): 177–208, at 195. 63 The Cross is also represented in connection with the feasts of the Invention of the Cross (fol. 16v) and the Exaltation of the Cross (fol. 62r), within narrative contexts.

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Fig. 9: The Crown of Thorns, the Holy Lance, and the Cross alongside the start of the Mass for the Translation of the Crown of Thorns. Missale festivum ad usum capellae regiae Parisiensis. Paris, ca. 1503. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8890, fol. 35r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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recessed space with a tiled floor and a patterned blue and gold backdrop. The page is divided into two columns using classicizing architectural devices generic in French book illumination at this moment.64 Along the outer margin is a pilaster within which two angels are shown emerging from floral forms and, respectively, presenting the lance above and the True Cross beneath. The specific subgrouping of crown, cross, and lance on this folio exalts the centerpiece to the Paris treasury alongside two other relics that had historically been closely connected to the sovereignty and prestige of rulers. With respect to the thirteenth-century foundation of the collection, scholars have demonstrated how the construction of the French cult of the Crown of Thorns answered, in part, to the privileged status of the True Cross in the treasury of the imperial chapel in Constantinople.65 The lance with which the Roman soldier-turned-saint Longinus pierced Christ’s side would come to serve as a comparable symbol within the Holy Roman Empire. Earlier in the medieval period, the German emperors marshalled the lance as the preeminent symbol of the hereditary transfer of power.66 That the Crown of Thorns, the lance, and the True Cross are not among the expansive group of the arma Christi on folio 65v, yet appear on folio 35r, suggests that the artist took these preceding miniatures and marginalia into account in his illumination of folio 65v, which is logical since these are the only two of the fourteen Masses in the missal that pertain explicitly to the Christological relic treasury of the palace chapel. Treating these two entries of the missal as a consecutive pair, the artist takes an enumerative approach to the arma Christi across both folios. On folio 65v, the arma Christi are brought to a fuller enumeration, arrayed in a list-like vertical formation without the figural bearers and foliate details that more often inhabited

64 François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520 (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), 2:255–85. 65 The connection of the True Cross with the sovereignty and prestige of emperors, kings, and abbots was exploited in both East and West. See Anatole Frolow, La relique de la Vraie Croix: Recherches sur le développement d’un culte (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1961). On the imperial status of the True Cross in Byzantium, see Sandrine Lerou, “L’usage des reliques de Christ par les empereurs aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Byzance et les reliques du Christ, ed. Jannic Durand and Bernard Flusin (Paris: Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 2004), 159–82. For the Cross relic as part of the Paris treasury, see Jannic Durand, “La relique et les reliquaires de la Vraie Croix du trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris,” in La Croce: Iconografia e interpretazione (secoli I–inizio XVI), ed. Boris Ulianich (Naples: Elio de Rosa, 2007), 3:341–67. 66 See Percy Ernst Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik: Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte 3.–16. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1954), 2:492–537; and Howard L. Adelson, “The Holy Lance and the Hereditary German Monarchy,” Art Bulletin 48, no. 2 (1966): 177–92. The trio of True Cross, lance, and Crown of Thorns had also been emblematic of royal power in the Holy Roman Empire as early as the eleventh century. See Hartmut Kühne, Ostensio Reliquiarum: Untersuchungen über Entstehung, Ausbreitung, Gestalt und Funktion der Heiltumsweisungen im Römisch-Deutschen Regnum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000), 93.

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these framing elements. Here it becomes a royal blue container for the arma Christi, comparable to the open Grande Châsse with which it is directly juxtaposed. It is the fuller enumeration of the arma Christi on folio 65v that is paired with the image of the Sainte-Chapelle treasury. The status of the treasury at Paris as coherent and complete in itself is signaled not only by its juxtaposition with the arma Christi, likewise enclosed in a precious container, but also by its close visual connection to the Man of Sorrows. For Panofsky, no iconography encoded the paradox of Christ’s death and triumph over death or embodied the aims of the devotional image as a type more effectively than the Man of Sorrows, or imago pietatis.67 This intricate pictorial composition in the missal shows Christ at once dead and remote and alive and present to the viewer. The Man of Sorrows is contained within the initial “G” that begins the opening verse of the Mass for the Feast of the Holy Relics of the Chapel: “Let us rejoice in the Lord, chanting praise to Christ, who gave himself over to death for us and entrusted to the faithful the signs of his Passion to be preserved.”68 This opening verse directly supports the stacked images of the Man of Sorrows and of the treasury at the top of the column. Its content clarifies the nature of the relationship between the three images on the folio. The Christological treasury at Paris exists in identity with the arma Christi, belonging to Christ and entrusted for preservation on earth until the end of days. In this exchange, the Man of Sorrows stands as Christ who, crucified and resurrected, has disappeared from sight until the Second Coming, yet who in the signs of his Passion remains present and visible in a bodily sense. As the arma Christi lent to the kings of France by Christ, the treasury is emblematic of a chain of meanings surrounding the legitimacy and perpetuity of French royal power. These meanings crystallize in the use of the newly constructed image-type for the treasury, a type that had been codified in specific association with those charged with preserving the treasury intact and as a prestigious sign of this professional function. Juxtaposed with the well-established late medieval devotional types of the arma Christi and the Man of Sorrows, the novel treasury image-type projects a timeless authority. The context of the dedication of the BnF missal sheds light on certain aspects of what the intact preservation of the treasury of Louis IX meant at this moment. The missal’s heraldic frontispiece signals that it was made for Louis XII in order to be dedicated to the Sainte-Chapelle (Fig. 10).69 Against an open landscape, two angels

67 Erwin Panofsky, “‘Imago pietatis’: Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzensmanns’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix’,” in Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage (Leipzig: E.A. Seeman, 1927), 261–308. See also Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum. 68 “Gaudeamus omnes in domino laudes Christo decantantes qui pro nobis se morti tradidit et sue passionis signa fidelibus reseruenda commendauit.” 69 The near perfect condition of the manuscript has been taken as evidence that it was not really used liturgically, perhaps due to reforms in 1521. For this and for speculation surrounding the personal nature of the dedication, see Durand and Laffitte, Le trésor, 245.

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Fig. 10: Heraldic frontispiece. Missale festivum ad usum capellae regiae Parisiensis. Paris, ca. 1503. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8890, folio facing 1r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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flank the royal arms, punctuated on three sides with ornate “L”s. Along the bottom edge of the architectural frame for the frontispiece, the patron is identified as “LUDOVICVS REX FRENCORVM [sic].” Saint Louis, the founder of the palace chapel and Louis XII’s namesake, is depicted enthroned on folio 59r in a half-page miniature accompanying the start of the Mass for his feast on August 25 (Fig. 11).70 The fleurde-lis of France patterns the fabric of his throne-tabernacle, pinned back on either side by an angel, and the crest of the monarchy is contained in the initial G directly beneath the miniature. This institutional dedication by Louis XII ca. 1503 can be understood in the context of the king’s broader approach to the chapel and the palace in which it was situated. For much of the fifteenth century, the royal court remained separated from its administrative and judicial institutions in Paris. It was only in the latter part of the century that the Crown renewed an active involvement with the palace complex —for example, resuming royal visits to the Parlement for the first time since 1413.71 In comparison to his predecessor Charles and his successors well into the seventeenth century, Louis XII’s involvement with the Palais seems to have been more personal.72 It has been speculated that his building campaigns created or inspired a new processional approach to the site, incorporating stops at the newly restored Sainte-Chapelle, for instance.73 More broadly, the missal was a dedication to a Capetian institution by a Valois monarch and, consistent with this, the visual program of the manuscript reiterates the founding premises for the Sainte-Chapelle while articulating their continuity and permanence. This selective looking back and projecting forward through the present aligns with the well-known practices of the members of the Valois dynasty intent on asserting their legitimacy as heirs to their Capetian predecessors. Kantorowicz identified an unprecedented interest at this moment in France (first documented in the 1498 funeral ceremonies of Louis XII’s predecessor Charles VIII) in making the royal office (dignitas) visible and asserting its continuity from one monarch to the next.74 More recent scholarship has refined this for the specific case of Louis XII by fleshing out how, amidst shifting ideas surrounding the nature of royal power, this king sought to produce an official image of himself as rex christianissimus and natural heir of Saint Louis.75 The missal’s adoption of a recently developed image-type that stressed the

70 For Louis XII’s attempts to connect himself with Saint Louis in official imagery, see Nicole Hochner, Louis XII: Les dérèglements de l’image royale (1498–1515) (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2013), 149–53. 71 Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 110–12 and 173–74. 72 Taylor, “Palais de Justice,” 1:108. 73 Ibid., 1:118. 74 Kantorowicz argued that this emphasis on visibility in France was not only unprecedented but also unparalleled in other national and imperial contexts; Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 422–23. 75 Hochner, Les dérèglements, esp. 149–53.

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Fig. 11: Louis IX enthroned. Missale festivum ad usum capellae regiae Parisiensis. Paris, ca. 1503. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8890, fol. 59r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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indivisible nature of the treasury and the preservation of that whole must be seen against the backdrop of this larger effort to emblematize the royal office and to project a pointed line of continuity and permanence.

Conclusion: Representing the Relic Treasury at Paris By placing an unprecedented emphasis on the status of the Paris relic treasury as a coherent and indivisible whole, the patrons and artists connected to the establishment of the new image-type for the treasury ca. 1500 took their cue from fifteenthcentury devotional imagery. But the fact that the type was limited to manuscripts commissioned by or gifted to the most elite custodians of the treasury makes clear that it was an ideological means of asserting the preservation and unbroken intactness of a group of objects that, since being translated to and enshrined at Paris under Louis IX in the mid-thirteenth century, had always been branded as a complete treasury of relics of Christ in the West. This new image-type was established in manuscripts belonging to the very highest officials of the sovereign court responsible for auditing royal revenues and overseeing their administration, the Chambre des comptes. In this context, it responded to a desire on the part of these officials to express their privileged connection to the treasury—a connection that had both actual and imagined dimensions. In its iconography, inscription, and selective repetition, the image-type not only assigned prestige to these officials’ professional functions in managing and inventorying the treasury, but also pointed to their routine access to the chapel, where the treasury image served a functional purpose in liturgical and devotional practice in situ. In a more general way, the image-type, in packaging the treasury as a recognizable signifying unit, engaged with contemporary elite fixations with regalia and other abstract signs of royal power, prestige, and mystique. In the case of the BnF missal, the iconography continued a longstanding royalist agenda that centered on the correlation of the Paris treasury with the arma Christi as a complete, eternal, and emblematic group of instruments belonging to Christ. The image-type articulated a clear correspondence between the arma Christi and the royal relic treasury, which was intended to be returned to Christ at the end of days. The development of imagery that stressed the preservation of the treasury as a whole—whether by administrative professionals working in close proximity to the relics in the palace complex during a period largely characterized by the absence of the king from Paris, or more abstractly by the king himself as a Christomimetic figure—must be understood in relation to attempts at various elite levels to claim knowledge of and access to this group of objects and all that it signified. In light of these discursive elements that informed and gave rise to the image-type ca. 1500, previous readings of these miniatures as documentary in nature fall short. But a

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closer look at the iconography does more than disrupt notions of it as a passive pictorial inventory, a neutral source from which the contents of this dismantled French Catholic treasury can be reconstituted. It also demonstrates that the still modest historiography of the arma Christi requires reconsideration. Influential studies of the arma Christi have focused on how it epitomized the immediacy to which devotional imagery aspired—opposing its disarrayed constitution of devotionally functional signs or Lesebilder (images-to-be-read) to the more aesthetically mediated character of the early modern picture.76 In contrast, the iconography established at Paris evidences the multidimensionality of representational modes at work in mediating a real-world, ostensibly complete treasury of the arma Christi. Reinforcing the founding ideology of the treasury at Paris by visually packaging it as an indivisible whole, the constructed, naturalistic type at once signified complexly and functioned devotionally, and neither of these operations was extricable from the elite performance of access to the treasury, the locus of royal power. The manuscript corpus from Paris ca. 1500 demonstrates dedicated artistic strategies for approaching the relation of the part to the whole of the medieval treasury, and for producing meaning within this framework.

76 See Suckale, “Arma Christi,” esp. 192.

VI Phenomenology and Piety

Megan H. Foster-Campbell

Pilgrimage across Borders: Painted Pilgrim’s Badges in Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts In the late Middle Ages, pilgrims visiting popular holy shrines often purchased small, inexpensive religious souvenirs to remember their visit.1 While many pilgrims wore these thin metal badges on hats, cloaks, or bags, by the mid-to-late fifteenth century some pilgrims began sewing their souvenirs into the margins and flyleaves of their prayer books (Fig. 1).2 By the end of the fifteenth century, painted pilgrim’s badges began to appear in the margins of Flemish manuscripts, primarily those from workshops based in Ghent and Bruges. Often painted in gold and silver tones

1 Publications on pilgrim’s badges are extensive, ranging from individual case studies of specific shrines and iconographic motifs to catalogs and compendiums. Notable publications include the scholarship of Kurt Köster and A. M. Koldeweij, as well as Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (London: The Stationery Office, 1998); Denis Bruna, Enseignes de pèlerinage et enseignes profanes (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996); and H. J. E. van Beuningen and A. M. Koldeweij, eds. Heilig en profaan, 4 vols. (Cothen: Stichting Middeleeuwse Religieuze en Profane Insignes, 1993–2018). See also the pilgrim badge database Kunera, based at the Raboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, http://www.kunera.nl/. 2 For more on pilgrim’s badges affixed in manuscripts, see Kurt Köster, “Religiöse Medaillen und Wallfahrts-Devotionalien in der flämischen Buchmalerei des 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhunderts: Zur Kenntnis gemalter und wirklicher Kollektionen in spätmittelalterlichen Gebetbuch-Handschriften,” in Buch und Welt: Festschrift für Gustav Hofmann zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht, ed. Hans Striedl (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965), 459–504; Kurt Köster, “Kollektionen metallener Wallfahrts-Devotionalien und kleiner Andachtsbilder, eingenäht in spätmittelalterliche Gebetbuch-Handschriften,” in Das Buch und sein Haus, vol. 1, Erlesenes aus der Welt des Buches, ed. Bertram Haller (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979), 87–95; Kurt Köster, “Gemalte Kollektionen von Pilgerzeichen und religiösen Medaillen in flämischen Gebet- und Stundenbüchern des 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhunderts: Neue Funde in Handschriften der Gent-Brügger Schule,” in Liber Amicorum Herman Liebaers, ed. Frans Vanwijngaerden (Brussels: Crédit Communal de Belgique, 1984), 485–535; A. M. Koldeweij, “Pilgrim Badges Painted in Manuscripts: A North Netherlandish Example,” in Masters and Miniatures: Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands, ed. Koert van der Horst and JohannChristian Klamt (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1991), 211–18; Denis Bruna, “Témoins de dévotions dans les livres d’heures à la fin du Moyen Âge,” Revue Mabillon, n.s., 9 (1998): 127–61; Hanneke van Asperen, Pelgrimstekens op perkament: Originele en nageschilderde bedevaartssouvenirs in religieuze boeken (ca. 1450–ca. 1530) (Nijmegen: Orange House, 2009); and Megan H. Foster-Campbell, “Pilgrimage through the Pages: Pilgrims’ Badges in Late Medieval Devotional Manuscripts,” in Push Me, Pull You, vol. 1, Imaginative and Emotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, ed. Sarah Blick and Laura Gelfand (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 227–74. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-013

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Fig. 1: Collection of pilgrim’s badges. D’Oiselet Hours. Bruges, ca. 1440–60. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 77 L 60, fol. 98r. Photo: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.

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with trompe l’oeil shadows, sewing holes, and threads, these virtual collections mimicked the practice of sewing actual metal bracteate badges onto the parchment of devotional manuscripts.3 Concurrent with this phenomenon was a significant stylistic transformation in Flemish manuscript illumination, particularly among workshops centered around Ghent and Bruges. By the third quarter of the fifteenth century, illuminators were embracing a new illusionism, filling borders with objects—acanthus tendrils, flowers, insects, jewels, feathers, and shells, among other items—with close attention to trompe l’oeil naturalism, detail, texture, shadows, and simulated three-dimensionality. Painted representations of pilgrim’s badges emerged as one type of border imagery. Barring a few early outliers, examples of this border motif appear perhaps as early as the late 1470s. They grew increasingly common from the 1480s until the 1520s. At least thirty-two manuscripts with painted representations of metal pilgrim’s souvenirs survive.4 They are primarily seen in prayer books, particularly books of hours; no pilgrim’s badges appear in any secular manuscripts. Painted pilgrim’s badge collections are often reserved for folios illuminated with full- or half-page miniatures and/or folios that mark the opening of a new prayer or devotion within the manuscript, either on a single page or across facing folios. The most common prayers surrounded by painted badges include the Office of the Virgin, the Mass of the Virgin, and saints’ suffrages. Painted badges often surround illuminations associated with Christ’s Infancy and Passion, the evangelist Luke, and saints such as Sebastian, James, and Andrew. Painted-badge borders do not appear around texts such as the Office of the Dead, and rarely around images of David and the Psalms or other Old Testament subjects. In most instances, painted pilgrim’s badges were grouped together inside a solid-colored panel in the manuscript’s margins, surrounding a larger miniature. In some instances, they appear among costly, precious objects, such as cameos, pearls, freestanding jewels, or jeweled pins, perhaps further signifying their treasured value.5

3 This idea was first proposed by Köster in “Religiöse Medaillen,” 463 and 479–84, and “Gemalte Kollektionen,” 487–90 and 520–35. This hypothesis is supported by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Virginia Roehrig Kaufmann, “The Sanctification of Nature: Observations on the Origins of Trompe l’oeil in Netherlandish Book Painting of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Journal of the J. Paul Getty Museum 19 (1991): 43–64, at 54. 4 Köster, “Gemalte Kollektionen,” 485–535. Köster initially identified eighteen codices with painted pilgrim’s badges. Several of these codices are also examined in Isabel von Bredow-Klaus, Heilsrahmen: Spirituelle Wallfahrt und Augentrug in der flämischen Buchmalerei des Spätmittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Herbert Utz, 2008). This total does not include marginal representations of scallop shells, another motif associated with Christian pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Although an important marginal motif in Flemish illumination and relevant to the discussion of depicted pilgrim souvenirs, they will not be examined here. 5 See Kate Challis, “Marginalized Jewels: The Depiction of Jewellery in the Borders of Flemish Devotional Manuscripts,” in The Art of the Book: Its Place in Medieval Worship, ed. Margaret M. Manion

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More than any other imagery in the repertoire of Flemish marginal decoration, painted pilgrim’s badges are compelling for their distinctly identifiable, site-specific iconography. Moreover, direct visual correlations between painted badges and real badges invite reader interaction with nuanced levels of intimate devotion. While a manuscript’s owner could view these painted badges as merely decorative elements on the folio, they also could be interpreted as a collection of precious souvenirs to be contemplated, treasured, or displayed as though they were actual souvenirs acquired on pilgrimage. The imitation of metal and thread with pigment transformed a marginal motif into a devotional skeuomorph. This essay explores painted pilgrim’s badges as an iconographic motif in late medieval Flemish illuminated manuscripts, considering both their development and proliferation by manuscript artists as well as the possible multivalent interpretations of the books’ owners.

The Pilgrim-Badge Border as a Marginal Motif One of the earliest examples of a panel border with a varied collection of painted pilgrim’s badges is found in the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau, originally completed in the 1470s and associated with the workshop of the Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy.6 The manuscript’s current border decoration is not part of the original campaign of the book’s production. Rather, it appears that the Vienna Master systematically repainted new trompe l’oeil borders over the original marginal decoration, perhaps in the following decade at the patron’s request.7 In one of these repainted borders, nineteen gold and silver souvenirs, along with a Vera Icon, surround a bust-length illumination of the Virgin and Child (Fig. 2). Rendered in varying shapes, sizes, and details, the souvenirs are arranged across a four-sided border on a single page, evenly spaced to fit the width and dimensions of the border, creating an attractively diverse ensemble. Larger

and Bernard J. Muir (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998), 253–89, at 261, 265–66, and plate 7. In another unusual example, dating ca. 1510–20, two large trompe l’oeil flies rest on badges within a panel border (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1979, fol. 108r). 6 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 219–220. The manuscript is digitized at https://digital.bod leian.ox.ac.uk/objects/5a7067a1-a61c-4bbc-bca7-f7b0fcee812c/. 7 The original borders from the 1470s consisted of blue and gold acanthus with spray, raised gold dots, flowers, and birds. Jonathan Alexander notes that when the folios with repainted borders are held up to light, traces of line work, acanthus, and spots of colors are apparent. Other new trompe l’oeil borders feature flowers, insects, jewelry, seashells, patterns of initials, architectural niches with majolica pottery or skulls, and peacock feathers (Engelbert’s emblem). Anne van Buren, “The Master of Mary of Burgundy and His Colleagues,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 38, no. 3/4 (1975): 286–308, at 288–89; J. J. G. Alexander, The Master of Mary of Burgundy: A Book of Hours for Engelbert of Nassau (New York: George Braziller, 1970), 13–14; and Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrik, eds., Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), 134–37, cat. no. 18, at 136.

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Fig. 2: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding an illumination of the Virgin and Child. Hours of Engelbert of Nassau. Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy and others, Flanders, ca. 1470–90. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 219–220, fol. 16v. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

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badges are scattered across the wider lower and outer borders; smaller badges evenly fill up open spaces and the narrow inner margin alongside the gutter. For several larger badges, the Vienna Master depicts thin slivers of shadows along the lower right, along with needle holes along the edges, heightening the trompe l’oeil effect. The pilgrim’s badges were painted with gold and silver pigments, alternating across the panel border for visual variety.8 The gold and silver perhaps emulated the tastes of upper-class lay pilgrims, who often requested and collected luxury gold and silver souvenirs while on pilgrimage.9 At one time, the painted silver badges would have been lustrous, making the margins both visually striking and allowing the reader to readily imagine the material worth of these “metal” badges. Unfortunately, badges painted in silver often darken due to oxidization, making their forms illegible; several of the silver badges in the Engelbert Hours are now darkened gray. With the exception of the Vera Icon, the painted badges here assume the popular stamped bracteate form of actual souvenirs from the mid-to-late fifteenth century. Their detail and legibility allow many of them to be conclusively identified with individual saints and even specific shrines. The direct iconographic correlations between represented badges and specific extant metal souvenirs are readily apparent to the modern eye, indicating that a late fifteenth- or early sixteenthcentury reader would have recognized the same.10 Among the identifiable motifs are a metal badge of St. Veronica (an arch-shaped gold badge in the upper left), St. Michael (an oval-shaped gold badge to the immediate left of the Virgin and Child illumination), the Holy Tunic at Aachen (an octagonal silver badge in the lower right corner), St. Godelieve at Gistel (the large circular gold badge in the lower

8 Among extant pilgrim-badge borders, metal leaf is rarely used; rather, painted badges use gold and silver pigments, or yellow and gray non-metallic paints. 9 Among notable collectors of gold and silver pilgrim’s badges were members of the Burgundian ducal family. Travel itineraries and account receipts describe pilgrimages undertaken and the number and material used for pilgrim’s badges purchased by Duke Philip the Good; his wife, Isabelle; their son, Charles the Bold; and Charles’s wife, Margaret of York. Many of these badges were made of gold, gilded silver, or silver, although they also likely acquired badges made of lesser metals such as tin or lead. Extant examples of luxury badges can be found in the D’Oiselet Hours (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 77 L 60) (Fig. 1); the Hours of Gillette van der Ee (formerly Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Collection of Hermann Kunst, MS 5, current whereabouts unknown); and a book of hours in Oxford (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 51), among others. The sewn pilgrim’s badges in the D’Oiselet Hours may be the most well-known extant collection within a manuscript. The current arrangement on fol. 98r dates to the nineteenth century; however, surviving visible offsets suggest the badges were once similarly grouped together on fol. 90v, with one additional badge located on the January calendar page. This codicological evidence suggests that the badges were originally grouped together to be viewed simultaneously. 10 See Köster’s extensive analyses in “Gemalte Kollektionen” and “Religiöse Medaillen”; A.M. Koldeweij, “Servatius in veelvoud en enkelvoud: Maastrichtse boekbanden, miniaturen, pelgrimstekens en zegels,” in Als Ich Can: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. Bert Cardon, Jan Van der Stock, and Dominique Vanwijnsberghe (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 1:701–42.

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center), St. Hubert (a large circular gold badge in the center left, its iconography deriving from the shrine of St. Hubert-en-Ardenne), and St. Adrian from the shrine at Geraardsbergen (a large arch-shaped silver badge, lower left-center). They suggest that the artist was familiar with iconographic motifs on contemporary metal souvenirs. Through workshop collaboration and apprenticeships, the pilgrim-badge border spread. The cross-fertilization of artistic ideas and models led to a certain codification of the borders, in terms of the individual pilgrimage sites represented and the formation of a repertoire of generic religious badge motifs.11 While the work of the Vienna Master likely set the precedent of the painted pilgrim-badge border, the long and prolific career of the Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian further disseminated and codified it. Working from the early 1480s until the second decade of the sixteenth century, this artist, who is sometimes identified as Alexander Bening, is associated with at least nine manuscripts with painted metal badge borders. The Maximilian Master’s borders are strikingly similar to the Vienna Master’s composition in the Engelbert Hours: a solid panel border surrounding a larger illumination; badges arranged in varying shapes and sizes with alternating silver and gold pigments; and larger badges anchoring the outer corners and lower portions of the panel. For example, in the Hours of Louis Quarré, executed ca. 1487–90, the Maximilian Master painted twenty-three badges—fourteen gold, eight silver, and one parchment or cloth Veronica—in a lavender panel margin surrounding the opening to the Hours of the Holy Spirit on folio 21v (Fig. 3).12 Badges depicted include souvenirs from the shrines of St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen, Notre-Dame at Boulogne-surMer, St. Servatius at Maastricht, St. Josse-sur-Mer (Judoc/Jodocus), St. Dymphna at Gheel, St. Cornelius at Ninove, the Three Kings at Cologne, the Holy Tunic at

11 Thomas Kren notes that between the mid-1470s and 1483, a large body of pattern books and model sheets were developed and regularly used, perhaps to systematize production. See Thomas Kren, “The Importance of Patterns in the Emergence of a New Style of Flemish Manuscript Illumination after 1470,” in Manuscripts in Transition: Recycling Manuscripts, Texts and Images, ed. Brigitte Dekeyzer and Jan Van der Stock (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 357–77; also Kren and McKendrik, Illuminating the Renaissance, 12. Perhaps not coincidentally, this timeframe corresponds with the appearance and duration of painted pilgrim-badge borders in illuminated codices. Unfortunately, no pattern sheets with pilgrim’s badges survive. Recently, Joris Corin Heyder considered the collaborative use and transmission of patterns within workshops, noting the exchange between “family members and business associates.” He suggests the use of patterns ensured high-quality illuminations for elite patrons purchasing these manuscripts. Joris Corin Heyder, “Corporate Design Made in Ghent/Bruges? On the Extensive Reuse of Patterns in Late Medieval Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts,” in The Use of Models in Medieval Book Painting, ed. Monika E. Müller (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 167–201, at 185 and 195. 12 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 311. Digitized at https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/ cb4ea361-61b6-40f2-a7e3-33b97463454b/. As-Vijvers argues for a date in the early to mid-1490s: Anne Margreet W. As-Vijvers, “The Missing Miniatures of the Hours of Louis Quarré,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 10, no. 1 (2018): section 56, DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2018.10.1.2.

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Fig. 3: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding an illumination of the Pentecost. Hours of Louis Quarré. Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian, Flanders, after 1488. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 311, fol. 21v. Photo: The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

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Fig. 4: Pilgrim’s badges sewn into a folio in the D’Oiselet Hours. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 77 L 60, fol. 98r. (a) St. Adrian, Geraardsbergen. Silver with gilding, 33 x 19 mm. (b) Holy Tunic, Aachen. Silver with gilding, 18 mm. (c) Pilgrim’s badge of the Annunciation, s’Gravenzande, from the D’Oiselet Hours. Silver with gilding, 33 mm. Photos: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.

Aachen, the Annunciation at s’Gravenzande, and three badges of Notre-Dame at Halle (Fig. 4a–c).13 Smaller badges are scattered in between the larger souvenirs, similar to the Engelbert Hours. Similar painted badges can be seen in another manuscript attributed to the Maximilian Master, the Hours of Isabella of Castile.14 Its thirty-four metal badges accompany a suffrage to St. Nicholas on folio 184r (Fig. 5). Pilgrimage sites represented are mainly from the Low Countries and northern France, including Notre-Dame at Halle, Notre-Dame at Boulogne-sur-Mer, St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen, Saint-Nicholas-de-

13 Pilgrim’s badge motifs were sometimes duplicated in a manuscript border. A book of hours now in Brussels (Brussels, KBR, MS IV 441, fol. 22r) contains at least five variously shaped badges of the Virgin and Child enthroned on a Gothic dais, referring to souvenirs from Notre-Dame at Halle. 14 Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963.256. Digitized at: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/ 1963.256.

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Fig. 5: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding the suffrage to St. Nicholas. Hours of Isabella of Castile. Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian and others, Flanders, ca. 1500. Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963.256, fol. 184r. Photo: Cleveland Museum of Art.

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Fig. 6: (a) Pilgrim’s badge of Notre-Dame, Halle, fifteenth century. Silver with gilding, 38 mm. London, British Museum, 1847,0829.1. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum. (b) Pilgrim’s badge of Notre-Dame, Boulogne-sur-Mer, late fifteenth to early sixteenth century, copper alloy with gilding, 28 mm. Museum of London, 8701. Photo: Museum of London.

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Fig. 7: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding prayer text. Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal. Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian and others, Bruges, ca. 1500. New York, PML, MS M.52, fol. 353r. Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

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Port in Lorraine, St. Servatius at Maastricht, and a Crucifixion, perhaps from Asse (Fig. 6a–b). Others have more generic iconography or are more difficult to identify, particularly the heavily oxidized silver badges. Similarly, in the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal, pilgrim’s badges surround two columns of text (Fig. 7).15 They include gold and silver badges depicting St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen, Notre-Dame at Halle, NotreDame at Boulogne-sur-Mer, and the Holy Tunic of Aachen. Visual similarities across these manuscripts include the outer corner placement of large souvenirs (such as St. Adrian and the Vera Icon); the careful details of the sword, anvil, and dragon of the St. Adrian badges; the Gothic dais surrounding the circular or octagonal Halle Notre-Dame badges; and the tooled edges of the souvenirs.16 In particular, the badge of St. Adrian, which often displays a pointed or ogee arch, was frequently used to “anchor” the composition in the lower or outer corners of the margin. In addition, the pale, ghost-like form of Veronica holding the darkened vernicle is similar across each codex.17 The schematic iconography of other badges—including crosses, a pyx reliquary, and other standing or bust-length saints—cannot be readily connected to a specific pilgrimage site, although similar motifs have appeared in extant metal souvenirs. A comparison of multiple badge borders thus indicates that while no borders are identical, the badges’ arrangement and details suggest a set, repeated compositional model.

From Margin to Center: A Prefatory Pilgrimage From the 1490s until the second decade of the sixteenth century, other GhentBruges workshops explored different possibilities for depicting pilgrim’s badges. Among these was the workshop associated with the Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary.18 The David Master’s workshop employed pilgrim-badge

15 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.52. Digitized at: http://ica.themorgan.org/manu script/thumbs/77004. 16 Other similarities include badges representing the shrine of the Holy Tunic at Aachen, in which the badge, depicting the Infant Christ seated on the shoulder of the Virgin, displays slightly flared tunic sleeves. Holy Tunic souvenirs are found in the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal and a prayer book now in a private collection in Cologne. For the latter, see Joachim M. Plotzek, Andachtsbücher des Mittelalters aus Privatbesitz (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1987), 34 and 206–8. 17 The depicted Veronica souvenirs discussed here replicate cloth or parchment souvenirs, underscoring their distinct materiality amid the collection of metal badges. In other manuscripts with painted pilgrim’s badges, painted Veronica souvenirs replicate metal or even cameo-format devotional objects. 18 This artist’s most recognized work, the Grimani Breviary, dates to ca. 1515–1520 (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, cod. Lat. I, 99 [2138]). Other illuminators who painted pilgrim’s badges in borders include the Master of the Prayerbook of 1500, the Master of the Soane Hours, and Simon Bening, the son of Alexander. For brief biographies on these artists, see, respectively, Kren and McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance, 394–95, 443, and 447–48.

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Fig. 8: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding suffrage prayers to SS. Sebastian and James. Book of Hours of Alexander VI (Borgia Hours). Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary and others, Bruges (?), ca. 1500. Brussels, KBR, MS IV 480, fols. 163v–164r. Photo: © KBR.

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Fig. 9: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding the Opening to the Mass of the Virgin. Book of hours. Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary and others, Flanders (Bruges?), ca. 1500. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 77, fols. 29v–30r. Photo: CNRS-IRHT, © Bibliothèque du musée Condé.

panel borders in several codices, including three in collections in Brussels, Chantilly, and Parma (Figs. 8–10).19 In all three, painted badges are shown on a green panel, with trompe l’oeil shadows but without sewn threads. Rather than showing the badges as isolated collections, here they are depicted with pearls, and, in the Parma manuscript, also with jewels and rings, further suggesting their inherent value as treasured objects. Identifiable badges recur from other workshops, such as those representing the Marian shrines at Halle and Boulogne-sur-Mer. Other motifs include angels holding a chasse reliquary (likely representing the shrine of Mary at Wavre), St. Josse (holding a small bag and pilgrim’s staff), and Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Still others have more schematic iconography, including the Agnus Dei, mitered bishops, a dove, and the “IHS” monogram associated with Christ. Stylistic specificities, including the slightly skewed geometric forms of some badges (particularly octagonal-shaped souvenirs) and slight smiles on some of the figures, suggest a single artist’s hand executing these painted badge borders. The David

19 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 480, fols. 163v–164r; Chantilly, Bibliothèque du museé Condé, ms. 77, fols. 29v–30r; and Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS pal. 165, fols. 36v–37r.

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Fig. 10: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding the opening to the Hours of the Virgin. Book of hours. Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary and others, Flanders (Bruges?), ca. 1500. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS pal. 165, fols. 36v–37r. Photo: Courtesy of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism.

Master’s workshop also configured painted badges beyond the panel border format. For example, in at least two manuscripts associated with the David Master, pilgrim’s badges are arranged within a narrow vertical panel in the border, adjacent to the text.20 Pilgrim souvenirs also were occasionally depicted as single freestanding elements in the outer borders surrounding the text, often with other types of standalone motifs in the adjacent margins.21 20 Page 259 of the Brukenthal Hours displays a collection of assorted round gold and silver badges within a blue-violet panel border; folio 740v of the Grimani Breviary shows a similar composition. 21 Isolated badges appear in various manuscripts associated with the David Master, including the Hours of Joanna of Castile (London, British Library, Add. MS 18852); a prayerbook now in Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, GKS 1605 4°); the Leber Hours (Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 3028, fols. 162r–v and fols. 184r–v); and the Brukenthal Hours (a gold Crucifixion badge on p. 78 and a round gold badge with a saint’s bust on p. 79). As-Vijvers notes that isolated badges were copied, even traced, from larger, full-page border compositions, as indicated by their comparable stylistic and iconographic features. Often the same isolated badge would appear on both the recto and verso of the folio. See Anne-Margreet W. As-Vijvers, Re-making the Margin: The Master of the David Scenes and Flemish Manuscript Painting around 1500, trans. Diane Webb (Turnhout:

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In one extraordinary composition executed by the David Master’s workshop, a collection of painted badges appears not as a marginal motif, but instead is elevated to the status of a central devotional image. The full-page illumination appears in the Brukenthal Hours, a book of hours dating to the early or mid-1490s, at a time when the use of pilgrim-badge borders was reaching its apogee.22 Located toward the beginning of the manuscript just before the calendar, a collection of painted pilgrim’s badges is surrounded by a wooden frame (Fig. 11). With trompe l’oeil illusionism, the badges appear sewn with needle holes and thread onto a blue-grey background, casting shadows to the lower right of each souvenir. The frame is hung on a nail, as though affixed to a wall. Within this enclosed frame, the precious quality of the badge collection is emphasized. It also may refer to the practice of hanging badges in the home after completion of a pilgrimage.23 The souvenirs depicted include a cloth or parchment Vera Icon as well as flat bracteate souvenirs representing St. Adrian from Geraardsbergen, Notre-Dame at Boulogne-sur-Mer, the Three Kings, the Annunciation, the Virgin and Child, St. Catherine, and St. George, among others. Several smaller silver and gold badges depict bust figures, miniature scallop shells (associated with pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as well as being a generic pilgrimage sign), and inscriptions (ihesus and maria). Four of the larger gold badges surround the central Vera Icon souvenir, subtly forming the shape of a cross around the face of Christ, reinforcing the close connection between the Passion episodes depicted. This framed collection of pilgrim’s badges at the opening of the Brukenthal Hours expands on the repeated motif of painted badges arranged on solid panel borders. Rather than being a border or isolated motif, the painted badges become the primary visual focus, without adjacent text or illuminations. Painted pilgrim’s badges have thus moved from margin to center, occupying an entire folio as an autonomous devotional image. By placing them at the beginning of the manuscript— literally bringing to the forefront the pilgrim’s badge motif—the illuminator created both a frontispiece and a virtual shrine for the book’s owner.

Brepols, 2013), 143–45; and eadem, “Marginal Decoration in Ghent-Bruges Manuscripts,” in Sources for the History of Medieval Books and Libraries, ed. Rita Schlusemann, Jos. M. M. Hermans, and Margriet Hoogvliet (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999), 245–56. 22 Sibiu, Muzeul National Brukenthal, Biblioteca Brukenthal, MS 761. As-Vijvers notes that although the manuscript was previously identified as a breviary, its contents classify it as a book of hours. For in-depth analyses, see Anne-Margreet W. As-Vijvers, “Recycling the Huth Hours: The Master of the David Scenes and the Making of the Brukenthal Breviary, or: The Ghent Associates and the Contribution of Simon Marmion to Ghent-Bruges Manuscript Painting,” in Dekeyzer and Van der Stock, Manuscripts in Transition, 379–90; eadem, Re-Making the Margin, 144 and 617; Elizabeth Morrison, “Iconographic Originality in the Oeuvre of the Master of the David Scenes,” in Flemish Manuscript Painting in Context: Recent Research, ed. Elizabeth Morrison and Thomas Kren (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006), 149–62. 23 As-Vijvers, “Recycling the Huth Hours,” 379; eadem, Re-Making the Margin, 144.

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Fig. 11: Painted pilgrim’s badges within a framed panel. Brukenthal Hours. Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary and others, Flanders, ca. 1490–1510. Sibiu, Muzeul National Brukenthal, Biblioteca Brukenthal, MS 761, p. 4. Photo: Courtesy of the Brukenthal Museum.

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The Use and Reception of Painted Pilgrim’s Badges in Flemish Manuscripts A manuscript border’s function as both a framing object and a space for heightened illusionism grew increasingly important in late medieval Flemish illumination. As illuminators began to expand their repertoire of marginalia motifs, the border became increasingly “materialized,” treated as a three-dimensional space in which different kinds of collected objects—flowers, jewels, and pilgrim’s badges—were displayed as though attached to the page. In contrast with the commonly repeated border motifs of acanthus leaves, flowers, and fruit, the detailed iconography of the pilgrim-badge borders undoubtedly would have provoked a manuscript’s owner to further examine the individual souvenirs. Visually striking for their illusionistic detail, the painted badges’ specificity would likely cause the reader to linger on these images while paging through the manuscript, to decipher and meditate upon their diverse iconographies.24 The relationship between painted pilgrim’s badges and adjacent texts and illuminations draws considerable debate. Scholarly interpretations of the possible spatial and contextual relationships between the folio’s framing border and its main contents are varied, unfixed, and complex, as perceptions would have fluctuated from reader to reader. A book owner may conscientiously observe and reflect on the physical space of the margin and the objects portrayed within. In this way, the border space is considered simply as a decorative frame with illustrated objects. The reader also may choose to go one step further, visually (and perhaps, in turn, devotionally) contemplating the objects depicted in the border in relation to the contents they surround. In this manner, the marginalia draws the reader to interact with the entire page, beyond the central text or illumination on the folio.25 24 See Celia Fisher, Flowers in Medieval Manuscripts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 17–40; Anne Margreet W. As-Vijvers, “More Than Marginal Meaning? The Interpretation of GhentBruges Border Decoration,” Oud Holland 116, no 1 (2003): 3–33, at 12–17; and Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 266–69. For more on categories of panel borders in Flemish manuscript illumination, see Greet Nijs, “Typology of the Border Decoration in the Manuscripts of the Ghent-Bruges School,” in Cardon, Van der Stock, and Vanwijnsberghe, Als Ich Can, 2:1007–36. 25 See Anja Grebe, “The Art of the Edge: Frames and Page-Design in Manuscripts of the GhentBruges-School,” in The Metamorphosis of Marginal Images; From Antiquity to Present Time, ed. Nurith Kenaan-Kedar and Asher Ovadiah (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001), 93–102, at 98–99. A folio’s text and/or main miniature could be “treated as a three-dimensional panel which lies on the background border and even casts shadows”; Anja Grebe, “Frames and Illusion: The Function of Borders in Late Medieval Book Illumination,” in Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media, ed. Werner Wolf and Walter Bernhart (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 43–68, at 53. In contrast, Kate Challis notes that borders may create a “window” or “framing” effect, with border objects “[existing] in front of the folio, creating the illusion of an intimate and accessible reality.” She also notes the use of trompe l’oeil devices, such as shadows or pinned or sewn details to amplify the illusionism. See Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 254–55. Lynn Jacobs recently examined the richly meaningful relationships

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Some scholars urge caution in ascribing too much meaning to badge-filled borders, particularly since they accompany widely differing texts and illustrations. The varied arrangement of marginal decoration in relation to the main text or illumination may be due to the artist’s practice. An illuminator may have chosen a border motif for decorative reasons, with little regard toward the structure of the gathering, folio, or theme of the folio’s contents, whether text or illumination. Thus, interpretations of painted badge iconography that connect it to the adjacent content might be tenuous. However, assigning spiritual meaning to painted pilgrim’s badges as a “collection” within a devotional manuscript is compellingly conceivable. The fact that actual metal badges were preserved in prayer books seems to generally reaffirm the relationship between painted souvenirs and the devotional content they accompany.26 Despite the inconsistent combinations of pilgrim-badge borders and the central text or image, as well as the artists’ tendency to copy motifs and compositional models, it is feasible that painted badges could have been construed, valued, and used as devotional “objects” in the same way as actual pilgrim’s badges.27 For the book’s owner, this would not preclude an acknowledgement of the semiotic shift between actual object and painted representation. The painted badge’s skeuomorphic characteristics—its shape and bracteate format, metallic colors, and iconographic specificity—effectively simulate the real metal souvenirs produced and acquired by the thousands in the late Middle Ages. This skeuomorphism is underscored by the frequent inclusion of fictive needle holes and threads, imitating the popular practice of sewing badges to the pages of manuscripts. Both the physical object and the affixing act are thus mimicked on the folio.

Knightly and Family Fealty: Painted Pilgrim’s Badges as Signs of “Elite Devotion” Besides replicating the prevalent practice of affixing souvenirs in prayer books, painted pilgrim’s badges provide further visual evidence of late medieval hagiographic imagery and the popularity of specific shrines in Flanders and Germany. Repeated depictions of Flemish shrines (St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen, NotreDame at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Notre-Dame at Halle, St. Josse-sur-Mer, St. Servatius in Maastricht, and the Holy Cross at Asse), and German shrines (the Holy Tunic at Aachen, the Three Kings in Cologne, and the Miraculous Host in Wilsnack), rein-

between border and miniature in Netherlandish manuscripts. See Lynn F. Jacobs, Thresholds and Boundaries: Liminality in Netherlandish Art (1385–1530) (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 107–51. 26 As-Vijvers, “More Than Marginal Meaning?,” 8–10. 27 I have explored some of these ideas in Foster-Campbell, “Pilgrimage through the Pages.”

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force their reputation.28 Although it is unclear whether artist or patron was responsible for the selection of badge iconography, their frequency and repetition parallels the destinations’ popularity and the surviving badges’ wide distribution. Moreover, painted pilgrim’s badges from Flemish, northern French, and German pilgrimage sites may have had specific resonance for patrons tied to members of the Burgundian ducal family who owned devotional manuscripts filled with actual pilgrim’s souvenirs from similar sites.29 The fictive badges found in manuscript margins mirror actual souvenirs once sewn into the dukes’ manuscripts, including a high percentage near Ghent and Bruges, where the ducal family spent much of its time. Among those owning manuscripts with painted badge borders were individuals affiliated with the Order of the Golden Fleece, formed in 1430 by Philip the Good. Its primary purpose was to serve and defend the Church, although it maintained a secondary goal of defending distant lands held by Christians, particularly under the rising threat of the Turks. The Order also was a political alliance associated with Philip’s territories, which stretched from recently acquired areas in the Low Countries to Burgundy and Switzerland. Above all else, it functioned as a knightly brotherhood and friendly alliance of noblemen, preserving a chivalric ideal that had waned throughout Europe in previous centuries. One such knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece was Count Engelbert II of Nassau, the patron of the eponymous book of hours discussed above (see Fig. 2). Initially owned by Engelbert and first completed in the 1470s, it eventually was passed on to his liege, Duke Philip the Fair of Burgundy (r. 1482–1506), greatgrandson of Philip the Good and eventual husband of Joanna of Castile. The repainted borders were completed by the Vienna Master’s workshop, perhaps in the 1480s and likely at Engelbert’s request, given his service to the Burgundian ducal family.30 This collection of painted souvenirs, primarily from pilgrimage sites in

28 The main exception to this trend of Flemish and German sites is the predominance of painted Holy Face/Vera Icon badges, most commonly associated with Rome but also affiliated with several pilgrimage sites in Germany, such as Wienhausen. Although Vera Icon souvenirs are outside the scope of this article, recent scholarship has addressed representations of the Vera Icon (and Vera Icon souvenirs) in manuscripts. For example, see Hanneke van Asperen, “‘Où il y a une Veronique attachiée dedens’: Images of the Veronica in Religious Manuscripts, with Special Attention for the Dukes of Burgundy and Their Family,” in The European Fortune of the Roman Veronica in the Middle Ages, ed. Amanda Murphy, Herbert L. Kessler, Marco Petoletti, Eamon Duffy, and Guido Milanese (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 232–49. 29 Manuscripts owned by Philip the Good containing metal and parchment pilgrim’s souvenirs or traces thereof include the Grandes Heures of Philip the Bold (Brussels, KBR, MSS 11035–11037; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3–1954); the Hours of Philip the Good (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. fr. 16428); and the Prayer Book of Philip the Good (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1800). 30 Other repainted borders contain Engelbert’s motto (Ce Sera Moy) and his initials. Kren and McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance, 136.

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Flanders, northern France, and Germany, likely would have been recognizable to the count, who served as administrator and regent over these territories during the next two decades. Upon inheriting Engelbert’s book, Philip the Fair may have viewed this folio and, in turn, recalled his great-grandfather’s practice of collecting badges in manuscripts.31 Likewise, the aforementioned Louis Quarré was another member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, eventually becoming treasurer of the Order by 1484. Several years after acquiring this position, he commissioned his book of hours with its badge-filled border, displaying a high number of Flemish and German souvenirs (see Fig. 3). The pilgrim-badge borders in the manuscripts owned by Engelbert of Nassau and Louis Quarré were produced during the 1480s. Most of the pilgrimage sites represented in these badges would have been readily familiar to their patrons, and many were part of the Burgundian territories that were upheld by the Order of the Golden Fleece. The depiction of these badges would have reinforced their popularity for the books’ owners. In such cases, contemplating these badges would have been a means of emulating visits to revered local pilgrimage sites. Furthermore, painted badges referring to well-known local sites paralleled the Burgundian family’s ownership of books filled with actual metal badges. As protectors of the Burgundian realm by their membership in the Order of the Golden Fleece, their fealty did not just extend on a secular level, but a devotional one. The silver and gold pigments used for the painted badges also replicate the precious-metal badges collected by the Burgundian dukes, suggesting a form of affluent devotion among higher-class pilgrims. Thus, the painted badge collections serve as venerating proxies, reiterating the noble status of those within the knightly Order in a form of “devotional elitism.” Other manuscripts with badge-filled borders were owned by members of the Spanish royal family. Following the alliance between the Burgundians and Spanish Habsburgs at the end of the fifteenth century though the marriage of Philip the Fair and Joanna of Castile, active patronage of Flemish illuminated manuscripts continued among their successors as well as their courtiers.32 Within a few years, several lavish Flemish illuminated manuscripts were produced for female members of the Spanish monarchy. For example, the Hours of Queen Isabella of Castile includes a collection of painted badges representing pilgrimage sites in the Low Countries and northern France. Although Isabella never visited these regions dur-

31 Philip the Fair may have encountered manuscripts owned by Philip the Good in the ducal library, particularly during his early years spent in Flemish-Burgundian territories. 32 By the early sixteenth century, Flemish artists had achieved international status; many commissions for Flemish illuminated manuscripts came from Spain and Portugal. Kren and McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance, 9 and 413.

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ing her lifetime, this collection had the potential to enlighten Isabella about pilgrimage in territories acquired by her family through marriage (see Fig. 5).33 Another sumptuous book of hours with painted badges was produced for Joanna of Castile, Isabella’s daughter, who had moved to Flanders following her 1496 marriage to Philip the Fair (Fig. 12).34 The painted souvenirs in Joanna’s prayerbook, which was illuminated by the Master of the David Scenes, may have served an instructive function for the young queen, acquainting her with famous pilgrimage shrines in the Burgundian territories ruled by her husband: among the few identifiable badges “sewn” to the page with red thread are those featuring St. Maurontius of Douai or the Holy Tunic of Aachen. The collection of painted badges would have assisted her in assimilating with the family and its tradition of devotion to these shrines. What is more, since Philip the Fair was the eventual owner of the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau, at some point the royal couple both would have owned manuscripts with painted pilgrim-badge borders.

“Visiting,” Contemplating, Collecting Like their real-world counterparts, painted pilgrim’s badges could conjure a recollection of a pilgrimage site to a devout reader. Furthermore, they potentially could create and embody a pilgrimage journey for the book’s owner. A painted badge was not so much a memento as a visual prompt, allowing the reader to go on an imagined pilgrimage. Free from association with a past physical journey, it could incite an inner spiritual journey at any given moment in the present or future. With the badges’ detailed iconography, owners could mentally visit or revisit the shrines depicted, picturing themselves travelling along the route, and standing in the presence of the holy shrine. Some folios include multiple depictions of the same badge, which might evoke recurring journeys to popular pilgrimage shrines for repeated entreaty to a particular saint. Trompe l’oeil visual effects, such as shadows and sewn threads, enhance their visual tangibility, providing a sense of “realness” to the simulated pilgrimage. As proxies for actual metal souvenirs, painted badges may have embodied the desired miraculous qualities associated with real souvenirs, including apotropaic and amuletic functions.35 The “armchair pilgrims” who owned these books may

33 How often Isabella used the book is unclear; it is in pristine condition, suggesting that it was not often read. 34 London, British Library, Add. MS 18852. The Hours of Joanna of Castile can be dated to the years of their relatively short marriage between 1496 and 1506, based upon the escutcheons displaying the arms of both Joanna of Castile and Philip the Fair (fol. 26r). 35 The potential apotropaic function of such tokens was suggested by Kaufmann and Kaufmann, “The Sanctification of Nature,” 56.

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Fig. 12: Painted pilgrim’s badges surrounding an illumination of St. Luke. Hours of Joanna of Castile. Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary and others, Bruges, ca. 1496–1506. London, BL, Add. MS 18852, fol. 184r. Photo: © The British Library Board.

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have ascribed the powers of real badges to the painted souvenirs, believing that they could protect the book, its contents, and the owner themselves from ills or difficulties.36 The multiplicity of pilgrim’s badges on a folio (sometimes even repeating the same iconographic motifs) would amplify their protective power.37 Painted badges also could allude to indulgenced pilgrimages, both real and imagined, reducing the devotee’s punishment for committed sins.38 Painted pilgrim’s badges also helped to disseminate a shrine’s reputation beyond the scope of the pilgrimage route. The spread of imagery was crucial in dissociating the cult of saints from their shrines and tombs. As André Vauchez notes, “in the later Middle Ages, devotion to the saints tended to be distanced from the cult of relics, even though . . . a concrete topographical reference always persisted”; “images of saints began to acquire an autonomy, and a mobility which made them prime instruments in the diffusion of their cults.”39 Thus, devotees may not need to undertake a physical pilgrimage to a holy shrine in order to venerate a particular saint. By replicating the iconography of badges from specific, well-known shrines, the illuminators charted a virtual pilgrimage route for the manuscript’s owner. The margin became a best-of listing of shrines that the owner would recognize and maybe wish to visit. By contemplating a conventional collection of badges, readers could visualize themselves as part of a larger community of pilgrims. In the instances of painted badges with indistinguishable iconography (or in cases where badges were blank, without any imagery), the owner’s interaction and interpretation is further malleable, since no visual referent to a specific saint or shrine was provided. Such painted badges could serve as shorthand for any shrine or saint, or simply be generic symbols of pilgrimage, allowing the reader to project their own preferred pilgrimage site onto the

36 Sheila Campbell coined the phrase “armchair pilgrim” to describe a person participating in a mental rather than physical journey; Sheila D. Campbell, “Armchair Pilgrims: Ampullae from Aphrodisias,” Mediaeval Studies 50 (1988), 539–45, at 545. 37 Ruth Mellinkoff, Averting Demons: The Protective Power of Medieval Visual Motifs and Themes (Los Angeles: Ruth Mellinkoff, 2004), 41 and 44. Mellinkoff cites Henry Maguire’s observation that “in many cases, repetition [of a talismanic image] does not mean dilution, but rather an intent to multiply the power of the sign, and thus render it more effective, rather than less.” See Henry Maguire, “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and Textiles,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994): 265–74, at 269–70. 38 By the fifteenth century, various devotional devices, such as panoramic paintings, architectural models, and painted plaques, were available to simulate the progression of an indulgenced pilgrimage without having to experience (or reexperience) the long travels. See Vida J. Hull, “Spiritual Pilgrimage in the Paintings of Hans Memling,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1: 29–50, at 30–33; Kathryn M. Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage: Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal Ms. 212,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 63, no. 4 (2000); 494–515, at 513–14. 39 André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 447–48 and 450. Vauchez explores themes of the dispersal of saintly images and its effect on the devotion to saints in the late Middle Ages.

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badge.40 Viewers could identify a favored saint or shrine depending on the depicted attributes: the Virgin, a martyr’s palm, monk’s tonsure, bishop’s miter, etc. Moreover, the patron’s imagined provenance for the painted badge could change each time the book was opened. The destination becomes open to interpretation, free from the constraints of geography, distance, time and money spent, or danger along the route. This semiotic malleability of painted pilgrim’s badges provided the reader with an opportunity to further hone and refine these devotional objects according to his or her spiritual needs.41 The reader could actively formulate a “memory” of pilgrimage based on the depicted souvenirs, including the shrines, the saints, and the journey never physically undertaken. In doing so, new devotions were fabricated based on the reader’s intentions, and could be recalled for future spiritual exercises. Even for those badges with specific iconography, the reader may not have considered it crucial or relevant to identify the depicted saint or site. Rather, the symbolic value of the overall collection was most significant, as the painted badge collection manifested one’s identity as a pilgrim. The prayer book was thus a treasury that preserved the precious collection that the patron may not have physically gathered, but nonetheless possessed.42 The presence of these tokens suggests the performance of piety and the prestige of a devout traveler. The margin of the page— or the nailed panel that opens the Brukenthal Hours—gives scope to the reader’s devotions, memories, and class performance as “pilgrim.” As a skeuomorphic reference to a souvenir, painted badges thus encapsulated multivalent meanings: the remembrance of visiting a specific shrine or shrines, the act of traveling, the act of collecting and assembling devotional objects, and the social standing that was associated with pilgrimage.

Conclusion More than any other marginal motif in Flemish illumination, painted pilgrim’s badges enhanced not only the decorative character, but also the devotional aspect

40 In her analysis of early pilgrim ampullae with unidentifiable motifs, Sheila Campbell suggests that the generic quality of the iconography allows for multiple interpretations. Campbell, “Armchair Pilgrims,” 545. 41 In the Middle Ages, the creative and inventive function of memory was emphasized, allowing one to make new prayers and meditations. As Mary Carruthers and Jan Ziolkowski suggest, “because memoria is to such an important extent an art of composition, the primary goals in preparing material for memory are flexibility, security, and ease of recombining matters into new patterns and forms.” See Mary Carruthers and Jan M. Ziolkowski, “General Introduction,” in The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 1–31, at 4. 42 This is appropriate given the other precious marginal objects illustrated on other folios in these manuscripts, including rosaries, jewels, cameos, and flowers. Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 253–89.

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of the manuscript. Correlations exist between extant badges and painted souvenirs, even though some painted badges have vague iconography. The repetition of motifs across several decades suggests a corpus of patterns developed and frequently used among illuminators. Artistic collaboration and apprenticeships helped to standardize pilgrim-badge borders, from compositional layouts to recurrent iconography, both identifiable and generic. However, in at least one instance the border motif was transformed into a full-page composition. These designs remained popular until the decline of illuminated manuscript production in the mid-sixteenth century. For the manuscript’s owner, the distinct iconography of painted pilgrim’s badges provided new opportunities for devotional exercises, merging the quotidian use of the prayer book with the extraordinary undertaking of religious pilgrimage. Painted badges referring to identifiable geographic locales in Flanders and its environs reflected and promoted an interest in regional pilgrimage sites and mimicked actual souvenirs owned by members of the Burgundian ducal family. These badge borders provided a way for book owners to emulate the ducal families to whom they swore fealty, or to familiarize themselves with the depicted Flemish and German shrines. “Collecting” painted badges allowed the reader to pursue a mental path of imagined pilgrimage. Those with specific iconography could encourage devotion to particular saints and shrines; more generic souvenirs were open to interpretation, potentially referring to any shrine that the reader desired. The painted souvenirs thus would have served as a travel guide aiding the reader along their path to eternal life.

Susan Barahal and Elizabeth Pugliano

Peripheral Primacy: Metallic Illumination and Material Illusion in the Aussem Hours The Aussem Hours is a little-researched yet extraordinary illuminated book of hours.1 Created in the early sixteenth century for the Aussem family of Cologne, Germany,2 the manuscript features naturalistic narrative scenes and figural images set within lavish borders abounding with flowers, insects, architecture, and precious metalwork, most notably ornate jewelry rendered in illusionistic fashion.3 In addition to gold jewelry and jewel settings, a variety of metal objects, ranging from liturgical vessels to arms and armor, appear throughout the manuscript, in both borders and central images (Fig. 1). The abundance of metal objects found in the manuscript’s illumination, and the specificity and precision they exude, raise many questions, two of which we shall address here: What significance did these depicted metal objects hold for the book’s users? Similarly, what role did the objects’ materials and fabrication methods play in the viewer’s experience of the manuscript and apprehension of its meanings? A two-fold examination of the production and reception of the Aussem Hours,

1 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.437. See the full manuscript online at http://art.thewalters. org/detail/33303. See also Martina Bagnoli, ed., A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2016), 183, cat. no. 45; Diana Buitron-Oliver, Jewelry, Ancient to Modern (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1980), 164; The History of Bookbinding, 525–1950 A.D.: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, November 12, 1957, to January 12, 1958 (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1957), 64, cat. no. 150; Seymour de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1935), 1:811, cat. no. 337; and J. H. Roberts, “Calculating Time in the Aussem Book of Hours,” Hargrett Hours Project, University of Georgia, https://ctlsites.uga.edu/hargretthoursproject/calculating-time-in-theaussem-book-of-hours/ (posted Oct. 28, 2016). 2 The Aussem family was prominent in Cologne from at least the fifteenth century. The name appears in records of the brewer, weaver, and butcher guilds. We are grateful to Max Plassman at the Cologne Historical Archive for his summaries of the town records. 3 The content, design, and style of the decoration are consistent with trends in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Flemish books of hours. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Virginia Roehrig Kaufmann, “The Sanctification of Nature: Observations on the Origins of Trompe l’oeil in Netherlandish Book Painting of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 19 (1991): 43–64; and Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003). For a discussion of late medieval German books of hours and stylistic affinities between Cologne and the Netherlands see Jeffrey Hamburger, “Another Perspective: The Book of Hours in Germany,” in Books of Hours Reconsidered, ed. Sandra Hindman and James H. Marrow (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 97–152. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-014

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Fig. 1: Mass of St. Gregory and the Mocking of Christ with jewelry borders. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fols. 63v–64r. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

accounting for both the representation of metal objects and the strategic use of metallic media, elucidates the effects of the manuscript’s material and iconic features on the viewer. First, we consider the metal objects depicted in the Aussem Hours within the context of early sixteenth-century metalworking products and techniques. We then turn to a case study focused on a user’s possible encounter with the objects and materials perceived in the manuscript’s illuminations. The integrated consideration of reality, representation, and reception brings into focus the dynamic tensions between represented and real materials and objects, which in turn highlight the harnessing of illumination to promote personal and devotional connections between user and manuscript. As we shall argue, the miniatures’ dual appeal to senses and imagination fostered an active engagement with the book as a devotional object suited to the personal and participatory piety of the late Middle Ages.4

4 On medieval books of hours as sites of engaged piety, see Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, ed. Roger S. Wieck (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1988), esp. Virginia Reinburg, “Prayer and the Book of Hours,” 39–44.

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Content and Decoration The Aussem Hours is a characteristically small personal prayer book, measuring 16.5 centimeters in height by 12.1 centimeters in width. Its contents comprise a calendar, which includes the feast days of the Cologne saints Pantaleon Martyr (July 27), Gereon (October 10), Severinus (October 23), and Kunibert (November 12); an Easter table; the Hours of the Virgin; the Seven Penitential Psalms; the Litany; a selection of petitions, invocations, and collects; the Hours of the Cross; the Prayers of St. Gregory; a collection of prayers on the suffering of Christ, the Virgin Mary, God the Father, and the cross; the Prayers of the Sacred Sacrament; the Sunday vespers and compline; and a collection of prayers to the Three Magi (text in German), St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Erasmus, and St. Catherine. In addition to the local saints featured in the calendar, petitions, and invocations, the manuscript’s patronage and geographic origins are suggested in certain decorative features. A series of small stamps bearing the arms of Cologne and a hieratic composition of a standing figure depicted with wheel and sword likely representing St. Catherine embellish the original leather binding.5 Additionally, the Aussem coat of arms (a silver shield with three horseshoes arranged in an inverted triangle and separated by a black chevron) appears propped next to a figure, presumably an owner, who kneels at the base of the cross in the image of the Crucifixion on folio 58v (Fig. 2). The manuscript’s embellishment includes ten full-page miniatures, one halfpage miniature, six historiated initials, numerous decorated initials, and the aforementioned borders.6 A variety of metallic objects suggesting gold and silver appear in both central images and borders, with gold also forming the ground of numerous folios (19v, 20r, 58v, 59r, 82v, 83r, 105v, 106r, 108v, and 109r). Illuminated objects and backgrounds in the manuscript range in appearance from a burnished gloss to 5 This figure has previously been identified as St. Paul. However, the attributes of wheel and sword still visible in several of the stamps have strong associations with Catherine, whose importance in Cologne is indicated by the presence in the city of a convent of the Teutonic Knights dedicated to her. A charter dated February 18, 1427 (Cologne, Hist. Arch., Best. 102P U 1/3) mentions a Heinrich von Aussem who was a knight of the Teutonic order (correspondence with Max Plassman, August 13, 2018). Though separated from the manuscript’s production by three-quarters of a century, the charter indicates a possible familial connection to the saint. 6 For a list of the pictorial miniatures and historiated initials, see http://www.thedigitalwalters. org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W437/description.html. Although numerous medieval sacred manuscripts, especially of Flemish, Netherlandish, and Burgundian production, depict elaborate, often illusionistic, gold jewelry in the borders, the Aussem Hours appears to be a rare example of this type in German manufacture. See Kate Challis, “Marginalized Jewels: The Depiction of Jewellery in the Borders of Flemish Devotional Manuscripts,” in The Art of the Book, ed. Margaret M. Manion and Bernard J. Muir (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998), 253–89. Challis (267) also notes the exclusive appearance of jewelry borders in books designed for worship; there are no known examples in secular manuscripts. Such exclusivity suggests that the purpose or meaning of such borders extended beyond simply beautification or display of wealth.

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Fig. 2: Crucifixion with a member of the Aussem family and the Aussem coat of arms. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 58v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

a matte finish, creating diverse visual effects. Alternately representing metal objects with impressionistic suggestiveness and trompe l’oeil accuracy, the Aussem artist or artists consistently demonstrate knowledge of contemporary production methods of a

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variety of metalworks. These faithful representations of metalworking techniques endow the manuscript’s metallic components with a technical and formal veracity that connects depicted objects with real-world counterparts.

Sixteenth-Century Illumination Techniques in the Aussem Hours The most alluring objects found in the Aussem Hours are those suggesting golden finery such as ornate jewelry, fasteners, chalices, ciboria, and scepters. Across these representations, the illuminators accurately rendered the appearances of sixteenthcentury metalworking techniques such as raising, repoussé, chasing, casting, joining, granulation, enameling, stone setting, and soldering. The decision to convincingly depict the products of these processes implies both a cultural interest in superficial verisimilitude (as had emerged in oil painting in the fifteenth century) and relationships between illuminators and metalworkers that might range from professional kinship to more formalized cross-training.7 Foremost here is the apparent interest in helping the viewer engage and empathically connect with each image.8 In this case, illusionistic representation, personalized attributes, and carefully constructed framing devices are the means through which empathic connection is achieved. The jewelry depicted in the margins of folios 63v, 64r, 103v, and 104r invites the viewer in through both its material and visual qualities.9 In the borders of folios 63v 7 Exchange of ideas across media is widely recognized in medieval artistic production, and overlapping knowledge of illumination and metalworking techniques is occasionally attested for medieval craftsmen. See Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 9 and 12; and Thomas Kren and Maryan W. Ainsworth, “Illuminators and Painters: Artistic Exchanges and Interrelationships,” in Illuminating the Renaissance, 35–57, esp. 35–37. 8 The empathic relationship between artwork and audience was a central component of early fifteenth-century Italian artistic theory, which circulated widely in early modern Europe. Following the recommendations of Leon Battista Alberti in his 1425 treatise On Painting, painters adopted and adapted the strategies of ancient rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian in order to enhance viewers’ connection to and participation in the scene through such devices as emotive facial expressions and hand gestures. See Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, ed. and trans. Rocco Sinisgalli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 63; Susan Barahal, “Repaint, Reframe, Renew: Updating Sacred Images during the Early Italian Renaissance” (PhD diss., Boston University, 2016), 125–30; Caroline van Eck, Classical Rhetoric and the Visual Arts in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 17; and Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 118. 9 Folio 103v features a miniature of the Adoration of the Magi set against a red border containing a sapphire in a sexpartite gold setting backed by a white enamel flower with a pendant pearl. Folio 104r features the text of the prayer to the Three Magi, and its matching red border includes a heartshaped emerald in a gold bezel fringed by small pearls. Across both borders are numerous isolated pearls and an inscription in floriated gold lettering reading “Gloria i[n] excelsis / Deo et i[n] terra pax hominibus bon[a]e voluntatis. Veni creator spirit[us] me[ntes].”

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Fig. 3: St. Ursula and jewelry border. Da Costa Hours. Simon Bening, Ghent, ca. 1515. New York, PML, MS M.399, fol. 366v. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1910. Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

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Fig. 4: Detail of the jewelry border of fol. 63v showing quatrefoil- and bezel-set gems. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 63v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

and 64r in particular, the jewelry pieces are isolated and set against a monochromatic background, similar to Flemish manuscripts of this era, most notably the roughly contemporary Da Costa Hours, which includes cross-shaped and trefoil jewelry arrangements that are virtually identical to those on folio 63v of the Aussem Hours (Fig. 3).10 Metalworks depicted in many of the central narrative and figural images of the Aussem Hours, conversely, are relatively small and generic, and they lack the crisp rendering observed in the margins. All of the metal objects depicted throughout the manuscript are painted to simulate metallic appearances, except for the coat of arms on folio 58v, discussed below. To achieve this, pigments were mixed to accurately capture the metal’s coloration. Once the first layer of paint was dry, lighter hues and darker shades were added to simulate volume. Highlights conveyed the glint of reflected light characteristic of metallic surfaces. Golden objects are highlighted with shell gold, creating a luster that is simultaneously suggested and actual (Fig. 4). Non-gold metal objects, on the other hand, are typically highlighted only with matte paint, such as the sword

10 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.399. We thank Lynley Herbert for noting this connection between the two manuscripts’ jewelry borders. For additional examples, see Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 260–62. On the Da Costa Hours, see Roger Wieck, “The Hours of Alvaro da Costa, Simon Bening, and Portugal,” in D. Álvaro da Costa e a sua descendência, séculos XV–XVII: Poder, arte e devoção, ed. Maria de Lurdes Rosa (Lisbon: IEM – Instituto de Estudos Medievals, 2013), 161–77.

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Fig. 5: Detail of St. Catherine showing the coloration of the sword. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 108v (detail). Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

held by St. Catherine on folio 108v, which reads as a three-dimensional object with honed edges, but one fashioned of a comparatively duller material (Fig. 5).11 The only object in the manuscript rendered using shell silver is the shield displaying the Aussem coat of arms on folio 58v.12 It is notable that silver was used for this object of personal importance despite its tendency to tarnish. Motivated by a desire to highlight the family’s wealth, the preciousness of silver may have outweighed any concerns about the drawbacks of its material properties. This folio and its facing page (fol. 59r) contain the first gold leaf borders in the manuscript, and one can readily imagine the viewer’s surprise upon turning the page. The abundance of shining, burnished

11 The illuminators occasionally made judicious use of shell gold highlighting on non-gold metal objects (as on the edges of Uriah’s armor on folio 44v, for example), even though such highlighting detracts from the image’s verisimilitude. 12 We are grateful to Abigail Quandt at the Walters Art Museum, who examined the shield under magnification. She concludes that silver was used to depict the shield and suspects that it is silver paint rather than silver leaf. The silver on the shield is applied directly on the parchment instead of on top of a ground layer, which was the typical sequence and process to apply leaf. Evidence of the shield’s tarnish is apparent on folio 58r where the show-through of the silver reveals the shield’s original shape, which appears to have been slightly shorter than the shield seen on folio 58v. It seems that the artist extended the shield in order to accommodate the three heraldic symbols and did so using grey paint.

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gold must have filled the viewer with wonder and delight at its richness and reflective splendor. Indeed, the Crucifixion folio may have held the greatest importance for the Aussem family of any page in the book. Its luxurious border amplifies the importance of the central scene. The figure who kneels before Christ, presumably a member of the Aussem family and possibly the patron of this very manuscript, bears witness to this extraordinary event and is immortalized in eternal prayer. Adjacent to this pious figure, the Aussem coat of arms is placed front and center at the foot of the cross. Despite its current darkened state, the shield’s reflective qualities and metallic glint can still be seen by the naked eye if the light catches the illumination at the right angle.13 When new, the shield’s silver surface would have sparkled and reflected light. One can imagine the simultaneous visual and personal impact of this small, shiny object in which piety and prestige intertwined. A contrast in both technique and visual experience also occurs in the Aussem Hours between the use of shell gold to enhance depicted metal objects and the use of gold leaf as ground. The latter appears in four borders: on the above-mentioned folio 58v, surrounding the Crucifixion; on folio 59r, framing Pontius Pilate presenting the scourged Christ to the crowd; on folio 108v, surrounding the representation of St. Catherine and St. Barbara; and on folio 109r, surrounding the text of the prayer to St. Catherine. The gold-leaf grounds on folios 58v and 59r are highly polished and reflective, and they provide a splendid backdrop for the colorful presentation of strewn flowers, buds, leaves, stems, pea plants, and even one inquisitive caterpillar.14 The artist strategically added minute shell gold accents on only a few pink and red petals, limiting the gold application to the warm color palette. The yellowish glow of these highlights suggests the glint of the sun as well as lux divina, the physical manifestation of God’s grace, will, or presence.15

13 On the use of silver in manuscripts and its deterioration see Rita Araújo, et al., “Silver Paints in Medieval Manuscripts: A First Molecular Survey into Their Degradation,” Heritage Science 6, no. 8 (2018): 1–13. See also the essays by Nancy Turner and Lynley Herbert in this volume. 14 The flora (save the narrow stems) and fauna in the borders of folios 58v and 59r were painted on allocated spaces and after the application of gold leaf, an order of operations advocated by both Theophilus in the early twelfth century and Cennini in the early fifteenth century. The reverses (folios 58r and 59v) confirm that the border motifs were applied directly on parchment and not on top of the gold leaf: one clearly sees the colors through the thin parchment. We are grateful to Stella Panayotova for her thoughts regarding these materials and processes. 15 Lux divina is rooted in the mystical theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Divine Names 4.5), although the phrase does not appear widely in textual sources until the later Middle Ages. For brief discussions on the meaning and usage of the phrase, see John F. Moffitt, Caravaggio in Context: Learned Naturalism and Renaissance Humanism (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015), 23–40, and Joseph S. O’Leary, “Ultimacy and Conventionality in Religious Experience,” in Religious Experience and the End of Metaphysics, ed. Jeffrey Bloechl (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 184.

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Sixteenth-Century Metalworking Techniques Depicted in the Aussem Hours The Aussem Hours includes representations of a number of metal objects that amplify the stories depicted in the central images. The imitation of contemporary metalworking styles and techniques likely enhanced the depicted objects’ resonance with viewers, as their verisimilitude would have triggered recognition and then engagement. Indeed, the illuminator may be considered a type of metalworker who shaped metallic materials to desired effects, including visually rendering the products of metalworking processes, albeit in two dimensions. Viewing the jeweled borders of the Aussem Hours in the context of contemporary European metalworking practices, one sees stylistic, material, and technical similarities between the depicted objects and their actual metalwork counterparts. Analysis of the implied metalworking techniques reveals how three-dimensional forms were convincingly rendered in two dimensions, thus providing a practical foundation for considering the role of verisimilitude in shaping the viewer’s empathic engagement with the manuscript. The jewelry borders of the Aussem Hours—found on folios 63v, 64r, 103v, and 104r—include depictions of delicate yellow gold pendants and brooches that are adorned with enamel, pearls, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.16 These depicted objects accurately replicate the common materials and metalsmithing techniques of the period. There are few extant jewelry examples from the early sixteenth century since many pieces perished during the Reformation and Thirty Years’ War.17 However, some examples are preserved in paintings of the period, such as Raphael’s portrait of Maddalena Doni of ca. 1504–7. Maddalena wears a necklace with a pendant comprising a table-cut ruby, sapphire, and emerald, all set in yellow gold, and a large drop-shaped pearl that is drilled and suspended from the pendant (Fig. 6). The pendant’s gold setting and stones are similar in arrangement and cuts to the

16 The popularity of precious stones in liturgical and devotional manuscripts may stem from the widespread belief that gems originated in the four rivers of Paradise before the Fall. In European medieval manuscripts, including the Aussem Hours, gem types were often limited to diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, perhaps owing to longstanding precedents that associated each stone with one of the four elements—water, fire, air, and earth, respectively. See Benvenuto Cellini, The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on Goldsmithing and Sculpture, trans. C. R. Ashbee (London: E. Arnold, 1898), 22. Also see Ronald W. Lightbown, Medieval European Jewellery (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992), 11–22; John Cherry, Goldsmiths (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 22–23; Marian Campbell, “Gold, Silver and Precious Stones,” in English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. John Blair and Nigel Ramsay (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 107–66; and Martina Bagnoli, “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 137–48. 17 Graham Hughes, The Art of Jewelry (New York: Viking, 1972), 76.

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Fig. 6: Raphael, Portrait of Maddalena Doni, detail showing table-cut gems in a gold setting, ca. 1504–7, oil on basswood panel. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, 1912 no. 59. Photo: Gallerie degli Uffizi.

jewelry found on folio 63v of the Aussem Hours, the most elaborate of the jewelry borders with respect to the size and detail of the pieces. Jewelry of the type depicted in the Aussem Hours would not have been made of pure, 24 karat gold, which is rare since the ore is naturally found mixed with other metals such as silver or copper. Moreover, because 24 karat gold is too soft to use for jewelry, it is typically alloyed with other metals to increase its strength. Cellini recommended 22.5 karats for fine metalwork, and gold of 22.5 or 23 karats was commonly used for jewelry during the early Renaissance.18 Readers who were knowledgeable about jewelry, metals, and gemstones likely would have interpreted the jewelry depicted in the borders of the Aussem Hours as a high-karat, but not pure gold. The gold-ground borders of folios 58v–59r, by contrast, were indeed pure gold leaf, and one suspects that readers would have understood them as such, or at least appreciated their unsurpassed reflectivity. The jewelry settings depicted in the Aussem Hours also accurately reflect contemporary metalworking techniques. For centuries, stones were either secured in bezel settings or held in place with a few metal prongs. By the late fourteenth century, stones were often placed in a quatrefoil setting combining bezel and prongs.19 This scalloped quatrefoil setting became common during the late medieval and early modern periods, as evidenced by the few extant jewelry pieces of the period, such as an early sixteenth-century pendant now in Dresden in which the surrounding

18 Cellini, The Treatises, 45. See also Parker Lesley, Renaissance Jewels and Jeweled Objects (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968), 25. 19 Marian Campbell, Medieval Jewellery in Europe 1100–1500 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2009), 16.

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Fig. 7: Gold pendant set with diamonds, spinel rubies, and emeralds. Nuremberg, ca. 1500, 5.3 x 4.5 cm. Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, VIII 298. Photo: Grünes Gewölbe, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (Jürgen Karpinski).

stones are secured within quatrefoil settings (Fig. 7), as well as in paintings and artists’ sketches.20 The precious gems depicted in the borders of folios 63v and 64r are all set in a quatrefoil design, with the exception of the cross in the lower border of folio 63v, where the gems are bezel set with a metal band around the stone. All of the precious stones on these folios are quadrilateral shapes and faceted. Faceted stones had emerged in Europe in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, appearing pyramid-shaped with a pointed top. In the fourteenth century, advancements in stone-cutting techniques led to a flattening of the point, creating the table cut. The gems depicted in the Aussem Hours have flat table cuts, again with the exception of the cross, which features the pointed pyramidal cut.21 The older bezel style and pyramid cut shown in this piece are curious. Perhaps these features helped single out the cross amongst the other jewels so as to call attention to its historical and spiritual significance. However, this cut does not appear to have been a universal signifier, as the strikingly similar jewelry depicted in the Da Costa Hours displays no pyramid-cut stones. The similarity of the jewelry depicted in

20 On the popularity of the quatrefoil setting in Renaissance Europe, see Diana Scarisback, Historic Rings: Four Thousand Years of Craftsmanship (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2004), 64. 21 On gem-cutting techniques see Campbell, Medieval Jewellery, 14–17; eadem, “Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones,” 135–39; and Lightbown, Medieval European Jewellery, 11–22.

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Fig. 8: Detail of jewelry border showing a trefoil pendant. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 63v (detail). Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

these two manuscripts suggests the use of “stock” images rather than objects particular to the patrons, but this difference in the types of stone cutting depicted indicates some artistic autonomy in the execution of details derived from models.22 Actual jewelry pieces of the types depicted in the Aussem Hours were most likely created using a combination of hand-fabrication and casting techniques. The casting process enabled jewelers to create multiples of a particular design, such as the quatrefoil pieces seen in the borders of folios 63v, 64r, and 103v.23 Refinements to the castings and finishing work would most likely be done by hand using repoussé and chasing methods. Chasing in particular served to outline and refine the

22 Engraved pattern books and sheets illustrating a variety of ornament styles began to appear across Europe in the sixteenth century. See Carl Hernmarck, The Art of the European Silversmith, 1430–1830 (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1977), 1:43; and Thomas Kren, “The Importance of Patterns in the Emergence of a New Style of Flemish Manuscript Illumination after 1470,” in Manuscripts in Transition: Recycling Manuscripts, Texts and Images, ed. Brigitte Dekeyzer and Jan van der Stock (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 374–75. Kren notes that in cases of miniatures transmitted through models more than one artistic model is possible. There is no reason to assume border motifs were different. 23 Renaissance metal casting typically employed a lost-wax method. See Cellini, The Treatises, 62; and L. B. Hunt, “The Long History of Lost Wax Casting: Over Five Thousand Years of Art and Craftsmanship,” Gold Bulletin 13, no. 2 (1980): 77–78.

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sculptural relief forms.24 The intricate trefoil pendant in the lower left corner of the border of folio 63v exhibits masterful examples of repoussé and chasing (Fig. 8). The domed lobes appear three-dimensional as a result of illusionistic painting techniques that evoke the repoussé process. The lower lobes seem to protrude into space as evidenced by the shadows they cast, while touches of shell gold highlight portions of the rounded settings that would catch and reflect light. The third lobe, at the top of this triad, appears deeply concave. It is set in the middle with a pearl that has been drilled, attached to the gold with a wire, and secured from behind. This lobe’s concavity, evidenced by its deep shading, is a visual contrast to the two convex lobes. Each lobe is framed with a raised gold wire that would be attached with solder and that serves to outline the sculptural forms. The individual metal forms, such as the three lobes, surrounding wires, decorative crown structure below, and attached chains, would also be connected with solder. The illuminators’ knowledge of enameling is also on display throughout the jeweled borders. On folios 63v, 64r, and 103v, pink, blue, yellow, and white flower petals are rendered to simulate the art of enamel. Enamels can be opaque, as reflected in the Aussem Hours jewelry, or translucent to allow the metal underneath to show through. The metal used to back the depicted enamels in the Aussem Hours is not visible, but the viewer would reasonably have assumed it to be gold, like the rest of the depicted jewelry. Goldsmiths employed enameling to decorate and add color to metal, and the enameled elements in the Aussem Hours likewise complement the colors of the precious gems and enhance the jewelry designs. Advancements in enameling production introduced in the later Middle Ages enabled artists to apply successive layers of enamel in a painterly manner that eliminated the distinct demarcations between colors characteristic of the cloisonné and champlevé techniques favored in earlier centuries.25 Created around the year 1500, the Aussem Hours comes on the heels of these revolutionary developments, and many of the depicted enamels boast the subtle effects of these novel techniques.26 The painterly qualities of this

24 Oppi Untracht, Metal Techniques for Craftsmen (New York: Doubleday, 1968), 93–105. 25 Kenneth F. Bates, The Enamelist (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1975), 22. Examples of this technique have proven difficult to locate, and we suspect that their fragility has adversely impacted survival. Extant correlates include a gold and enamel necklace of ca. 1400 in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1947.507) and the All Souls Jewel from All Souls College in Oxford, on loan to the British Museum (see https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00174425001); both bear some similarities to the gold and enamel jewelry designs in the Aussem Hours with respect to the encapsulation of a precious gem within a floral enamel setting. We thank Barbara Boehm, Marian Campbell, and Rachel Church for these references. 26 Depictions suggesting similar enamelwork are also found in a number of roughly contemporary Flemish books of hours, such as the Da Costa Hours, folios 336v and 337r; the Hours of Joanna I of Castile (London, British Library, Add. MS 35313), folios 223v and 224r; and the Rothschild Prayer Book (Perth, Kerry Stokes Collection), folios 84v and 85r. Such shared references further reinforce the relationship between the Aussem manuscript and northern European books of hours addressed in note 3.

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Fig. 9: Mass of St. Gregory with trompe-l’oeil jewelry border. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 63v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

refined process are evident on the pansy petals depicted on folio 63v, on all five petaled flowers on folio 64r, and on the one white flower depicted on folio 103v. All display varied shades of colored enamel overlays. Set within the visually and materially rich jeweled border of folio 63v, the narrative miniature depicting the Mass of St. Gregory displays a variety of metal liturgical objects, including a ciborium, censer, chalice, processional staff, and pair of candlesticks. The painterly treatment of these objects exemplifies the comparatively

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looser style employed for the manuscript’s central scenes (Fig. 9). Despite this looseness, it is nevertheless discernible that these depicted metal objects accurately convey the materials and methods of fabrication of their real-world counterparts. Take, for example, the processional staff held by the cleric at the far left. It is gold in appearance, although it may have been intended to suggest gilded silver.27 The depicted staff conveys the fabrication of such objects, which were made of separate parts joined by solder. The illuminator demonstrates this production technique by the short horizontal lines that interrupt the verticality of the metal rod, indicating separate sections. The finial atop the processional staff is a replication of a threedimensional Gothic architectural element and is similar to the illusionistic architecture painted in the margins of folio 44v. The sculptural elements of such finials were typically created using repoussé and chasing techniques, while the rod portion was cut from sheet metal, hammered to shape in sections and soldered together. The staff in the Aussem Hours also includes embellishments that appear to represent gold granulation.28 Ciboria and chalices are depicted in both the Mass of St. Gregory and a miniature showing the celebration of a Mass with a member of the Aussem family (fol. 82v). Since such vessels were relatively small in size, it is possible that they were sometimes formed in sections from gold sheets soldered together, but it is more likely that they were fabricated in silver and gilded. In the Aussem Hours, each ciborium or chalice comprises three individual components: a raised bowl, stem, and base. The bowl portion of such vessels was fabricated from sheet metal and formed by raising and shaping.29 The intricate designs depicted on the stem and foot of the chalice in the Mass of St. Gregory, visible only upon close scrutiny, refer to the repoussé and chasing methods. The candlesticks depicted on the altar would have been cast, or perhaps raised and combined with repoussé and chasing techniques. The censer depicted in this scene appears hand-fabricated with gold openwork, embossed by means of repoussé and chasing and possibly embellished with granulation and filigree.

27 Metal crosiers and processional staffs were often made of gilded silver to reduce the cost. The processional staff depicted on folio 63v is similar to an early fifteenth-century university scepter from northern Germany, now in The Cloisters (2011.358). The core of the university scepter is a single iron rod; the outer elements fit into one another and are secured by solder. We are grateful to Barbara Boehm for providing this information. 28 See Erhard Brepohl, The Theory and Practice of Goldsmithing (Portland, ME: Brynmorgen Press, 2001), 319–22; and Oppi Untracht, Jewelry Concepts and Technology (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 348. 29 This technique is used to form hollow vessels from one piece of metal: the metal is hammered against smooth anvils of various sizes and shapes to create the desired three-dimensional form, and planishing or finishing hammers are used to smooth the metal’s worked surface. See Theophilus, On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork, trans. John G. Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith (New York: Dover, 1979), 99–103; and Untracht, Metal Techniques, 247.

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Across all the depicted metal objects in the Aussem Hours, what is most significant is how they are rendered. The metal objects in the central scenes, whether sacred or secular, are painterly and impressionistic. While some indications of metalworking techniques and manufacture are apparent to the discerning viewer, crisp edges and sharp detail are absent in favor of communicating the overall type and essence of the object. In direct contrast is the illusionistic and highly realistic jewelry depicted in the margins of folios 63v, 64r, 103v, and 104r. On these pages, the viewer is not asked to mentally complete the shorthand suggestions of depicted metal objects, but is instead tempted to reach out and touch, or even hold and try on these life-size jewels that seemingly cast shadows and protrude into the viewer’s space.30 Direct engagement is fostered through appeals to both sight and touch, vision and matter. Visceral involvement is invited.

Image, Matter, and Audience Technical analysis of the Aussem Hours underscores the manuscript’s opulence as well as the patron’s and/or artists’ investment in verisimilitude, evident in the metalworking techniques referenced in both the borders and central images. The visual allure of objects in this and similar painted books of the era resonates strongly with long-held medieval notions of the relationship between matter and spiritual knowledge.31 Especially within the context of a prayer book, in which, whatever else the manuscript might signify, religious contemplation was paramount, the glitz of the decorated page was inextricable from the notion of visual or material luxury as a vehicle through which one accessed the divine. By the turn of the sixteenth century, contemplation of matter had been subsumed into a theoretical framework that emphasized not just transcendence through materials, but a multifaceted sensory experience as the basis of knowledge.32 In the Aussem Hours, touch and perhaps even

30 The average dimensions of the jewelry seen on fol. 63v are approximately two centimeters squared. While jewel settings ranged widely in size, extant examples measuring roughly two to three centimeters at their largest dimension are on par with the depictions in the Aussem Hours. For examples, see Lightbown, Medieval European Jewellery, plates 42 and 48–49. 31 The central notion of medieval Platonic philosophy—per visibilia ad invisibilia—reverberated through much of the Middle Ages, coalescing in the twelfth century in the theological writings of the Victorines and the administrative record-keeping of Abbot Suger at Saint-Denis. See C. Stephen Jaeger, “Richard of St. Victor and the Medieval Sublime,” in Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 35–37; and Grover A. Zinn, Jr., “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,” in Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis, ed. Paula Gerson (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 33–40, esp. 33–34. 32 Martina Bagnoli, “The Materiality of Sensation in the Art of the Late Middle Ages,” in Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and Margaret Mullett (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2017), 33–36.

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smell, as much as vision, are provoked by the rendering of metal objects.33 Although we do not know the extent to which the manuscript’s owners would have known or pondered the types of gold used, the techniques employed to apply it to the pages, or the metalworking techniques referenced in the decoration, the precision with which these objects were depicted must have dazzled, impressed, and emotionally and intellectually moved the viewer. As noted above, the best demonstrations of the rendering of metal objects and metalworking techniques are found in the manuscript’s jewelry borders, especially folio 63v, where the jeweled border frames the image of Pope Gregory’s legendary vision of Christ as the Man of Sorrows. This is the most elaborate of the four jewelryborder folios in terms of size of jewelry, variety of jewel settings, and percentage of the page given over to the borders. Additionally, the interplay of corporeal and spiritual vision embedded in the tradition of St. Gregory’s Mass provides a useful framework through which to consider the nexus of image, object, material, and viewer. It is here that the illumination of metalwork and the conjunction of materiality and visuality come into sharpest focus. Although the borders on folio 63v occupy what is traditionally considered marginal space, consistent with the character of late medieval Flemish or Flemish-style book painting, the objects in these borders achieve a greater “reality” than the miniature they frame. As previously detailed, the curved settings and faceted gems are rendered with highlights and shadows across their surfaces to suggest their threedimensional presence, creating the impression of real objects hanging on display rather than flat images painted on a surface.34 This impression is amplified by the suspension of the jewelry in the lower margin from the gilded frame surrounding the miniature, and by the golden pins that seem to affix the jewelry in the side border to the blue backing. Shadows indicated on the blue ground against which these objects are placed further the suggestion of three-dimensionality. Uniformly located on the bottom and right sides of jewelry and frames, they imply a light source located above and to the left of the manuscript’s center binding, an angle commensurate with the likely positioning of a window or candles in relation to the book and its user.35 The overall effect is of a collection of objects existing in three dimensions surrounding a painted image, akin to an enshrined panel painting.

33 On the importance of smell in the investigation of precious stones, see Bagnoli, “The Materiality of Sensation,” 36–37. 34 Challis likens the impression of display in similar manuscript borders to the Kunstkammer of Archduke Ferdinand II at Schloss Ambras. See Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 258–59. 35 See, for example, the position of Mary of Burgundy reading before a “window” on folio 14v of her eponymous book of hours (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vind. 1857).

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Manuscript margins were indeed at times the receptacle of precious objects in both literal and representational form.36 The presence of strikingly similar jewelry borders in the roughly contemporary Da Costa Hours and the Hours of Joanna I of Castile—among others—indicates that the Aussem manuscript borders do not replicate specific and unique objects. Nor do the figures on folios 58v and 82v identified as members of the Aussem family wear visible jewels, much less anything resembling the jewelry found in the borders. However, as Margaret Goehring has argued, the original owners of personal devotional books would have perceived what appears today as stock imagery as far more personalized.37 In the case of the Aussem Hours, seeing themselves, or their forebears, at the foot of the cross or celebrating Mass undoubtedly cultivated a personal connection for the members of the family who owned and used the book. The technical precision of the jewelry’s depiction, coupled with the illuminators’ efforts to create a viewing experience that married the user’s environment to the page, suggests that these borders were intended to manifest objective presence, in contrast to the more impressionistically rendered scenes they enclose. These pages thus accommodate not only a stylistic contrast, but a potential variance in reception. While the borders claim a direct appeal to the senses, the framed images call to the viewer through the evocation of narrative. Unable to focus equally on both realms simultaneously, the viewer is presented with options: somatic engagement, or oneiric. The dual impact of the central narrative image and the jewelry borders of folio 63v thus becomes a mechanism for the interplay of types of vision and corresponding modes of reflection. Appreciable in their own right, the issues of apprehension embedded in the story of the Mass of St. Gregory produced a context for viewing and contemplating this page that highlighted not just the act of seeing, but the relationships and distinctions between vision and matter. The Mass of St. Gregory as represented in the Aussem Hours is characteristic of northern European iconographic trends of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.38 The pope kneels before an

36 Megan H. Foster-Campbell, “Pilgrimage through the Pages: Pilgrims’ Badges in Late Medieval Devotional Manuscripts,” in Push Me, Pull You, vol. 1, Imaginative and Emotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, ed. Sarah Blick and Laura Gelfand (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 227–74. See also her essay in this volume. There is, however, no evidence of precious jewelry ever having been affixed within manuscripts in the same way. 37 Margaret Goehring, “Exploring the Border: The Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal,” in Blick and Gelfand, Push Me, Pull You, 148. 38 Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 3, pt. 2 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958), 609–15. Representations of the legend were particularly popular in Germany and the Low Countries through the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and are found in media ranging from large-scale altarpieces and panel paintings to engravings to carved ivories. See Caroline Walker Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond: The Mass of St. Gregory in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Hamburger and AnneMarie Bouché (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 208.

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altar within a late medieval architectural setting; he is accompanied by a retinue of clergy and young acolytes, perhaps in demonstration of clerical pomp and power.39 At the moment depicted, Gregory elevates the host before the altar on which rest the chalice and corporal alongside a manuscript opened to an image of the Crucifixion. The full-body image of Christ, bleeding and displaying his wounds, appears on his tomb above the altar. Just to Christ’s right appear the arma Christi. Next to them, as if emerging from the chalice below, hover ghostly souls rising from Purgatory.40 While Gregory faces right, his head angled back and his eyes raised, he does not truly look at Christ. Rather, his gaze appears distant, as if to suggest that he contemplates not directly what he sees, but something to which his vision has led him.41 Gregory’s vision resonated with late medieval interests in piety and the practice of faith in numerous ways. In her analysis of issues of visual apprehension and physical manifestation, Caroline Walker Bynum has argued that the Mass of St. Gregory in late medieval art indoctrinated viewers to two critical modes of vision, which she designates “seeing” (the physical act of taking in visual information with the eyes) and “seeing beyond” (the apprehension of things invisible or intangible through an engagement with the visual).42 In the Aussem Hours, the primary sightline follows Gregory’s apparent gaze toward the upper right portion of the scene. However, a secondary view opens on the left where one sees through layers of architecture: from the altar before which Gregory says Mass, through the opening in the choir screen, across the side aisle, and finally into the public square outside the church. Thus, both within and without the image, a game of framing and presenting is pursued. Just as the visionary experience at the heart of the Mass of St. Gregory invites the viewer to push beyond corporeal vision, the very presentation of the scene in the Aussem Hours reinforces the layering of sensory engagement via juxtaposed worlds that move from the proximal and material to the remote and spiritual.43 Furthermore, the sensation of “looking through” created by the organization of the page and enhanced through the apposition of trompe l’oeil jewelry display and impressionistic visionary scene replicates in miniature the spatial separations

39 Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond,” 218. 40 Representations of the Mass of St. Gregory at times provided viewers an indulgence, indicated by an included or accompanying text. Bynum gives the customary indulgence text as follows: “Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Gregory, and Gregory gave to all who kneel before this figure and pray Pater Nosters and Ave Marias so many years of indulgence.” Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond,” 216. See also Susan Leibacher Ward, “Who Sees Christ? An Alabaster Panel of the Mass of St. Gregory,” in Blick and Gelfand, Push Me, Pull You, 354–57, for arguments suggesting that even images of the Mass lacking a written indulgence relieved the devout viewer of time in purgatory. 41 On the variability of Gregory’s apparent gaze and direct apprehension of Christ in representations of his vision, see Ward, “Who Sees Christ?,” 351–53. 42 Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond,” esp. 231–33. 43 The formal underpinnings of these spatial juxtapositions are outlined in Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 254.

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and orchestrated sightlines of late medieval church buildings, as well as the experience of ocular communion extended to the laity.44 Significantly, although physical vision was the starting point for contemplation, the faithful were urged to “see beyond” the material world perceived by the outer eye.45 Such processes are replicated on the Aussem Hours page, as one is drawn to and then through the tactile and visual dazzle of gold and gems. The appeal to the physical senses becomes a portal through which the viewer enters a world of visionary experience where inner sight manifests in visible form. Gold and jewels were by no means the only items that could promote such connections. However, their intrinsic ability to mediate the material and the spiritual recommends them for just this function.46 In considering the many roles—ornamental, apotropaic, mnemonic—the precious objects filling the borders of late medieval books of hours played,47 we must attend to the combined effects of metallic illumination and material allusions on the users of a manuscript like the Aussem Hours. The result of the captivating combination of paint and shell gold in the rendering of the borders’ jewelry is that luster and reflection are both suggested (via highlights and shadows) and created (via light bouncing off the applied gold). These effects are especially powerful when viewed in low and angled light, such as candlelight, or when holding the book to admire or turn its pages. When the right combination of light and angle is achieved, the depicted jewels seem to rise off the parchment to become golden, shimmering objects themselves, an effect enabled by the verisimilitude with which the metalworking techniques and settings are rendered (Fig. 10). Such a visual transformation of matter resonates with the visionary experience modeled by St. Gregory, who sees what is not present. Within the page, a dichotomy is established between corporeal and spiritual vision through the juxtaposition of trompe l’oeil borders and the more impressionistic narrative image they enclose. Yet, these areas of the page are not made entirely distinct. In addition to the interaction of rendered jewelry and internal frame in the lower border, the alignment of

44 On the spatial configuration of late medieval church buildings in relation to lay piety, see Jacqueline Jung, “Seeing Through Screens: The Gothic Enclosure as Frame,” in Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West, ed. Sharon E. J. Gerstel (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2006), 188–89. 45 Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond,” 228. See also Bagnoli, A Feast for the Senses, 183, which discusses ocular communion in relation to the images of Christ presented on folios 63v and 64r of the Aussem Hours, but does not address the effects of layout or style. 46 Herbert Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2004), 29. 47 Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 241–48; Challis, “Marginalized Jewels,” 266–69; Challis, “The Rothschild Prayer Book as Political, Social and Economic Agent through the Ages,” in Antipodean Early Modern: European Art in Australian Collections, c. 1200–1600, ed. Anne Dunlop (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 55–73, esp. 63; and Kaufmann and Kaufmann, “The Sanctification of Nature,” 56 and 59.

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Fig. 10: Oblique views showing the trompe l’oeil effect of the jewelry border. Aussem Hours. Cologne, early sixteenth century. Baltimore, WAM, W.437, fol. 63v. Photo: Elizabeth Pugliano, with permission of The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

components across these two areas, such as the positioning of the jeweled cross directly beneath the body of Christ appearing before Gregory,48 and the material and visual continuity of shell gold paint applied across all parts of the page, suggest a deliberate conjunction of center and periphery. The visual, material, and tactile presence of the borders was conceived, it seems, as part and parcel of the larger contemplative engagement spurred and modeled by the image of Gregory’s vision nestled within. In a devotional context that placed primacy on “seeing beyond,” the “realness” of the trompe-l’oeil jewelry might first relegate the borders to a place of lesser importance for the viewer who seeks contemplative communion with the holy. However, we are remiss if we overlook the power of visual and material allure as an impetus to spiritual engagement.49 Through the suggestion of actual presence and the visual experience of manifestation, the reader of the Aussem Hours is presumably delighted and moved in myriad ways. What begins in the worldly realm of material luxury and objective presence might spur the viewer through awe and wonder to engagement, contemplation, reverence, and beyond.

48 We thank Stephanie Azzarello for this observation. 49 For a comprehensive overview of meaning in the border motifs of late medieval Flemish books of hours (albeit one in which a specific discussion of jewelry is absent), see Anne Margreet W. AsVijvers, “More than Marginal Meaning? The Interpretation of Ghent-Bruges Border Decoration,” Oud Holland 116, no. 1 (2003): 3–33.

Lynley Anne Herbert

A Curator’s Note: The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts Gold leaf . . . gold ground . . . ormolu . . . gilding. The gleaming metals art historians routinely encounter in the works they study register as an instant indicator of an object’s level of craftsmanship and value. The ubiquitous presence of glinting gold in medieval luxury manuscripts, for instance, gave the text and images an ethereal quality, often relaying as much about the status of the book’s owner as it did about the divine words it quite literally “illuminated.” Silver, so often a companion to gold in the arts, was used far more selectively in manuscript production. Unlike gold, which was expensive but relatively stable, there were serious challenges inherent in the use of silver. While luminescent when first applied, it had a tendency to tarnish and darken over time, and once lost, its shine could not be recovered.1 Silver was used in some of the earliest and most spectacular manuscripts that survive, such as the sixth-century Rossano Gospels and Codex Argenteus; illuminators working centuries later could therefore have observed the effects of tarnish over time and were most likely aware of this issue.2 It was certainly common knowledge that its use was problematic by the time of Cennino Cennini, who warns in his handbook of 1437 to use “as little silver as possible, because it does not last and turns black.”3 And yet, although book artists experimented with alloys and at times substituted the more stable tin for silver, they seemed on the whole content to accept the fugitive nature of the finer metal and the eventual consequences of its use, for they continued to use it up through at least the seventeenth century (Fig. 1).4 Perhaps the brightness of silver at the time of manufacture and the experience of

1 For a recent technical study on silver oxidation in manuscripts, see Rita Araújo, Paula Nabais, Isabel Pombo Cardoso, Conceição Casanova, Ana Lemos, and Maria Melo, “Silver Paints in Medieval Manuscripts: A First Molecular Survey into Their Degradation,” Heritage Science 6, no. 8 (2018): 1–13. 2 Rossano, Museo Diocesano e del Codex, s.n. (Codex Purpureus Rossanensis); Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Sign. DG. 1: http://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?pid=alvin-record%3A60279. 3 “Meno ariento [argento] che puoi, perché non dura, e viene negro.” This is in reference to its use on walls, but it is the same issue seen in manuscripts. See Lara Broecke, ed. and trans., Cennino Cennini’s Il libro dell’arte: A New English Translation and Commentary with Italian Transcription (London: Archetype, 2015), 130. 4 To name just a few late examples of manuscript illumination that includes silver in the collection of the Walters Art Museum alone, there is an important Flemish copy of Gossouin de Metz’s Image du Monde created by followers of Willem Vrelant and dated 1489 (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.199: https://manuscripts.thewalters.org/viewer.php?id=W.199); the German Aussem Hours of the early sixteenth century (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.437: https://manuscripts.thewal ters.org/viewer.php?id=W.437); and the French Lace Book of Marie de’ Medici, ca. 1640 (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.494: https://manuscripts.thewalters.org/viewer.php?id=W.494). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-015

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Fig. 1: Transfiguration. Lace Book of Marie de’ Medici. Paris, ca. 1640. Baltimore, WAM, W.494, fol. 13r. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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the book’s initial user was simply the most crucial factor, and future degradation was deemed beyond the artists’ control and responsibility. Rarely does silver illumination retain its original luster today, as the manuscripts it appeared in were often heavily used, and the metal’s regular exposure to air contributed to its tarnishing.5 Darkened silver is fairly recognizable in manuscripts, for it has a distinctly hazy, matte finish and tends to show through onto the other side of the page. Yet it is not always so easily detected, and at times artists attempted effects with silver that elude us today due to their experimental and unexpected nature. Centuries, even millennia, of tarnish often makes recognizing an artist’s original intentions difficult. What is more, that murky darkness that once gleamed off the page can give the book a falsely grungy and low-quality appearance. This poses an interpretive danger for art historians, as it is all too easy to overlook these faded masterpieces on aesthetic grounds. How do we navigate our modern reception of these books, and see them through the eyes of their medieval users? How do we begin to recover and reassess an illuminator’s artistic vision? This essay considers two manuscripts in which creative uses of silver have become visually obscured through tarnish, a fact that has contributed to negative assessments of the books’ quality and artistic merit. Each of these manuscripts has been the focus of my direct, intensive study over many years, the first being the subject of my dissertation, and the second having undergone a thorough examination while under my care as curator. Both are cautionary tales about our increasing dependence on, and trust in, image photography, for often a trained eye can see things in the original objects that a photograph does not reveal. Yet these manuscripts also call into question those same eyes’ ability to see the hidden past of objects, and they point up the importance of collaboration between scholars, conservators, and scientists when trying to uncover it. Manuscript curators spend a substantial amount of time immersed in studying original books and have the rare luxury of access to them, but it is crucial, and humbling, to recognize that there is much that can be missed or that simply cannot be seen. It is my hope that a consideration of these unusual examples of tarnished silver might help guide future looking and lead to new discoveries that are surely waiting to be made.

5 Araújo et al, “Silver Paints,” 10–11. After testing a number of different kinds of silver application in manuscripts, the study concluded that while the major culprit of tarnish was oxidation, it appears likely that certain kinds of ground on which silver was applied may have played a role in speeding up its degradation.

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The Sainte-Croix Gospels The first manuscript under consideration is the little-known eighth-century Gospels of Sainte-Croix of Poitiers.6 It contains an unusual Maiestas Domini so sophisticated in its complexity that is has been mistaken for a bizarre copy by a provincial artist who did not understand his model (fol. 31r, Fig. 2).7 Much of that assessment was due to a disconcertingly high number of unusual choices by the illuminator, in his use of both iconography and color, which often have no direct parallels in other manuscripts. As I have argued elsewhere, close study of this seeming cacophony of elements reveals a carefully crafted and intellectually complex tour de force of Carolingian visual exegesis.8 Perhaps the most fascinating and unexpected of these artistic peculiarities is the treatment of Christ’s robes. In the scene of the Maiestas Domini, Christ is dressed in a tunic resembling the ancient colobium, with a distinctive clavus (stripe) visible on his proper right shoulder, and a traditional long cloth known as a pallium draped over his left shoulder. This style of dress is common in early Christian and Byzantine images of Christ, as can be seen, for instance, in the fourth-century Santa Pudenziana apse mosaic in Rome, and in the ninth-century mosaic of Leo VI before Christ in Hagia Sophia. Yet while the decision to clothe Christ this way in the manuscript is not remarkable, the apparent choice of color for his robes is. When reproduced in photographs, the color of the pallium looks vaguely like gold, but is closer to brown and has a dull, uneven, almost dirty appearance. Meanwhile, the tunic underneath comes across as a muddy blackish purple that suggests silver, but is not quite the right tone. Even in recent, high-resolution digital images, these colors appear dingy. The effect suggests something less than the divine transcendence the miniaturist would have hoped for, and the overall vibrancy of the image is dimmed substantially.

6 Sainte-Croix Gospels, Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65]. The manuscript has been digitized and is fully available here: http://www.bm-poitiers.fr/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/ 1029419/livre-d-evangiles-de-l-abbaye-sainte-croix. For the most complete overview, see Lynley Anne Herbert, “Lux Vita: The Majesty and Humanity of Christ in the Gospels of Sainte-Croix of Poitiers” (PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2012). See also Pierre Minard, “L’évangéliaire oncial de l’abbaye de Saint-Croix de Poitiers: Ses pièces inédites et ses particularités,” Revue Mabillon 33 (1943): 1–22; and Eric Palazzo, “Tradition antique et ‘modernité’ dans les évangiles de Sainte-Croix de Poitiers (Poitiers, Médiathèque François-Mitterand, ms. 17 [65]),” in “Artem quaevis alit terra: Studia professori Piotr Skubiszewski anno aetatis suae septuagesimo quinto oblata,” ed. Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, special issue, Ikonotheka 19 (2006): 67–81. 7 This impression of the book was expressed, for instance, in Minard, “L’évangéliaire oncial,” 1, 7, and 8; and Jean Porcher, “La peinture provinciale,” in Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, vol. 3, Karolingische Kunst, ed. Wolfgang Braunfels (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1966), 54–73, at 61. 8 See Herbert, “Lux Vita,” and Lynley Anne Herbert, “Le toucher de l’évêque: Tracer les actes de dévotion dans les Évangiles de Sainte-Croix de Poitiers,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 55 (2013): 541–57.

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Fig. 2: Maiestas Domini. Sainte-Croix Gospels. Corbie (?), ca. 800. Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65], fol. 31r. Photo: Médiathèque François Mitterrand (Olivier Neuillé).

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Fig. 3: Verso of the Maiestas Domini. Sainte-Croix Gospels. Corbie (?), ca. 800. Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65], fol. 31v. Photo: Médiathèque François Mitterrand (Olivier Neuillé).

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Fig. 4: Gold mixed into silver to create “electrum.” Sainte-Croix Gospels. Corbie (?), ca. 800. Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65], fol. 31r (detail). Photo: Médiathèque François Mitterrand (Olivier Neuillé).

It is easy to assume that this odd coloration is merely a trick of the light, or due to a poor reproduction. However, examination of the actual manuscript proves the visual effect of these unusual tones in the photographs to be perplexingly accurate. 9 Within the deep burnt sienna lines defining the contours and folds of Christ’s pallium is a granular gold paint, which shines more vibrantly when seen in person than it does in photographs, but still has a surprisingly dim quality.10 Christ’s tunic is even more enigmatic. Silver is certainly present, for the paint has the telltale matte quality of tarnish and show-through is readily visible on the other side of the page (Fig. 3); yet a millennium of oxidation has not turned it entirely black. Traces of the expected inky hue are visible, but only where the silver bled into the parchment beyond the intended area, such as by Christ’s right elbow, Matthew’s left wing, and John’s right wing (Fig. 4, areas outlined in red).11 The rest of the tunic, by contrast, is

9 I am grateful to the staff of the Médiathèque François-Mitterrand for allowing me ample time to study the manuscript in 2008, and for their patience and enthusiasm as I have continued my research in the years since. 10 Nancy Turner suggests using the term “granular gold” for earlier paints due to the fact that the particles were not ground into nearly as fine a powder as in the “shell gold” that came into use later. See Nancy K. Turner, “Reflecting a Heavenly Light: Gold and Other Metals in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Illumination,” in Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, ed. Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi (London: Harvey Miller, 2018), 2:77–92, at 77–79; and eadem, “Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts,” in the present volume. 11 Silver tends to migrate as it degrades, as detailed in Araújo et al., “Silver Paints,” 10–12.

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Fig. 5: Silver patches in gold. Sainte-Croix Gospels. Corbie (?), ca. 800. Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65], fol. 31r (detail). Photo: Médiathèque François Mitterrand (Olivier Neuillé).

lighter and warmer in tone. Although the reason for this is difficult to see with the naked eye, when the paint is viewed through a magnifying glass in raking light, it is possible to perceive what looks like warm flecks of gold shimmering within the darkened silver (Fig. 4, areas outlined in blue). This unusual effect is visible in Christ’s tunic, book, scabellum (footstool), and the evangelists’ wings. Conversely, black specks and dark patches are visible periodically within the gold, even in areas that are not adjacent to the silver tunic (Fig. 5), revealing that the dimness of the gold may at least be partially due to particles of now-tarnished silver mixed within it. This possibility is further supported by examining the verso of the illumination, where dark speckles can be seen showing through the page in areas corresponding to the golden paint, such as Christ’s pallium, halo, and the outer edge of the back of his throne (see Fig. 3). Could these two precious metals have been blended together? As the illuminator was working with granular gold and silver, rather than leaf, it is certainly

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logistically possible to mix them in their ground forms.12 Further technical analysis to ascertain the paint’s exact composition would be beneficial and could reveal more.13 If the artist did indeed mix these paints, then the more pressing question is, why? The reason for this unusual coloration is not immediately apparent, but it was, I argue, both intentional and meaningful. I suggest that the key lies in the Old Testament prophesy of Ezekiel (1:26–27), as filtered through a Christian lens by Gregory the Great. Ezekiel describes an intense and cryptic vision he is granted of God enthroned: “upon the likeness of the throne, was a likeness as of the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as it were the resemblance of amber as the appearance of fire within it [speciem electri velut aspectum ignis intrinsecus] round about: from his loins and upward, and from his loins downward, I saw as it were the resemblance of fire shining round about.” While the Douay-Rheims English translation uses the word “amber,” something of the intended meaning may have shifted here, for the Latin found in the Vulgate is electri, that is, electrum.14 As Isidore of Seville explains, the definition of electrum includes several subcategories, amber being one, and a metal alloy combining gold and silver being another.15 The early church fathers, such as Gregory the Great, understood its use in Ezekiel to

12 For discussion of these pigments, see Turner, “Surface Effect and Substance.” See also Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing, “Preciousness on Parchment: Materiality, Pictoriality, and the Decorated Book,” in this volume, which points to an illumination in the Cloisters Apocalypse of ca. 1330 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 68.174, fol. 3v, https://www. metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471869) in which it appears that ground gold and silver were mixed to indicate brass, a material mentioned in the accompanying text. This mixing of gold and silver to represent another metal is very much akin to what I suggest was intended in the Poitiers image. 13 The presence of gold flecks in the silver, and darker speckles in the gold, has been verified visually in Poitiers by Eric Palazzo, as well as the manuscripts staff at the Médiathèque FrançoisMitterrand, Florent Palluault, Martine Bobin, and Olivier Neuillé, who viewed the pigment under magnification. I am grateful for their assistance. It has not yet been possible to confirm this through a more scientific analysis of the paint, although the manuscript is a candidate for future non-invasive pigment analysis. In the Médiathèque’s recent exhibition “L’art médiéval est-il contemporain? Acte IV” (Oct. 12, 2019–Jan. 19, 2020), this manuscript was displayed with an accompanying text addressing the mixture of silver and gold along with my interpretation connecting it to electrum. 14 “Et super similitudinem throni similitudo quasi aspectus hominis desuper et vidi quasi speciem electri velut aspectum ignis intrinsecus eius per circuitum a lumbis eius et desuper et a lumbis eius usque deorsum vidi quasi speciem ignis splendentis in circuitu.” 15 Isidore (Etymologiae 16.24) says of electrum: “There are three kinds. The first kind, which flows from pine branches (i.e. amber, the primary meaning of electrum), is called ‘liquid electrum.’ The second, which is found naturally and held in esteem, is ‘metallic electrum.’ The third kind is made from three parts gold and one part silver.” (Huius tria genera: unum, quod ex pini arboribus fluit, quod sucinum dicitur; alterum metallum, quod naturaliter invenitur et in pretio habetur; tertium, quod fit de tribus partibus auri et argenti una.) English trans. in The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 332; Latin edition: in Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarvm sive originvm libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (1911; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 332.

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refer to this metallic electrum. Gregory offered an extensive and unique interpretation of electrum in his Homilies on Ezekiel: What, then, does the appearance of electrum signify if not Jesus Christ the mediator between God and man? For electrum brings silver to a greater brilliance through the addition of gold, while the brightness of the gold is dimmed. The former is increased in brilliance; the brilliance of the latter is tempered. Now, in the only-begotten Son of God, the divine nature is united with our nature. In that union, the humanity is enhanced in the glory of the [divine] majesty, while the divinity, indeed, tempers the power of its brightness to the measure of the human eye. As a consequence, human nature is made brighter, as the silver becomes brighter by its mixture with the gold. And, the divinity is likewise tempered in its brilliance to meet our capacity to see, as if, for us, the gold is dimmed by the silver. For this immutable nature which, remaining the same in itself, makes all things new, wished to manifest itself to us . . . and by means of welcome grace, so to speak, He changes the color of His garment. Therefore, like the electrum in the midst of the fire, God was made man, in order to suffer persecution.16

Gregory therefore interprets electrum symbolically as the union of humanity and divinity in Christ, his two natures fused inseparably into one just as gold and silver commingle in electrum. It is this understanding of electrum that, I believe, informed the choice of color in the Sainte-Croix Gospels. To be clear, I do not suggest that the original metal that was ground to create the paint was itself electrum, but rather that the artist attempted to create the visual effect of that alloy by mixing gold into the silver tunic, and silver into the gold pallium.17 By evoking the idea of electrum, then, the color could serve as a

16 Gregory the Great, Homily 2.14, trans. in Nancy van Deusen and Marcia L. Colish, “Ex utroque et in utroque: Promissa mundo gaudia, Electrum and the Sequence,” in Nancy van Deusen, ed., The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 105–38, at 123–24 (emphasis added). “Quid electri species, nisi Christus Iesus Mediator Dei et hominum designatur? Electrum quippe ex auro et argento est. In electro dum aurum argentumque miscetur, argentum ad claritatem crescit, aurum vero a suo fulgore pallescit. Illud ad claritatem proficit, hoc a claritate temperatur. Quia igitur in unigenito Dei Filio naturae divinitatis unita est natura nostra, in qua adunatione humanitas in maiestatis gloria excrevit, divinitas vero a sui fulgoris potentia humanis se oculis temperavit, per hoc quod humana natura clarior facta est, quasi per aurum crevit argentum. Et quia divinitas a fulgore suo nostris est aspectibus temperata, quasi aurum nobis palluit per argentum. Illa enim natura immutabilis, quae in se manens innovat omnia, si ita ut est nobis apparere voluisset, fulgore suo nos incenderet potius quam renovaret. Sed claritatem suae magnitudinis temperavit nostris oculis Deus, ut dum nobis eius claritas temperatur, etiam nostra infirmitas per eius similitudinem in eius luce claresceret, et per acceptam gratiam, ut ita dicam, suae habitudinis colorem mutaret. Quasi electrum ergo in igne est Deus homo factus in persecutione.” Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, ed. Marcus Adriaen (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971), 25–26. 17 In Nancy Turner’s essay in this volume, she discusses electrum as a metal alloy and the percentages of gold and silver that have historically been used to identify a substance as such. I do not believe the artist of the Poitiers manuscript was concerned with accuracy, but rather blended the gold and silver enough so that it would be visible and signal to the viewer that there was something unusual there to be deciphered.

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visual translation of word into image, for here Christ literally “changes the color of His garment.” However, the folio’s exposure to air would have ultimately diminished the illuminator’s sophisticated color symbolism; as the silver tarnished, the original concept behind the coloration became nearly invisible for much of the life of the manuscript.18 With the image’s deeper layers of meaning lost to time, and its colors subdued, it is no wonder that the manuscript’s artistic importance has been overlooked in modern scholarship. However, there is ample evidence that this manuscript was produced under the guidance of key theologians closely connected to Charlemagne and his court.19 Recognizing the complex thinking and inventiveness that went into the illumination’s creation, and reimagining as well its original grandeur, goes far in reinstating it into its proper place in history. To date, I have found no other examples of manuscript illuminations that use a blend of gold and silver to convey the symbolism of electrum.20 If this is indeed what the illuminator was attempting here, was it truly unique to this manuscript, or was this a more widespread phenomenon that has gone unnoticed? It is compelling to imagine that other attempts were made to convey the idea of this substance given its innate beauty and powerful symbolism. I suspect that there are other instances to be found, and that manuscripts with complex theological imagery—especially other depictions of Christ Enthroned or of Ezekiel’s vision— would be worth examining more closely. Further inquiry into this possibility, and analysis of unusual or unevenly toned metallic paint, may open up new ways of thinking about innovative uses of gold and silver and the theological implications behind them.

18 There are also smaller amounts of gold and silver in the canon tables and at some text openings, and it would be useful to analyze those areas as well to determine whether or not a similar mixture is at play. If so, this may complicate the reading of the color in Christ’s robes as meaningful only to him. However, there is an overarching theme of duality and doubling throughout the manuscript, which is found heavily in the canon tables as well, so the use of a color as a symbolic reference to duality within them would actually not be out of keeping. On this subject see Lynley Anne Herbert, “A Tale of Two Tables: Echoes of the Past in the Canons of the Sainte-Croix Gospels,” in Canones: The Art of Harmony; The Canon Tables of the Four Gospels, ed. Alessandro Bausi, Bruno Reudenbach, and Hanna Wimmer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 173–91. 19 I have connected this manuscript to one of Charlemagne’s head bishops, Jesse of Amiens, who I believe was the intended recipient, and to Abbot Adalhard of Corbie, first cousin to the king, who I suggest oversaw the book’s creation. See Herbert, “Lux Vita,” 107–45. 20 Although it is rare, there are some medieval objects made out of electrum; see, for instance, the seventh-century Frankish monogrammed signet ring in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (17.191.93). Metalwork objects made of actual electrum, however, are quite different from artistic attempts to convey the idea of electrum. Jennifer Kingsley has identified another possible instance of a medieval artist attempting to convey the symbolism of electrum, albeit in a non-manuscript context: the partially gilt silver candlesticks of Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim. See Jennifer P. Kingsley, “VT CERNIS and the Materiality of Bernwardian Art,” in 1000 Jahre St. Michael in Hildesheim: Kirche, Kloster, Stifter, ed. Gerhard Lutz and Angela Weyer (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2012), 171–84.

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The St. Francis Missal The unusual paint in the Sainte-Croix Gospels reveals how much is still unexplored in medieval uses of silver, and how crucial it is to look closely at original objects. However, despite my heightened awareness of both of these points, another book’s secrets evaded my detection even after a decade of regular interaction. The manuscript in question is one of the Walters Art Museum’s most famous and frequently requested manuscripts, the St. Francis Missal.21 This twelfth-century liturgical tome is quite literally the stuff of legends, for it has long been associated with a story found in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. According to the biography written by St. Bonaventure as well as the thirteenth-century Legend of the Three Companions, in 1208 Francis and two followers, Bernard of Quintavalle and a man named Peter, found themselves in a lively debate throughout the night regarding God’s plans for them.22 Unable to agree on their true calling by morning, Francis decided that they should ask God for guidance. Hurrying around the corner to Francis’s parish church, San Nicolò di Piazza, they sought answers in the book on the altar. Francis performed an act of bibliomancy, opening the manuscript three times at random and letting his eye fall on the text that happened to be on the page. With each opening of the book, the sacred words of the Evangelists conveyed God’s message clearly: give up your earthly goods, and follow me. Thus, the manuscript on the altar that fateful morning played a crucial role in establishing the foundations of the Franciscan order. The missal now preserved at the Walters is believed by many to be that very book, for its colophon documents the book’s use in the church of San Nicolò in Assisi, and its script and illumination style support a late-twelfth-century date, making it the only known viable candidate for the manuscript consulted by St. Francis.23

21 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.75: https://manuscripts.thewalters.org/viewer.php?id=W.75. This manuscript was the focal point of an exhibition I curated called simply “The St. Francis Missal” (opened February 1, 2020, but had a short run due to the pandemic), which explored the impact of this book on the Franciscan faith and included conservation information detailing efforts to save the manuscript. 22 St. Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Emma Gurney Salter (London: J. M. Dent, 1904), 25; “Legend of the Three Companions,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2, The Founder, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 85–86. 23 An original dedication inscription on fol. 166r goes far in supporting this possibility. The colophon declares in vibrant red ink that the book was indeed made for the church of San Nicolò and identifies its patron as Gerard of Ugo, a citizen of Assisi active in the last decades of the twelfth century. Therefore, if Francis did in fact approach the altar of San Nicolò that morning in 1208, it is feasible that this is the very book he consulted. It is uncertain when the manuscript left Assisi, but as the church of San Nicolò was damaged in an earthquake in 1832 and deconsecrated in 1848, the manuscript likely began circulating around that time. It reappeared in a sales catalog of the Frankfurt book dealer Joseph Baer in 1905, at which time it went unsold, and was relisted by Baer in 1912 and again in 1924. In that year, the manuscript was acquired by Paul Gruel of the Gruel Firm in

The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts

Fig. 6: Vere dignum. St. Francis Missal. Assisi, ca. 1200. Baltimore, WAM, W.75, fol. 163r. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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Key to the missal’s spiritual importance is the possibility that Francis interacted with it, for if he did open the book and leaf through its pages, such physical contact would elevate the manuscript’s status to a relic of touch. Many Franciscans believe the book to have this sacred quality, and they make pilgrimages to the Walters from around the world every year to be in its presence.24 Yet the immense importance placed on the book is often tempered by its perceived low-grade quality, which at times has caused surprise and even disappointment. The wooden boards, which are replacements from the fifteenth century, are worm-eaten and their corners have crumbled. Heavily grimed pages are brown and shabby from centuries of handling. Hastily scrawled additions and corrections within the text, as well as old repairs to the parchment, further detract from the book’s expected aesthetic appeal. The illuminations, which include two large decorated initials (fols. 162v–163r, Fig. 6) and a full-page miniature of the Crucifixion (fol. 166v, Fig. 7), do not seem to match the grandeur often found in liturgical books. Once-colorful paints have degraded and in many places were altered by later hands trying to restore them, while a varnish applied over the illuminations to give them a richer appearance has darkened over time. The expected shimmer of heavenly gold, which so often glistens across the pages of service books, is entirely absent from this manuscript. Ultimately, the overall effect of the book is fairly unremarkable. While visiting Franciscans are at times surprised that it is not spectacular, they often seem to find it charming, equating the humble quality of the book with the humility and poverty encouraged by Francis himself.25 Scholars, however, tend to be more critical when encountering the book, shrugging it off as a fairly low-quality, provincial production.26 It has been suggested to me that the museum’s founder, Henry Walters, must have purchased it only because he knew of its connections with Francis, as it was clearly beneath his usual collecting standards. This assessment has often been accompanied by remarks

Paris, who immediately sold it to Henry Walters. It is unknown if Walters or any of the dealers recognized the missal’s potential connection to Francis, but it is possible, as the manuscript was identified as the book described in the legend in an Italian article a decade before Walters purchased it: M. Faloci Pulignani, “Il messale consultato da S. Francesco quando si converti,” Miscellanea Francescana 15 (1914): 33–43. For further research and speculation about the book, see Vicki Porter, “Brother Book?,” Walters Art Gallery Bulletin 35, no. 2 (1982): 1–2; and Roch Niemier, Franciscan Life, Day One: 800 Years 1209–2009; Reflections on the Missal of San Nicolò (Franklin, WI: Franciscan Pilgrimage Programs, 2008). 24 Assertions about the missal’s relic status in a number of books written by and for Franciscans have intensified the popularity of this manuscript over the past few decades; see, e.g., Augustine Thompson, OP, Francis of Assisi: The Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 26. 25 Fr. Thompson, for instance, has described it as a “simple manuscript”; Thompson, Francis of Assisi, 26. 26 This is based upon nearly a decade of personal interactions with visiting manuscript scholars, who have had surprisingly consistent reactions to the book.

The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts

Fig. 7: Crucifixion. St. Francis Missal. Assisi, ca. 1200. Baltimore, WAM, W.75, fol. 166v. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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regarding the lack of gold, which sparkles excessively from the pages of many other Italian religious manuscripts collected by Walters.27 Using the presence or lack of gold in a manuscript as a benchmark of quality should always be cautioned against, for any illumination required considerable time, skill, and monetary resources. As this missal was likely the main liturgical book owned by the tiny church of San Nicolò, it would have comfortably stood on its own, and would not have been viewed in comparison with flashier manuscripts as is apt to happen when studying these objects today. That said, in the case of the St. Francis Missal, there may be some validity in this general uneasiness with the appearance of the book’s art. Especially unusual is the presence of a series of black roundels and lozenges in the border around the Crucifixion. Upon first seeing the miniature, I assumed those patches of black to be oxidized silver. However, the paint is heavily worn, and past forays into investigating the manuscript had never included any technical analysis of its composition. If the roundels and lozenges were truly intended to be black, then this was not only an unexpected choice aesthetically, but iconographically as well. Contained within the largest roundel attached to the top of the cross is a bust-length, Christlike figure who is surely meant to be God the Father (Fig. 8). Yet this figure has no halo, while the crucified Christ, Mary, John, and the angels all do. Their halos are outlined in ink and filled in with what has been scientifically identified as orpiment, a pigment that would initially have had a bright yellow hue. Around God there is only darkness. Even if that black had once been a brilliant silver, the color choice would still have been puzzling, for who would relegate God to a silver ground when others on the page are granted the illusion of gold? For nearly a decade this disjuncture, and the general darkness of those roundels, sat uneasily in my curatorial subconscious. No reason to explore it more deeply presented itself, as the many pilgrims who came to revere the sacred book focused not on the image, but on the Gospel verses that Francis had reputedly read to his companions. After years of constant demand took their toll—as the nineteenth-century leather on the spine began slowly to crumble, and the fifteenth-century sewing began to snap—the book was determined too fragile to open. Aware of its unique spiritual significance to so many, the museum made the rare decision to disassemble the entire manuscript so that it could undergo complete conservation, and in the fall of 2016, the Walters began an intensive project to restore the St. Francis Missal.28

27 The Walters Art Museum is home to, for instance, the dazzling mid-thirteenth-century Conradin Bible (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.152: https://thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManu scripts/html/W152/), and the fourteenth-century antiphonary by Cenni di Francesco di ser Cenni (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.153: https://art.thewalters.org/detail/13576/antiphonary-2/), a masterpiece of gilded illumination. 28 This monumental task was undertaken by Andrew W. Mellon Fellow Cathie Magee under the guidance of Abigail Quandt, Head of Book and Paper Conservation, and with assistance from Glenn Gates, Conservation Scientist, from September 2016 through October 2018. All of the technical

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Fig. 8: God the Father. St. Francis Missal. Assisi, ca. 1200. Baltimore, WAM, W.75, fol. 166v (detail). Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Once disbound, every inch of the manuscript was carefully examined, stabilized, and conserved. The separation of the folios from the binding allowed for more freedom to study them, and provided an opportunity for the abraded black paint to undergo scientific testing for the first time. In the spring of 2018, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) was used to determine conclusively that the remaining black was, indeed, heavily oxidized silver leaf.29 Silver was found within the roundels and lozenges surrounding the Crucifixion image, as well as interspersed within the ornate

discoveries in the missal discussed here were made by my colleagues in conservation. For the most complete overview of that work, see Catherine Magee, “The Conservation of the Saint Francis Missal: Modern Materials Used to Revive a Relic,” in Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 17: Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Seminar Held at the University of Copenhagen, April 11–13, 2018, ed. M. J. Driscoll (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, forthcoming). 29 A ground containing lead white was found under the silver, which would only have been present if silver leaf was being applied.

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interlace of the Vere dignum on fol. 163r. That in and of itself was a revelation. However, another discovery was made that is even more extraordinary, not only for our understanding of this manuscript, but for our knowledge of book illumination techniques. Small traces of a yellow varnish appeared to be present under magnification along with the silver, although this could not be confirmed through technical analysis. While more study must be done before it can be known with absolute certainty, such traces suggest the application of a glaze that would have transformed the metal’s shine from silver . . . to gold. That the artist illuminating the St. Francis Missal could have manipulated silver to create the effect of gold is fascinating. However, it prompts the question: why was gold not used in the first place? It does not necessarily appear to be a case of trying to keep costs down, as valuable ultramarine blue was used throughout the book’s illumination.30 Although Italy did not begin regularly producing its own gold coinage until 1252, Byzantine coins and other imported or recycled objects were sources of gold, as was gold brought in through trade routes from Africa.31 However, even if gold was available in Italy at the time the St. Francis Missal was produced, it is not a given that every artistic endeavor would include it. For some projects gold would have been costprohibitive, while in others its absence may have been an aesthetic choice. Therefore it was not uncommon for painters to seek alternative ways to evoke the color and glow of gold. Orpiment, the rich yellow pigment found throughout the St. Francis Missal, was one substitute that had been used by manuscript artists throughout Europe for centuries, although it did not mimic the shine of true gold. Glazed silver, however, did. Known as argento meccato, a sort of “poor man’s gilding,” this technique involved coating silver leaf with a yellow glaze to give it a golden glow. Umbrian panel painters were using this technique by the thirteenth century, and if it was indeed employed in the manuscript, it would suggest an artist trained in panel painting.32 Since painters took on a variety of jobs, techniques could easily migrate from one project to another, and the artist’s comfort level with using this alternative for gold might have led to the decision to use this less expensive but still effective method in the book. However,

30 Ultramarine was made from lapis lazuli, and as that stone could only be imported from Afghanistan, the pigment was considered more precious than gold throughout the medieval era, and therefore would have been more expensive. For an overview on this valuable pigment see Joyce Plesters, “Ultramarine Blue, Natural and Artificial,” Studies in Conservation 11, no. 2 (1966): 62–91. 31 See Turner, “Surface Effect and Substance.” 32 I would like to extend special thanks to Ada Labriola, whose suggestions and thoughts, especially regarding argento meccato, have been invaluable for helping the Walters team sort out the evidence found in the missal. For discussion of this technique in Italian art see Marco Ciatti, “Considerazioni sull’oreficeria e le altre arti nella seconda metà del Duecento,” in L’Arte a Firenze nell’età di Dante, 1250–1300, ed. Angelo Tartuferi and Marco Scalini (Florence: Giunti Editore, 2004), 156–59, at 157. For the description of argento meccato as “poor man’s gilding,” see Charissa BremerDavid, Catherine Hess, Jeffrey W. Weaver, and Gillian Wilson, Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: Decorative Arts (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 1997), 99.

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although it would have been a technique in the toolbox of some Umbrian painters of this period, I would note that as of the writing of this essay, it is unknown to me if other manuscripts were illuminated using argento meccato.33 Others may certainly exist, with their tarnished silver assumed to have stood on its own, and the original golden glaze worn away and no longer visible. It is a hope that this new investigation into the St. Francis Missal, which is still being actively explored from a conservation viewpoint, might open up an exciting avenue for art historical research as well. Although the impact of this research remains to be seen for the field of manuscript studies at large, this new perspective on how silver could have functioned in the St. Francis Missal itself is transformative. The insight into technique and material resolves the iconographic conundrums inherent in the illumination’s strange coloration, and conversely the art historian’s perspective provides support for the interpretation of the physical evidence put forth by the conservators. The book’s illuminations, so worn and darkened today, would have been far more majestic if they had shimmered with the appearance of ethereal gold. It is impossible to know if the roundels and lozenges framing Christ once bore iconographic imagery painted on top of the now abraded ground, but that need not have been the case—they may have simply glowed from the page like orbs of radiant light. How compelling would this effect have been if the figure of God the Father above the cross peered out at the viewer not from within an inky void, but from the brilliant golden light of Heaven? It is likely that his now missing halo, discussed earlier, was outlined on top of the varnish, therefore encompassing some of the “gold” of the background. This would explain its absence, for the halo’s outline would have disappeared along with the layer of yellow glaze as it wore off over time. If Francis did indeed consult this book, how much stronger might the aura of God’s presence have resonated for him, in his moment of seeking divine guidance, if that is what he saw? It is a fascinating exercise, and a crucially important one, to reimagine and scientifically reconstruct how pages and pigments altered by time once appeared to

33 Preliminary research has yet to find evidence of this method in book production; in Ada Labriola’s extensive research on panel paintings and manuscripts from this period and region, she has found no books in which this technique was used (Ada Labriola, personal correspondence, 2018). The practice of applying yellow glazes over silver might be compared to Zwischgold, or part-gold. This technique involves the layering of thin gold leaf over silver and has been found in Italian manuscripts, the earliest being the Getty’s late twelfth-century Sicilian New Testament (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 83.MA.54 [Ms. Ludwig I.5], http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/ob jects/1341/unknown-maker-new-testament-italian-late-12th-century/); see Turner, “Reflecting a Heavenly Light,” 80–82; and “Surface Effect and Substance.” Zwischgold is not, however, the technique found in the St. Francis Missal: XRF analysis conducted on black areas in both the Vere dignum and in several areas of the Crucifixion, including the roundel with God, identified the strong presence of silver, but no trace of gold.

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the medieval viewer. Mentally stripping away the murky haze that enshrouds their grandeur and symbolism reveals untold histories of these books and their makers. If we as scholars can recognize what has been lost, and restore agency to the illuminators creating these effects, then we stand to gain exhilarating new insights into the sophistication of medieval art.

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Index of Manuscripts * Italicized numbers indicate page numbers of illustrations. Abbeville, BM, MS 4[1] (Abbeville Gospels / Saint-Riquier Gospels) 225, 227, 227, 232–33 Alba Iulia, Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, MS R II 1 (Lorsch Gospels: prologues, canon tables, Matthew, and Mark) 225–27, 226 Amiens, BM, Fonds de Lescalopier, MS 2 346n36 Angers, Archives départementales de la Maine-et-Loire, G 7 354, 355 Angers, Archives départementales de la Maine-et-Loire, H 15 347n40 Angers, BM, MSS 3–4 (2) (Saint-Aubin Bible) 346–47 Angers, BM, MS 123 (115) 348n44 Angers, BM, MS 829 (745) 346n35 Angers, BM, MS 995, t. 1 350, 351 Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, inv. 618 (Mayer van den Bergh Breviary) 298 Athens, National Library of Greece, Cod. 2759 186n24 Autun, BM, Ms. S19 [19bis] (Raganaldus Sacramentary / Marmoutier Sacramentary) 23–25, 24, 25, 26, 30–32, 31 Baltimore, WAM, W.75 (St. Francis Missal) 48, 445, 454–62, 455, 457, 459 Baltimore, WAM, W.152 (Conradin Bible) 458n27 Baltimore, WAM, W.153 458n27 Baltimore, WAM, W.199 (Gossouin of Metz, Image du monde) 443n4 Baltimore, WAM, W.437 (Aussem Hours) 48, 421–42, 442, 424, 427, 428, 433, 435, 442, 443n4 Baltimore, WAM, W.494 (Lace Book of Marie de’ Medici) 443n4, 444 Baltimore, WAM, W.554 205–6, 207 Baltimore, WAM, W.836 155, 157 Bamberg, SB, Msc. Bibl. 22 (Commentaries on the Song of Songs and Daniel) 9, 10–11, 40 Bamberg, SB, Msc. Bibl. 95 (Seeon Pericopes Book) 19–22, 22, 39–40

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-017

Bari, Archivio di San Nicola, MS 3 (81) 375n34 Bari, Biblioteca di San Nicola, sequencer, s.n. 381n57 Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, Cassaforte 3.11 299 Berlin, SB, Ms. Hamilton 114 (Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum) 131–33, 132 Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572a (Birmingham Qur’an) 199, 201 Bologna, Università di Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, ms. 1497 167n2 Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Collection of Hermann Kunst, MS 5 (current whereabouts unknown) 398n9 Bordeaux, Cathédrale Saint-André, Marcadé Collection, Marcadé 65a-f 299 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, 33.686 (Blue Qur’an) 79 Brussels, KBR, MS 1352 257n19 Brussels, KBR, MS 9017 293n29 Brussels, KBR, MSS 9066–9068 293n29 Brussels, KBR, MS 9916-17 269 Brussels, KBR, MS 10777 293n29 Brussels, KBR, MS 10957 299 Brussels, KBR, MSS 11035–11037 (Grandes Heures of Philip the Bold, vol. 2) 414n28 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 91 282–85, 283, 284, 293n30, 299 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 145 285, 286–87, 286, 299 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 441 401n13 Brussels, KBR, MS IV 480 (Book of Hours of Alexander VI / Borgia Hours) 405–9, 406–7 Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 1116 (Qur’an of Amajur) 204–5 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 86 299 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3–1954 (Grandes Heures of Philip the Bold, vol. 1) 414n29 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 1058–1975 62n49

506

Index of Manuscripts

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 20 75n101 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.4 32–35, 33 Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.16.2 (Trinity Apocalypse) 42n70 Cambridge, Trinity Hall, MS 1 (Speculum Augustinianum) 23n35 Cambridge (MA), Houghton Library, MS Lat 395 88n139, 89 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 77 405–9, 408 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 85 287, 288, 299 Chantilly, Bibliothèque du musée Condé, ms. 774 (1632) 269 Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963.256 (Hours of Isabella of Castile) 401–5, 402, 415–16 Clitheroe (Lancashire), Stonyhurst College, Ms. 45 361–63, 365, 376 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 59 260n34 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 87 260n33 Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 143 (Lectionary of Archbishop Everger) 259, 260, 269 Cologne, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, 09/ 68 257n19, 257n24 Cologne, private collection, prayer book, s.n. (prayer book with Holy Tunic souvenirs) 405n16 Cologne, St. Georg, Schatzkammer, s.n. (Gospel book from St. Maria in Lyskirchen) 264 Cologne, Stadtarchiv, W244 (Evangeliary from St. Aposteln, Cologne) 264 Cologne, Stadtarchiv, W312a (St. Pantaleon Gospels) 264 Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, GKS 1605 4° 409n21 Däbrä Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, Ethiopia, Gospel Book of Iyäsus Moʾa, s.n. [EMML 1832] 148, 148, 162–63 Däbrä Libanos, Eritrea, Gädlä Sämaʿǝtat of Däbrä Libanos, s.n. 148–50, 150, 151, 152–53

Däbrä Qwäyäṣa, Ethiopia, Mäṣḥafä säʿatat of Däbrä Qwäyäṣa, s.n. [C1-IV-135] 148, 149 Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Cod. 508 (AE 680) (Mönchengladbach Gospel book) 263 Dijon, BM, MS 2 (Bible of Saint-Bénigne) 263n42 Eichstätt, Diözesanarchiv, Ordinariatsbibliothek, MS Codex B4 (Pontifikale Gundekarianum) 23n34 Ǝnda Abba Gärima, Ethiopia, Gärima Gospels I [C2-IV-30; HMML AG 00001] 140, 143–44 Ǝnda Abba Gärima, Ethiopia, Gärima Gospels III, s.n. [HMML AG 00002] 140, 143–44, 161, 165 Gǝšän Maryam, Ethiopia, Miracles of Mary of Gǝšän Maryam, s.n. 141, 142, 143, 163 Hague, The, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 76 F 2 293n29 Hague, The, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 77 L 60 (D’Oiselet Hours) 393, 394, 398n9, 399–401, 401 Hague, The, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 135 E 25 299 Hildesheim, Dommuseum, DS 18 (Bernward Gospels) 338–39, 338, 340, 343 Hildesheim, Dommuseum, DS 37 (Ratmann Sacramentary) 98 Istanbul, Topkapı Saray Library, H.S. 44/ 32 201n11 Istanbul, Türk ve Islâm Eserleri Müzesi, ŞE 321 (Umayyad Codex of Damascus) 199n2 Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS LXXXVI/31 (Warmund Sacramentary) 353–54 Kairouan, Musée des arts islamiques, R.38 201n11 Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel, Ethiopia, Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel Gospels, s.n. [Ṭānāsee 1] 141, 159–61, 162 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep. I 58a (Leihgabe Leipziger Stadtbibliothek) 257n22 London, BL, Add. MS 17333 (Val-Dieu Apocalypse) 42n70

Index of Manuscripts

London, BL, Add. MS 18852 (Hours of Joanna of Castile) 409n21, 416, 417 London, BL, Add. MS 19738 299 London, BL, Add. MS 35313 (Hours of Joanna of Castile) 434n26 London, BL, Add. MS 45708 265n51 London, BL, Arundel MS 155 (Eadui Psalter) 272 London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D IV (Lindisfarne Gospels) 228, 229 London, BL, Egerton MS 809 258n30, 272n69 London, BL, Harley MS 2889 (Siegburg Lectionary) 46–47, 247–73, 248, 249, 251, 253, 254, 266 London, BL, Yates Thompson MS 4 299 London, Khalili Collection, KFQ13 206, 209 London, Khalili Collection, KFQ14 206 London, Khalili Collection, KFQ65 206, 208 London, Khalili Collection, QUR372 207n29 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MA.54 (Ms. Ludwig I.5) 461n33 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MA.57.3 (Ms. Ludwig I.8, vol. 3) (Marquette Bible) 60, 62, 94–97, 96 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MB.65 (Ms. Ludwig II.1) 63–64, 64 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MB.69 (Ms. Ludwig II.5) 83n155, 84 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MD.73 (Ms. Ludwig IV.1) 73n95, 74 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MF.76 (Ms. Ludwig V.1) 60, 62, 70–71, 72 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MH.88 (Ms. Ludwig VI.5) 100, 101 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MI.90 (Ms. Ludwig VII.1) 75, 76–77 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.101 (Ms. Ludwig IX.5) 93, 94n149, 101 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.110 (Ms. Ludwig IX.14) 98, 99, 103, 104 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.ML.114 (Ms. Ludwig IX.18) 107n175, 109 Los Angeles, JPGM, 83.MM.118 (Ms. Ludwig X.1) 77, 78 Los Angeles, JPGM, 85.ML.27 (Ms. 7) (Hours of Simon de Varie) 105, 106 Los Angeles, JPGM, 87.MS.133 (Ms. 29) 79n109, 80 Los Angeles, JPGM, 88.MP.70 (Ms. 33) (Weltchronik of Jans der Enikel) 83–86, 85

507

Los Angeles, JPGM, 89.ML.35 (Ms. 37) (Prayer Book of Charles the Bold) 280n6 Los Angeles, JPGM, 90.MS.41 (Ms. 39) 99, 100 Los Angeles, JPGM, 91.MS.5 (Ms. 41) 100n163, 102 Los Angeles, JPGM, 91.MS.11.2 (Ms. 42) 60, 62 Los Angeles, JPGM, 92.MS.34 (Ms. 45) 105, 106 Los Angeles, JPGM, 93.ML.6 (Ms. 48) 35–37, 36, 42–44, 45 Los Angeles, JPGM, 94.MB.71 (Ms. 59) (Zeyt’un Gospels) 83n125, 84 Los Angeles, JPGM, 97.MG.21 (Ms. 64) (Stammheim Missal) 60, 62, 98, 99 Los Angeles, JPGM, 2002.23 (Ms. 70) 79–82, 81 Los Angeles, JPGM, 2003.105 (Ms. 79) (Hours of Louis XII) 107, 108 Los Angeles, JPGM, 2008.3 (Ms. 101) 90, 91–92 Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, Cod. 490 (Lucca Mappae clavicula) 26 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Res. 178 299 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Vitr. 26-2 (Madrid Skylitzes) 183–86, 184, 185 Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS 110 (Gospel Book of Svanhild) 268 Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Cod. 470 299 Mönchengladbach, Archiv, MS 9 257n23 Munich, BSB, Clm 835 (Munich Golden Psalter) 6–9, 8, 40 Munich, BSB, Clm 13601 (Uta Codex) 47, 303–32, 304, 306, 307, 308, 309, 314, 315, 318, 339, 340, 343 Munich, BSB, Clm 14000 (Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram / Codex Aureus of Charles the Bald) 5–6, 15, 16, 315, 316, 328, 330–31 Munich, BSB, Clm 14055 257n19, 257n21 Munich, BSB, Clm 14355 257n25 New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, 54.1.2 (Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux) 276n3, 291 New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, 68.174 (Cloisters Apocalypse) 40–42, 41, 43, 451n12 New York, NYPL, Spencer Collection, Ethiopic MS 7 153n41, 154 New York, PML, MS H.7 299 New York, PML, MS M.25 299 New York, PML, MS M.30 299

508

Index of Manuscripts

New York, PML, MS M.33 289, 290 New York, PML, MS M.52 (Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal) 404, 405 New York, PML, MS M.59 299 New York, PML, MS M.67 361–79, 362, 381n61 New York, PML, MS M.285 299 New York, PML, MS M.310 299 New York, PML, MS M.399 (Da Costa Hours) 426, 427 New York, PML, MS M.563 257n23 New York, PML, MS M.710 (Berthold Sacramentary) 18 New York, PML, MS M.712 211n39 New York, PML, MS M.736 (Life and Miracles of St. Edmund) 268n56, 333–34n2 New York, PML, MS M.778 299 New York, PML, MS M.780 258n29 New York, PML, MS M.854 299 Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library, cod. Lat. a. 1 299 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 156142 (Codex Aureus of Echternach) 18, 19 Oviedo, Archivo Capitular de la Catedral de Oviedo, MS 1 (Liber Testamentorum of Oviedo) 25–30, 27, 29 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arab. f.3 202–3, 203–4, 204, 205, 206 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barocci 169 167n2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Liturg. 324 258n32 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 51 398n9 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 219–220 (Hours of Engelbert of Nassau) 396–99, 397, 401, 414–15, 416 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 311 (Hours of Louis Quarré) 399–401, 400, 415 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 374 293n29 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 381 299 Paris, Archives nationales de France, AE II 634 373, 374

Paris, Archives nationales de France, Q1*10991 376, 377 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 114 375n36 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 4790 280n9 Paris, BnF, Gaignières 78 363, 366 Paris, BnF, Ms. arabe 330c (Umayyad Codex of Fustat) 199, 201n14 Paris, BnF, Ms. éth. 10 152, 153 Paris, BnF, Ms. éth. 105 142n12 Paris, BnF, Mss. fr. 2090–2092 (Life of St. Denis) 44–45, 113–37, 114, 116, 121, 135, 136 Paris, BnF, Ms. fr. 6449 293n29 Paris, BnF, Mss. fr. 9198–9199 291–93, 292 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 943 (Sherborne Pontifical / Dunstan Pontifical) 264–65 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 1183 299 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 1435 375n36 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8850 (Gospel Book of SaintMédard de Soissons) 223, 224–25, 224, 229–32, 231, 232, 241, 242 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 8890 361–63, 364, 379–89, 383, 386, 388 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 9380 243 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 9388 (Drogo Gospels) 232, 233 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 9428 (Drogo Sacramentary) 240–41, 240, 242 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 10525 (Saint Louis Psalter) 91 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 13835 (Gesta Sugeri) 38–39 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 13875 (Bernard of Cluny, Ordo cluniacensis) 353n53 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 14410 (Saint-Victor Apocalypse) 42n70 Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. fr. 16251 (Images de la vie du Christ et des saints / Livre de Madame Marie) 126, 127 Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. fr. 16428 (Hours of Philip the Good) 414n29 Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1203 (Godescalc Lectionary) 72–73, 74n99 Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1390 (Vita of St. Albinus) 47, 333–59, 334, 336, 337, 345, 349 Paris, BnF, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 3217 299 Paris, BnF, Ms. suppl. gr. 817 167m2

Index of Manuscripts

Paris, BnF, Ms. suppl. gr. 1286 (Sinope Gospel fragment) 223 Paris, Musée de Cluny, Cl. 22847 370, 371 Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS pal. 165 405–9, 410 Patmos, Library of the Monastery of Saint John, no. 707 186n24 Perth, Kerry Stokes Collection (Rothschild Prayer Book) 434n26 Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E 185 (Lewis Psalter) 94, 95 Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E M 68:12 98, 99 Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Widener 5 275–76, 277, 299 Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Collins Collection, 1945-65-16 (Pembroke Hours) 299 Poitiers, Médiathèque François Mitterrand, Ms. 17 [65] (Sainte-Croix Gospels) 48, 446–56, 447, 448, 449, 450 Princeton, Princeton University Library, Department of Special Collections, Scheide Library, 83.4 (MS Scheide 70) 18–29, 20 Private collection, book of hours, s.n. (Hours of Jean II Nicolaï?) 361–63 Private collection, Gospel book (Ethiopia or Eritrea, second half of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century), s.n. 159, 160 Rossano, Museo Diocesano e del Codex, s.n. (Rossano Gospels / Codex Purpureus Rossanensis) 443 Rouen, BM, MS 3028 (Leber Hours) 409n21 Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque d’Agglomération du Pays de Saint-Omer, MS 764 (Life of St. Wandregisel) 333–34n2 Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Marcel 11 (Umayyad Codex of Fustat) 199, 201n14 Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Marcel 13 (Umayyad Codex of Fustat) 199, 201n14

509

Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Marcel 15 (Umayyad Codex of Fustat) 199, 201n14 San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1134 278, 279, 299 San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 1248 299 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 01-29.2 201n11 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 20-31.1 201n11 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, 20-33.1 199n3, 201n11 Sanʿa, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, Is. 1404 201n14 Sibiu, Muzeul National Brukenthal, Biblioteca Brukenthal, MS 761 (Brukenthal Hours) 410, 411, 419 Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, cod. 204 (Codex Theodosianus) 69–70, 70–71 Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, gr. 339 186n24 St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 83 (Large Hartmut Bible) 12–13, 14 Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A.135 (Stockholm Codex Aureus / Canterbury Codex Aureus) 223 Toronto, Aga Khan Museum, AKM480 77n105 Trier, Domschatz, Hs. 139/110/68 265n51 Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Sign. DG. 1 (Codex Argenteus) 443 Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, MS ABM h13 299 Valenciennes, BM, MS 320 (Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum) 131n41 Valenciennes, BM, MS 500 (Life of St. Amandus) 333–34n2 Vatican, BAV, gr. 1162 186n24 Vatican, BAV, gr. 1605 (Parangelmata Poliorcetica) 46, 167–95, 170, 171, 173, 175, 177, 178, 180, 182, 183, 190, 192 Vatican, BAV, gr. 1613 (Menologion of Basil II) 186, 187 Vatican, BAV, MS Pal. lat. 50 (Lorsch Gospels: Luke and John) 227n11 Vatican, BAV, MS Reg. lat. 465 344n29 Vatican, BAV, MS Reg. lat. 1025 348n44 Vatican, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3225 (Vatican Virgil) 66–67

510

Index of Manuscripts

Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, cod. Lat. I, 99 [2138] (Grimani Breviary) 405n18, 409n20 Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 1800 (Prayer Book of Philip the Good) 414n29 Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 1979 395–96n5 Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Ser. n. 2700 (Antiphonary of St. Peter) 268n56, 269 Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Ser. n. 13240 299

Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Vind. 1857 (Hours of Mary of Burgundy) 438n35 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2° 17, 17 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 287 Extrav. 370n17

Index of Names * Italicized numbers indicate page numbers of illustrations. Abäkäräzun 153 Abba Gärima 148 Abba Ṣǝḥma 148 ʿAbd al-Malik, caliph 208, 215, 216, 217, 218, 222 ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani 216 Adalhard, abbot of Corbie 453n19 Agricola, Georgius 57, 62n48 Al-Hajjaj, governor of Iraq 208, 216, 217, 221 Al-Mahdi, caliph 217, 219 Al-Maʾmun, caliph 217, 222 Al-Muᶜizz ibn Bādīs 75–76 Al-Nawawi 213 Al-Waqidi 213 Alberti, Leon Battista 34, 107, 282n15, 290–91, 425n8 Albinus, bishop of Angers 47, 333–59 Alfonso II, king of Asturias 28–30 Amajur al-Turki, governor of Syria 204 Angilbert 225 Anno II, archbishop of Cologne 137, 249, 256, 257, 258, 267 Anthony, son of Duke Philip the Bold 294 Apollodorus of Damascus 167 Aristotle 54, 59 Arnold of Wied, archbishop of Cologne 269 Arnulf of Carinthia 323, 328n55, 339 Athenaeus of Naucratis 188 Athenaios Mechanikos 191–93 Augustine of Hippo 23n35, 238, 239 Aussem family 421, 423, 429, 436, 439 Aussem, Heinrich von 423n5 Aventinus, Johannes 6 Baldwin II, Latin emperor of Constantinople 361 Barbara, martyr-saint 429 Bärtälomewos 159 Bede 257 Belethus, Joannes 32 Bellini, Giovanni 109 Bellini, Jacopo 109 Bening, Alexander 298n46, 399, 405n18. See also Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian

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Bening, Simon 298n46, 405n18, 426 Berengar of Tours 356 Bernard of Clairvaux 296n39 Bernard of Cluny 353 Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim 338–39, 453n20 Besaleel 234–35 Boethius 321n40 Boileau, Étienne 125, 128, 133 Bonaventure 454 Boniface 238–39n44 Botticelli, Sandro 109 Bourdichon, Jean 35n57, 107, 108 Brihtwold, bishop of Ramsbury 4 Catherine of Alexandria, martyr-saint 410, 423, 428, 429 Cenni di Francesco di ser Cenni 458n27 Cennini, Cennino 81n115, 92, 103–5, 282n12, 429n14, 443 Charlemagne 65, 72, 73, 224, 234, 243, 453 Charles the Bald 6 Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy 287, 398n9 Charles VI, king of France 378 Charles VIII, king of France 369, 387 Childebert III, king of the Franks 372 Christus, Petrus 132 Coëtivy Master 61 Cortese, Cristoforo 98, 99 Courtois, Jean (called Sicille) 280n8, 281n11 Crivelli, Carlo 109 Dado 234n23 Dagobert I, king of France 125–26 Daniel 7–9, 144 Dawit II, emperor of Ethiopia 141, 142, 163 Denis, martyr-saint 113–14, 115–17, 134, 137 Doni, Maddalena 430 Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury 126n27, 264–65 Durandus 380 Dürer, Albrecht 298

512

Index of Names

Edward IV, king of England 294 Einhard 234–35 Eleanor, queen of Castile 68 Eligius, bishop of Noyon-Tournai 125–26, 233, 234, 236, 244, 340 Elmham, Thomas 23n34 Eloi/Eloy. See Eligius Emmeram, bishop of Regensburg 326 Engelbert II, count of Nassau 396, 414–15 Erasmus, martyr-saint 423 Erhard, bishop of Regensburg 305, 313, 318n33, 319n35, 324–32, 339 Eriugena, John Scotus 329 Erpho of Gorze, abbot of Siegburg 256 Ǝsṭifanos of Gwǝndagwǝnde 153 Eyck, Jan van 291 Félibien, Michel 340 Fernando I, king of León 28n43 Filmona 159 Fortunatus, Venantius 333n2, 335, 343–44 Fouquet, Jean 105, 106 Francis of Assisi 48, 454–61 Frederick, archbishop of Cologne 260 Fulbert, bishop of Chartres 312 Gäbrä Mänfäs Qǝddus 163–64 Gaignières, François Roger de 363 Gautier, abbot of Saint-Aubin 344n30 Gérard de Saint-Quentin 380 Gerard of Ugo 454n23 Gerbert, archbishop of Reims (later Pope Sylvester II) 312 Gereon, martyr-saint 423 Germanus, bishop of Auxerre 343 Gilles de Pontoise, abbot of Saint-Denis 114 Giotto 33, 82, 291n27 Giovanni di Paolo 79, 80 Godescalc 72–73 Goes, Hugo van der 298 Gregory of Tours 343–44 Gregory the Great 23n35, 63, 239–40, 423, 435–36, 438, 439–42, 451–52 Gros, Jean 287 Guillaume Le Maire, bishop of Angers 354 Hartwic of St. Emmeram 312 Henri de Vulcop 61 Henry II 9n15, 19–22, 40

Henry of Segusio 5 Herodotus 63 Heron of Byzantium 167–95 Holbein, Hans, the Younger 298 Homer 187–88 Honorius Augustodunensis 357 Hubertus, abbot of Saint-Aubin 344n30 Hugo of St. Victor 257 Ibn ʿAtiyya al-Andalusi 217 Isabella, queen of Castile 415–16 Isabelle of Portugal, wife of Philip the Good 398n9 Isaiah 247, 263, 264, 271 Isidore of Seville 63, 233, 238, 243n55, 451 Iyäsus Moʾa, abbot of Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos 148, 162, 163 Jacobus de Voragine 69n87 James the Apostle 247, 248n2, 271, 395 Jean de Jandun 122 Jeanne-Marie de la Viéville, wife of Anthony, son of Duke Philip the Bold 294 Jehan Mortis 375, 378 Jesse, bishop of Amiens 453n19 Joanna, queen of Castile and Aragon 414, 415–16 John Chrysostom 69n86 John of Garland 123 John of Lancaster, duke of Bedford 370 John of Patmos. See John the Evangelist John the Baptist 264, 368, 369 John the Evangelist 40–42, 247, 269, 271, 458 Judas 290, 382 Komnene, Anna 188–89 Kunibert, bishop of Cologne 423 Kuno, abbot of Siegburg and bishop of Regensburg 256, 257, 269 Lathem, Lieven van 280n6, 293 Le Tavernier, Jean 292, 293 Lebègue, Jean 281, 282 Leontios, emperor of Byzantium 184 Longinus 368, 384 Louis de Gruuthuse 294 Louis IX, king of France 125, 361, 370, 372, 379–81, 385, 387–89 Louis Quarré 399, 415

Index of Names

Louis the Pious 224 Louis XII, king of France 373, 385–87 Macarius 153 Malik ibn Anas 202, 212 Mantegna, Andrea 109 Margaret de Briouze 6n11 Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold 398n9 Marie of Rethel 126 Marmion, Simon 287, 288 Mary Magdalene 32 Mary of Burgundy 438n35 Master of Antiphonal Q of San Giorgio Maggiore 102 Master of Antoine Rolin 289 Master of the David Scenes of the Grimani Breviary 405–10, 406–7, 408, 409, 411, 416, 417 Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian (Maximilian Master) 109, 399–405, 400, 402, 404 Master of the Osservanza 99, 100 Master of the Prayerbook of 1500 405n18 Master of the Soane Hours 405n18 Matthew Paris 380 Matthew the Evangelist 265, 268 Maurice, martyr-saint 252, 262, 267, 271 Maximin, bishop of Trier 32–34 Medici, Piero de’ 104 Michael the Archangel 28, 252, 261, 263, 271, 398 Moses 153, 210, 368 Muhammad 53, 213, 216, 218 Nebuchadnezzar 7–9, 40, 86 Neckam, Alexander 123–24 Nicolaï, Jean II 372n23 Nicolas Gellent, bishop of Angers 354 Odo, king of France 6 Ordoño II, king of León 26 Otbran, abbot of Saint-Aubin 344n30 Otto I 326n48 Otto III 9n15 Pachomius 153 Pacino di Bonaguida 33, 35, 33 Pantaleon, martyr-saint 264, 423

513

Pasti, Matteo de’ 104–5 Paul the Apostle 14, 153, 247, 260, 262, 269, 423 Pauwels, Joos 276 Pelayo, bishop of Oviedo 25–26, 30 Peter the Apostle 247, 260, 264, 269, 271, 423 Petit, Étienne II 369–70, 372, 375, 378 Petrus de St. Audemar 100 Phileas, bishop of Thmuis 148 Philip IV the Fair (Philippe le Bel), king of France 113–14, 118, 129–30, 372, 373 Philip the Fair, duke of Burgundy 290, 414–15, 16 Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy 275, 287, 290, 291–95, 398, 414, 415n31 Philip V, king of France 114 Philo of Byzantium 193–94 Pichore, Jean 370n17 Pisanello 102 Pliny the Elder 63, 188n27 Plutarch 188 Prophet Muhammad. See Muhammad Prudentius 235, 312 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 39n66, 168, 329, 429n15 Pucelle, Jean 276n3, 291 Raganaldus, abbot of Marmoutier 23 Ramwold, abbot of St. Emmeram 311n13 Raphael 430, 431 Richard of Saint-Victor 37–38 Roger II, king of Sicily 184n23 Roger of Helmarshausen 248, 249, 263n40 Rupert of Deutz 257, 269, 356–57 Saint Louis. See Louis IX Sancha, queen of León 28n43 Schreier, Ulrich 99, 104 Severinus, bishop of Cologne 423 Sicardus of Cremona 32 Sicille. See Courtois, Jean Skylitzes, John 183 Solomon 53, 139–40 Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis 38–40, 233n19, 357, 437n31 Svanhild, abbess of Essen 268 Theodulf of Orléans 243, 246n66 Theophilus Presbyter 57, 59, 62, 68, 75, 82, 104–5, 123, 131n38, 252, 255–56, 270, 273, 429n14

514

Index of Names

Thomas Aquinas 86–87 Thomas Becket 68, 408 Thomas of Cantimpré 131 T‘oros Roslin 83, 84 Trubert, Georges 35, 36, 42–44, 45 Tura, Cosmè 109 Uta, abbess of Niedermünster 303–32 ʿUthman ibn Affan, caliph 201, 208, 216 Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy 396–99, 397, 414 Virgil 312

Virgin Mary 19–22, 23n34, 28, 40, 42–44, 105, 141–42, 155n44, 264, 305, 323–24, 326, 369, 374–75, 396, 401n13, 405n16, 410, 419, 423, 458 Vrelant, Willem 277, 285, 286, 293, 443n4 Warmund, bishop of Ivrea 353 William of Malmesbury 4n2 William of Volpiano 256, 265 Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg 325 Wolvinus 234 Zechariah 148, 152–53, 158n48

Index of Places * Italicized numbers indicate page numbers of illustrations. Aachen 73, 326n50, 327, 328, 398, 401, 405, 413, 416 Afghanistan 460n30 Aksumite Empire 139–44, 145n23 Alexandria 143 Amalfi 67 Amba Gǝšän Maryam, church of 141 Anatolia 63 Andalusia 67 Anjou 334 Aschaffenburg 5 Asse 405, 413 Bamberg Cathedral 9n15, 19 Bavaria 75n101, 83–84, 311 Beth Shean 210 Bohemia 68 Boulogne-sur-Mer 399, 401, 405, 408, 410, 413 Bourges 369, 370n17, 373 Brabant 131 Bruges 282, 286, 287, 290, 393, 395, 414 Burgundy 47–48, 275–78, 290–98, 398n9, 414–16, 420, 423n6 Byzantium 17n28, 18–19, 21, 37n59, 44, 46, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69n86, 72, 79–82, 104, 128, 141n9, 167–95, 218, 238n40, 249, 265, 268, 269, 272, 328n55, 341n17, 384n65, 446, 460 Cairo 67 Canterbury 68, 272, 408 Cluny 353–54 Cologne 83, 247–49, 260, 270, 327, 399, 413, 421, 423 Conques 341 Constantinople 69, 184, 361, 384 Craon 343 Däbrä Libanos, monastery of 148 Damascus 199 Deutz 256, 264 Dome of the Rock 200, 214, 222 Douai 416

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Egypt 66, 67, 206, 210, 211, 219, 220 Eichstätt 311 Ǝnda Abba Gärima, monastery of 140, 143 England 6, 65, 82, 87, 123, 126n27, 264, 267–68, 272, 294, 380 Eritrea. See Ethiopia and Eritrea Ethiopia and Eritrea 46, 139–65 Flanders 47–48, 105, 107, 126, 275–99, 393–420, 421n3, 423n6, 427, 434n26, 438, 442n49, 443n4 Florence 32, 68, 80, 104, 128, 129 France 6, 30, 82, 83, 87, 97, 103, 105, 113–37, 275n2, 276n3, 296–97n40, 297n42, 297n43, 340, 341n18, 361–90, 401, 414, 415, 443n4 Fruttuaria 256, 265, 269 Fustat 199 Genoa 67, 68, 129 Germany 65, 82–84, 137, 252, 268n56, 269, 297n42, 341, 384, 413–14, 415, 420, 421, 423n6, 436n27, 439n48, 443n4 Ghana 67, 129 Gheel (Geel) 399 Ghent 282, 287, 290, 393, 395, 405, 414 Gistel 398 Gladbach Abbey 256, 257, 263 Glastonbury Abbey 4 Gold Coast of Africa 129 Grafschaft 256 Grand Pont, Paris 118, 120–23, 125, 128–29 Great Mosque of Damascus 199–200, 222 Great St. Martin, Cologne 257 Hagia Sophia 446 Hainaut 290 Halle 401, 405, 408, 413 Harz Mountains 58 Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, monastery of 148, 162 Hildesheim 339 Hirsau 258, 272 Holy Roman Empire 258, 264, 384 Hungary 68

516

Index of Places

India 59n40 Indian Ocean 145 Ionia 63 Ireland 318 Italy 48, 66, 67, 69n86, 81n115, 82, 83, 97, 100n161, 104, 107, 109, 122n15, 128, 129, 130, 249, 256, 265, 269n67, 291n27, 425n8, 458, 460, 461n33 Jordan 212 Kǝbran Gäbrǝʾel 141 Khirbat al-Mafjar 212 León Cathedral 28n43 Liège 260 Loire valley 369, 370n17, 373 London 83 Lydia 63 Maghreb 67, 129 Mali 129 Mediterranean 65–68, 129, 143, 145 Meuse River valley 263, 269, 270 Milan 83 Mönchengladbach. See Gladbach Abbey Mons 290 Netherlands 105n173, 295n38, 412–13n25, 421n3, 423n6 Niedermünster, Regensburg 303–32, 343 Niger delta 67 Nonnenwerth 256 Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris 118, 264 Nubia 67 Oviedo 25–30 Palais de la Cité, Paris 118, 122, 361–90 Paris 5, 45–46, 83, 94, 113–37, 361–90 Petit Pont, Paris 118, 120, 123 Poitou 334 Portugal 129, 415n32 Provence 35 Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi 212 Qusayr ʿAmra 212, 213, 214

Reims 328 Rhine-Meuse region 58, 73–74 Rhineland 46, 68, 248–49, 267, 269 Rome 55, 66, 414n28, 446 Saʿad 212 Saalfeld 256 Saint-Aubin, Angers 47, 333–59 Saint-Denis 6, 38–39, 113–14, 340, 342, 357 Saint-Laurent, abbey of 269 Saint-Mars-sur-la-Futaie 340 Saint-Nicholas-de-Port, Lorraine 401, 405 Saint-Riquier Abbey 225, 232, 234 Saint-Sylvain in Ahun 350 Sainte-Chapelle, Paris 47, 118, 361–90 Salzburg 269 Samarra 212, 219 San Nicolò di Piazza, Assisi 454 San Paolo fuori le Mura 235 Sanʿa 199 Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna 265, 270 Santa Pudenziana, Rome 446 Santiago de Compostela 395n4, 410 Sasanian Empire 328n54 Saxony 58 Schwarzrheindorf 269 Seeon 19n33 s’Gravenzande 401 Sicily 67, 184n23 Sieg River 256 Siegburg 247–73 Sijilmasa 67 Slovakia 68 Solnhofen Abbey 5 Spain 131n38, 194, 415 St. Adrian, Geraardsbergen 399, 401, 405, 410, 413 St. Aposteln, Cologne 264 St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury 23n35 St. Benedict, Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire 350 St. Cornelius, Ninove 399 St. Emmeram, Regensburg 257, 303, 311, 312, 321, 323, 328, 339 St. Gall 14 St. George in Reichenau-Oberzell 265, 268, 270 St. Hubert-en-Ardenne, abbey of 399 St. Josse-sur-Mer (Judoc/Jodocus) 399, 408, 413

Index of Places

St. Maria in Lyskirchen 264 St. Martin, Tours 350 St. Maximin, Trier 256, 258, 272 St. Pantaleon, Cologne 256 St. Peter, Salzburg 258 St. Servatius, Maastricht 399, 405, 413 St. Trond, abbey of 269 sub-Saharan Africa 67, 79, 131, 460 Syria 66, 204, 210, 213

Umbria 460–61 University of Oxford 87 University of Paris 87

Tholey Abbey 5 Tintillac, abbey of 343 Tours 17, 23, 24n38, 30 Tunis 67

Yaʿmun 212

Venice 104, 128 Wavre 408 West Africa 67, 68, 129 Wilsnack 413

517

Subject Index * Italicized numbers indicate page numbers of illustrations. “A of Charlemagne” 341 acolyte 23–25, 245, 440 Acts of the Apostles 252 Ada School 223–25, 229, 234, 236, 239, 242, 245 Adoration of the Magi 35–37, 42, 425n9 aes 7, 58, 59. See also bronze African gold. See under gold, types of Agnus Dei. See Lamb of God Aksumite coinage. See under coinage, types of Aksumite period 139, 143–44, 145n23, 148n34 alabaster 275, 291 All Souls Jewel 434n25 alluvial gold. See under gold, types of Almoravid coinage. See under coinage, types of al-naẓar 54 al-taʿashīr 208, 217 altar cross. See under crosses, types of altar frontals. See under liturgical objects, types of Altar of Sant’Ambrogio 229, 230, 234 Altar of the Cardinal Virtues (Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin). See under portable altars altar tablets. See under liturgical objects, types of alum 72, 103 amber 451 anagogy 37–39, 56, 110, 343, 357. See also vision Andachtsbild 371 anfusi. See under coinage, denominations of Anglo-Saxon coinage. See under coinage, types of anklets. See under jewelry, types of Annunciation diptych (Jan van Eyck) 291 Annunciation, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Annunciation, s’Gravenzande. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of antimony 61 Apocalypse. See Revelation, Book of Apologia (of Bernard of Clairvaux) 296n39

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110637526-020

aquamanile. See under liturgical objects, types of Arabian gold. See under gold, types of Arca Santa 30 argento meccato. See under silver media, types of argyrography 5, 61, 233, 235 Ark of the Covenant 235, 236 arma Christi 47, 290, 363, 380–85, 389–90, 440 armor, depictions of 61, 100, 181, 184, 185, 282, 421, 428n11. See also swords, depictions of Arnulf Ciborium 322, 323, 328, 339 artes mechanicae 87 artifex 137 Ascension 38, 144 assaying 58, 124 astrology 54, 55 auricalco. See aurichalcum aurichalcum 40n68, 58, 59. See also brass aurifabri 123 auro arenario (“sand gold”). See gold, types of: alluvial gold aurora 243 aurum Bizantium (“Byzantine gold”). See under gold, types of aurum molitum (“gold dust”). See under gold, types of aurum musicum. See mosaic gold aurum. See under gold, types of azure 5 azurite blue 91 Belopoeica 193–94 Benedictine Rule 311, 326 Bernward Candlesticks (Hildesheim) 453n20 bezel settings 431–32. See also collet settings; gemstone settings; quatrefoil settings binding clasp 286–87, 286 bindings. See also book box – chemise 16 – leather 423, 458 – textile 15–16, 21–22, 22, 319

520

Subject Index

– treasure 5, 14, 15, 16, 21–22, 23, 143–44, 161, 202, 229, 232, 233, 234, 243, 262, 263, 314–15, 316, 321, 323, 339 bismallah 216 bismuth 61 bole 34, 88–92 book box 21, 47, 303–21, 304, 312, 314, 315, 318, 323, 324, 332 Book of Life 323 “Book of the Staff of the Scribes” (Umdat alkuttāb wa’uddat dhawī al-albāb) 75–76 bow drill 179, 180–81 bracelets. See under jewelry, types of bracteate badges 394, 395, 398, 401, 403, 410, 413. See also pilgrim’s badges (in general) brass 7n12, 14, 40, 58–59, 64, 72, 73–74, 75, 83, 84, 109, 110, 124, 276, 451n12. See also aurichalcum; granular brass; powdered brass; shell brass brass ink 58, 73–74, 124 bread stamps 218–19, 220 bronze 7, 9, 38, 59, 107, 131, 156, 172, 181, 184, 186, 189, 193, 194, 243n55, 340, 341n18, 342, 342 See also aes brooches. See under jewelry, types of Burning Bush 44 Byzantine processional crosses. See under crosses, types of Byzantine silks. See under silks calamina 58, 59 calaverite 56 calcium 91, 95 caltrops 173–74, 182, 186 camaïeu d’or 42, 107 cameos. See under jewelry, types of candlesticks. See under liturgical objects Canon of the Mass 30–32 canon tables 18–19, 155, 223, 225, 242, 310, 346, 453n18 carbon black 91 Cardinal Virtues 260, 323, 324n43 Carolingian coinage. See under coinage, types of Castilian coinage. See under coinage, types of casting 38, 56, 58, 126, 128, 137, 193, 236, 340, 341, 342, 425, 433 Celestial Hierarchy 329 cementation 59, 63n52

cephalophoric saint 113 chains of the Flagellation. See under relics chalices. See under liturgical objects, types of Chambre des comptes 368, 369, 372–73, 374, 376, 379, 389 champlevé enamel 46, 247–48, 250, 262, 263, 268, 270, 272, 276n3, 434. See also enamel (unspecified); cloisonné enamel chancel screen. See choir screen chandeliers. See under liturgical objects, types of chasing 425, 433–34, 436 chasuble. See under liturgical vestments, types of chemise bindings. See under bindings chlorine 62 choir screen 348, 350, 376, 440 Christ in Majesty 73, 268, 272, 313, 313–15, 319–20, 323, 346, 446–53 chrysography (chrysographia) 5, 53, 69–70, 71, 72–75, 77–79, 105, 223, 232, 235, 236, 238n44, 242, 244–45 ciborium. See under liturgical objects, types of cipharii 123 Cistercian glass 296 cloisonné enamel 18–19, 21, 230, 231, 272, 304, 314, 315, 317, 321, 434. See also enamel (unspecified); champlevé enamel Cluniac custom 269 coat of arms. See heraldry codex aureus 6, 69, 328 coin hoards 65 coinage, denominations of – anfusi 128 – denier 65, 128 – denier d’or à la masse 129, 130 – dinar 65, 67, 128–29, 202, 215–16, 217 – dirham 202, 215–16, 217, 219 – ducat 68, 128 – florin 68, 128 – hyperperon 128 – mancus 65 – penny 65 – solidus 66, 67, 128 – tari 128 – tremissis 65, 66, 67 coinage, types of – Aksumite 148n34 – Almoravid 67

Subject Index

– Anglo-Saxon 65 – Byzantine 65, 67, 68, 128, 460 – Carolingian 65, 73 – Castilian 128 – Fatimid 67 – Florentine 68, 128, 129 – French 128 – English 65 – Gallo-Roman 128 – Genoese 68, 129 – Islamic 65, 67, 128–29, 200, 202, 215–17 – Merovingian 65, 67 – Roman 128 – south Italian 128, 460 – Venetian 128 collet settings 229, 231. See also bezel settings; gemstone settings; quatrefoil settings colobium 327, 446 colophon 72–73, 114n4, 131, 454 colossus of Nebuchadnezzar 7–9, 35, 40, 163n64 Common of Saints 252, 258, 260 Companions of the Prophet 208 Compositiones variae 66 Constantinople, treasury of the imperial chapel of. See under treasuries (specific collections) contre jour effects 107 copper 56, 57, 58–59, 63, 64, 64, 65, 67, 72, 73, 74, 74, 75, 77, 91, 96, 97, 122, 124, 126, 129, 131, 132, 188, 188n27, 235n27, 250, 261, 272, 341, 363, 403, 431. See also cuprum copper green 91 Coptic leatherwork 66 corporal 440 corporeal vision. See under vision corporeitas 54 Court School of Charlemagne. See Ada School Court School of Charles the Bald 6 crosiers. See under liturgical objects, types of cross crosslet. See under crosses, types of cross of St. Eligius 340 cross pattée. See under crosses, types of cross quadrate. See under crosses, types of crosses, types of – altar cross 32, 139, 325, 327 – Byzantine processional crosses 341n17

521

– cross crosslet 148 – cross pattée 148 – cross quadrate 148 – cross-staff 148–49, 162 – Ethiopian crosses 139–65, 156 – Greek cross 28, 148 – jeweled cross 161, 442 – Lalibäla type 154–55, 164 – monumental cross 327, 376 – processional crosses 28, 154–55, 156, 337, 340–41, 340, 342, 352, 353, 354, 357 cross-staff. See under crosses, types of crown 35, 42, 128, 129, 184, 287, 321, 323, 324n43, 327, 379n50, 380n55, 381 Crown of Thorns. See under relics Crucifixion 144, 146n28, 161, 255, 373, 423, 429, 439, 440, 456, 458–60, 461n33. See also Symbolic Crucifixion Cruz de la Victoria 28 Cruz de los Ángeles 28 cupellation 61 cuprum 58, 59. See also copper curtain silks 16–18, 17, 320n38 Daniel between the Lions 144 Daniel, Book of 7, 9, 86 De diversis artibus 57, 59, 62, 75, 82, 104, 105, 123, 252, 255, 256 De divinis officiis 257 De mystica theologia 168 De nominibus utensilium 123 De pictura 34, 107, 290, 425n8 De re metallica 57 De tribus diebus 257 De victoria verbi Dei 257 deargentatus 5 deauratus / deauravit 5, 236 Della pittura. See De pictura denier d’or à la masse. See under coinage, denominations of denier. See under coinage, denominations of diamonds 430n16, 432 Dictionary (of John of Garland) 123 Dinant marble 291 dinar. See under coinage, denominations of Dionysian light metaphysics 39, 429n15 dirham. See under coinage, denominations of Divine Names 429n15 dog’s tooth 88

522

Subject Index

Dome of the Rock mosaics. See under mosaics, specific Doubting Thomas 239–42 ducat. See under coinage, denominations of ductus 252, 255 earrings. See under jewelry, types of Easter candle 24–25 Ecclesia 325, 327. See also Synagoga ecclesiastical orders 23–25 egg white 62 Eilbertus of Cologne, portable altar of. See under portable altars Einhard Reliquary 234–35 electrum 48, 63–64, 82, 131, 451–53 electrum signet ring (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 453n20 emeralds 123, 425n9, 430, 432 en pointillé 97 enamel 14, 53, 100, 223, 247, 276n3, 340, 425, 430, 434–35. See also champlevé enamel; cloisonné enamel Enger Reliquary 229, 231 English coinage. See under coinage, types of Entry into Jerusalem 159 Epiphany. See Adoration of the Magi Epistles 252, 258 Ethiopian crosses. See under crosses, types of Eucharist 24, 28, 164, 246n66, 329, 350n52, 356–57, 440–41 Eusebian Apparatus 155 extramission 237–38 Ezekiel, Book of 451–52, 453 faceted gemstones 432–33, 432, 438 Fatimid coinage. See under coinage, types of faulting 81, 82. See also splits Feast of the Pheasant 293–94 fibulae. See under jewelry, types of filigree 15, 16, 210, 211, 232, 304, 314, 315, 316, 322, 436 fish glue 77 Flagellation of Christ 369, 382 florin. See under coinage, denominations of flywhisk. See under liturgical objects, types of Fountain of Life 242n53 four modes of vision. See under vision

Gallo-Roman coinage. See under coinage, types of garnet 210, 212 gemstone settings 15, 16, 229–32, 231, 233, 263, 316, 425, 430–32, 431, 437n30, 438. See also bezel settings; collet settings; quatrefoil settings Genoese coinage. See under coinage, types of Geodesia 168n7 Gero Cross 327 Ghent-Bruges school 287, 290, 295n38, 393–95, 405 gilding, specific types of – matte gilding 88n136 – mordant gilding 79, 86, 88n136, 92–97, 134 – oil gilding 88n135, 92 – opus aureolum 131 – ormolu 443 – poliment gilding 88n137 – water gilding 88n135 gold glass 66 gold glass bowl (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 66n69 gold ground 33n53, 35, 98, 248, 287, 291, 431, 443 gold leaf. See under gold media, types of gold media, types of – gold leaf 34, 35, 37, 44, 46, 51, 52, 55, 62, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71–72, 75–100, 86, 88–97, 103, 109, 200, 203n18, 207, 212, 222, 235, 245n65, 281, 282, 428, 429, 431, 443, 450, 461n33 – granular gold 9, 37, 44, 65, 69–75, 79, 104, 105, 126, 128, 133–34, 141–42, 235, 245n65, 255, 449, 450 – shell gold 35, 37, 44, 70–71, 94, 103–9, 281, 290, 427, 428n11, 429, 434, 441, 442, 449 gold of the land of Havilah. See under gold, types of gold tesserae 66 gold, karats of 56, 57–58, 66, 68, 129, 431 gold, tarnish of 57–58, 63 gold, translucency of 88–92, 235 gold, types of – African gold 67, 68, 79, 129, 460 – alluvial gold 56, 68, 128, 131n38 – Arabian gold 57, 131

Subject Index

– aurum 38–39, 69n87, 233, 243 – aurum Bizantium 66 – aurum molitum 131 – gold of the land of Havilah 131n38 – Nubian gold 67 – Spanish gold 131n38 – sub-Saharan gold 67, 79, 129 – West African gold 67, 68, 129 – white gold (lefkos crysόs) 63 goldbeaters’ guild. See under guilds goldbeating 66, 69, 68n83, 82, 83, 133–34, 235. See also guilds: goldbeaters’ guild golden calf 236 goldsmiths 44, 46, 100, 113–37, 233, 234–35, 248, 262, 270, 321, 425, 434. See also metalsmiths goldsmiths’ guild. See under guilds gold-wrapped threads 66–67, 79, 82–83, 278, 280n6 Gorze Reform 256, 311n13 granare 97 Grande Châsse of the Sainte-Chapelle 363, 366, 367, 369n13, 370–71, 374, 375, 376, 378–79, 380 granular brass 73–74 granular gold. See under gold media, types of granular silver. See under silver media, types of granulation 232, 425, 436 gray-gold grisaille. See under grisaille Great Mosque of Damascus mosaics. See under mosaics, specific Greek cross. See under crosses, types of green earth 91 Gregorian Reform 335 grisaille – gray-gold grisaille 47, 278–99 – grisaille 107, 275–99 – grisaille glass 47, 278, 290, 295–98, 296 – semi-grisaille 276n3, 278, 285 grounds for metal leaf 88–92 guilds – goldbeaters’ guild 68n83, 133 – goldsmiths’ guild 128 – guilds (other) 421n2 – painters’ guild 80 gum Arabic 141, 142n12 gypsum 91

523

hā 203, 205, 206, 222 hadith 212–13, 216, 218 half-gold. See Zwischgold halo 18–19, 21, 26, 33, 34, 35, 117, 126, 142, 161, 162, 163, 257, 271, 285, 287, 314, 327, 339, 450, 458, 461 Hand of God 134, 305, 321–23, 324, 324n43 hare’s foot 124 headbands. See under jewelry, types of Heavenly Jerusalem 3, 15, 40–42, 53, 324 hematite 88 Henry of Werl, portable altar of. See under portable altars heraldry 278–80, 369, 370, 378, 423, 427, 428, 429 Heribert Shrine 264 Hijazi script 201 Hildesheim treasury. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections) Historia Ecclesiastica 257–58 Hofschule. See Ada School Holy Cross at Asse. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Holy Spirit, gifts of the 247, 271, 273 Holy Tunic of Aachen, pilgrim’s badge of the. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Holy Women at the Tomb. See Three Marys at the Tomb Homilies on Ezekiel (Gregory the Great) 451–52 hyperperon. See under coinage, denominations of idol of Nebuchadnezzar 7, 83–86 Iliad 187 illuminare 4–5 imago pietatis. See Man of Sorrows imitatio Christi 134 In Danielem (Jerome) 7–9 Incarnation 53, 313, 323, 324, 332 indigo 91 indulgences 380, 440n40 Infancy cycle 395 intromission 237–38 Irish book shrines. See under liturgical objects, types of iron 7, 9, 46, 61, 77, 90, 91, 97, 98, 123, 124, 131, 132, 162–63, 169, 172, 173, 174, 176, 179, 180–83, 186, 187–95, 342, 369, 436n27

524

Subject Index

iron oxide 77 iron, cold forging of 172, 179, 187–95 iron, tempering of 182, 187–95 iron-gall ink 77 Islamic brass candlestick (LACMA) 83, 84 Islamic coinage. See under coinage, types of ivory 14, 46, 77n77, 129, 229, 233, 265, 266, 276n3, 290, 317, 439n38 jasper 123 Jesus Washing the Feet of His Disciples 159, 382 jeweled cross. See under crosses, types of jewelry (in general) 35, 46, 47, 126, 128, 200, 210–15, 217–18, 221, 278, 395, 396n7, 421, 423n6, 425–27, 430–42 jewelry, types of – anklets 212 – bracelets 210, 212–13 – brooches 123, 137, 430 – cameos 395, 405n17, 419n42 – earrings 210–12, 211, 213, 214 – fibulae 223 – headbands 212 – necklaces 123, 212, 213, 214, 434n25 – pendants 430, 431–32, 432, 434 – rings 123, 132, 202, 212, 213, 408 – rosaries 419n42 – signet rings 202, 212, 217–21, 453n20 John the Baptist, relics of. See under relics John, Book of 239–42 joining 425 Judas, silver coins of 290, 382 Justice, personification of 263 Kashf al-asrār al-ᶜilmīya bidār al-darb alMisrīya (“Revelation of the operational secrets of the Egyptian mint”) 54 Knights Templar 130 Kufic script 77 laisa (pl. laisai) 172–73 Lalibäla type. See under crosses, types of Lamb of God 329, 408 lance (of Longinus). See under relics lapis lazuli blue 115, 280, 460n30 Last Supper 313, 382

Le blason des couleurs en armes, livrées et devises 280n8 lead 59, 61, 97, 131, 181, 184–86, 188n27, 218, 219, 219, 290, 297, 398n9 lead white 91, 459n29 leather bindings. See under bindings Legend of the Three Companions 454 Legenda Aurea 69n87 Leo IV mosaic (Hagia Sophia). See under mosaics, specific leprosy 131 Leyden Papyrus 69n86 Liber de natura rerum 131–32 libraries (specific collections) – Saint-Aubin 347 – Siegburg 256–57 – St. Emmeram 312 liturgical objects, types of. See also bindings; book box; crosses, types of; portable altars; scepters; tablet reliquaries – altar frontals 229, 230, 234, 245 – altar tablets 163n65 – aquamanile 159 – candlesticks 24–25, 40–42, 245 (candelabrum), 337, 339, 342, 342, 353, 354, 435, 436, 453n20 – censers 46, 139, 152–53, 158n48, 232, 337, 341, 341, 342, 352, 353, 356, 357, 435, 436 – chalices 15, 19, 22–23, 24, 26, 28, 32, 34, 35, 46, 117, 123, 140, 158n48, 164, 225, 232, 339, 357, 425, 435, 436, 440 – chandelier 163, 339 – ciborium 28, 322, 323, 328, 339, 357, 425 – crosiers 26, 126, 153–54, 339, 352, 359, 435, 436 – ewers 24, 140 – flywhisk 153 – Irish book shrines 317, 318 – liturgical spoon 164 – patens 28, 32, 163, 339, 357 – processional staff 435, 436 – reliquaries (in general) 46, 126, 128, 225, 234, 235, 236, 237, 243, 245, 246, 275, 278, 285, 315–20, 321, 368, 405, 408 – votive crowns 18 liturgical spoon. See under liturgical objects, types of liturgical vestments (in general) 15, 158, 164, 339, 344, 355, 359

Subject Index

liturgical vestments, types of – chasuble 34, 355 – miter 126, 408, 419 – orphrey 34 – pallium 4, 446, 449, 450, 452 – parura 34 – rationale 329–32 – stole (stola) 126, 327, 339 – tunic 34, 339, 353, 355 Lives (of Plutarch) 188 Livre des métiers 125, 133 Lothar Cross 327, 340 lumen (pl. lumina) 37, 38–39 lux divina 429 magister phaber 234 Maiestas Domini. See Christ in Majesty Man of Sorrows 382, 385, 438. See also Mass of St. Gregory mancus. See under coinage, denominations of Mandylion. See under relics. See also relics: veil of Veronica Mappae clavicula 72, 75, 235 Mary at Wavre. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Mass for the Crown of Thorns 376–78, 382–84 Mass for the Holy Relics 375–78, 385 Mass of Saint Giles (Master of the Mass of St. Giles) 340 Mass of St. Gregory 435–36, 438, 439–41, 441–42 matte gilding. See under gilding, specific types of Matthew, Book of 290, 329 meditatio 305 memoria 305, 419n41 menorah 66n69 mercury 57, 72, 103 Merovingian coinage. See under coinage, types of metalsmiths / metalworkers 126, 131–32, 181, 187, 425, 430. See also goldsmiths microarchitecture 15, 436 milk of the Virgin. See under relics milled gold. See gold media, types of: shell gold mining 68, 73

525

minting 54, 56, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68, 79, 122, 126, 129–30, 216 Miracula S. Albini 344 Miraculous Host at Wilsnack. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Missal of St. Francis. See under relics miter. See under liturgical vestments, types of money changer 113, 117, 120, 122, 128–29, 133, 137 monumental cross. See under crosses, types of mordant gilding. See under gilding, specific types of mordente 92 Mors, personification of 327 mosaic gold 103, 104, 109 mosaics (in general) 66, 202, 244, 255, 265 mosaics, specific – Dome of the Rock 200, 214, 215, 222 – Great Mosque of Damascus 199–200, 202, 222 – Leo IV mosaic (Hagia Sophia) 446 – Santa Pudenziana apse mosaic 446 – Sant’Apollinare Nuovo 265 motif punch 98–100 muṣḥaf (pl. maṣāḥif) 46, 53–54, 199–222 Mystical Mass of St. Erhard 305, 313, 318n33, 319n35, 324–32, 339 Natural History 188n27 necklace, gold and enamel (Cleveland Museum of Art) 434n25 necklaces. See under jewelry, types of Necrologium Gladbacense 257 needle holes (in parchment) 18, 398, 410, 413 Neoplatonic philosophy 39, 87, 114n3, 168, 437n31 Niedermünster treasury, Regensburg. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections) niello 62, 262 nimbus. See halo nitric acid 57 Notre-Dame at Boulogne-sur-Mer. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Notre-Dame at Halle. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Nubian gold. See under gold, types of

526

Subject Index

oil gilding. See under gilding, specific types of On Machines 191–93 On Painting. See De pictura openwork 211, 337, 341, 436 opus aureolum. See under gilding, specific types of or de Milan (oro di Milano, oro mezzano). See Zwischgold or de moitié (oro di metà). See Zwischgold or mouler. See gold media, types of: shell gold Order of the Golden Fleece 414–15 Ordo cluniacensis 353 Ordo in agenda mortuorum 353–54 orichalco. See aurichalcum ormolu. See under gilding, specific types of oro masinato. See gold media, types of: shell gold orphrey. See under liturgical vestments, types of orpiment yellow 62, 72, 91, 161n60, 458, 460 ostiarius 23–24 Oviedo treasury. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections) oxidation. See silver: tarnish and oxidation of painters’ guild. See under guilds palea 131 pallium. See under liturgical vestments, types of paragone 291n27 Parangelmata Poliorcetica 167–95 part-gold. See Zwischgold parting 56–57, 62 parura. See under liturgical vestments, types of Passion 38, 255, 290, 363, 410. See also arma christi Passion relics. See under relics patens. See under liturgical objects, types of pattern books 399n11, 420, 433 pearls 15, 16, 42, 123, 214, 316, 317, 322, 369, 395, 408, 425n9, 430, 434 pendant (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen) 431–32, 432 pendants. See under jewelry, types of penny. See under coinage, denominations of perspectiva 54, 87 pewter 122 phôtismos 53, 72

Physiologus 312 pilgrim ampullae 419n40 pilgrim’s badges (in general) 15, 47–48, 393–420, 394, 401, 403 pilgrim’s badges, specific types of – Annunciation 410 – Annunciation, s’Gravenzande 401 – Holy Cross at Asse 405, 413 – Holy Tunic of Aachen 398, 399–400, 405, 413, 416 – Mary at Wavre 408 – Miraculous Host at Wilsnack 413 – Notre-Dame at Boulogne-sur-Mer 399, 401, 405, 408, 410, 413 – Notre-Dame at Halle 401, 405, 408, 413 – Saint-Nicholas-de-Port in Lorraine 401, 405 – St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen 399, 405, 410, 413 – St. Catherine 410 – St. Cornelius at Ninove 399 – St. Dymphna at Gheel 399 – St. George 410 – St. Godelieve at Gistel 398 – St. Hubert 399 – St. Josse-sur-Mer 399, 408, 413 – St. Maurontius of Douai 416 – St. Michael 398 – St. Servatius at Maastricht 399, 405, 413 – St. Veronica 398 – Thomas Becket at Canterbury 408 – Three Kings at Cologne 399, 410, 413 – Virgin and Child 410 pilgrimage 48, 343, 344, 350, 355, 393–420, 456 placer gold. See gold, types of: alluvial gold pneuma 74 poliment gilding. See under gilding, specific types of polychrome wood sculpture 82n120, 88n135, 294n36 polyfocal perspective 97–98 porphyry 18, 21, 322 portable altar of St. Gregorius. See under portable altars portable altar of St. Mauritius. See under portable altars portable altar of St. Vitus (Mönchengladbach). See under portable altars portable altars

Subject Index

– Altar of the Cardinal Virtures (Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin) 268m58 – portable altar of Eilbertus of Cologne 247–48, 248n2, 250, 261–62, 261, 263, 264, 268, 270, 272 – portable altar of Henry of Werl 262–63 – portable altar of St. Gregorius 269–70 – portable altar of St. Mauritius 269–70 – portable altar of St. Vitus (Mönchengladbach) 268n58 – portable altars (generic) 339 – Stavelot Altar 262n38, 263 Portrait of Maddalena Doni (Raphael) 430–31, 431 Portuguese colonialism 129 pouldre dor. See gold media, types of: shell gold powdered brass 58, 73, 107. See also granular brass; shell brass powdered gold. See gold media, types of: granular gold; gold media, types of: shell gold powdered silver. See under silver media, types of processional crosses. See under crosses, types of processional staff. See under liturgical objects, types of Protestant Reformation 430 Proverbs, Book of 137 Psalms, depictions of 395 Psychomachia 312 purpurinus. See mosaic gold pyrite 56 quartz 56 quatrefoil settings 431–32, 432, 433. See also bezel settings; collet settings; gemstone settings Ram of Hegetor 191 rationale. See under liturgical vestments, types of red ocher 91 relic authentics 319 relics – chains of the Flagellation 368n11 (“catena de qua fuit ligatus”), 369, 382

527

– Crown of Thorns 361n2, 368, 375, 375–78, 379n50, 380, 382–84 – John the Baptist 368, 369 – lance (of Longinus) 368, 375, 382–84 – Mandylion 94, 369 – milk of the Virgin 368n11 (“de lacte virginis marie”), 369, 374–75 – Missal of St. Francis 48, 452–61, 455, 457, 459 – Passion relics 361–90 – rod of Moses 368 – sponge (of Stephaton) 368n11 (“de spongia”), 369, 382 – textile relics 369 – True Cross, relics of the 361n2, 361n3, 368, 375, 382–84 – veil of Veronica 382, 396, 399, 405, 410, 414n28 reliquary of St. Andrew (Trier) 315, 317 reliquary statuette of St. Stephen (Leuven) 275, 276 repoussé 15, 16, 250, 276, 304, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 322, 425, 433–34, 436 Resurrection, iconography of the 38, 268. See also Three Marys at the Tomb Revelation, Book of 3, 37, 40–42, 53 rex christianissimus 379–80, 387 rock crystal 250, 263, 268, 340 rock salt 72 rod of Moses. See under relics Roman coinage. See under coinage, types of rosaries. See under jewelry, types of rubies 430, 432 sacrarium 347. See also sacristy sacristy 15, 319, 347 Sacro Volto 94. See also relics: Mandylion; relics: veil of Veronica saffron yellow 100, 103 Saint-Aubin treasury. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections) Saint-Aubin, library of. See under libraries (specific collections) Saint-Denis treasury. See under treasuries (specific collections) Saint-Nicholas-de-Port in Lorraine. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Sainte-Chapelle treasury. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections)

528

Subject Index

Salvator Mundi 62n49 sand gold. See gold, types of: alluvial gold Sant’Apollinare Nuovo mosaics. See under mosaics, specific Santa Pudenziana apse mosaic. See under mosaics, specific sapphires 123, 425n9, 430 sarcophagus of St. Albinus 337, 339, 350, 351, 352–53, 356, 359 scallop shells 395n4, 410 scepters 26–28, 129, 381, 382, 425, 436n27 seal-ring. See jewelry, types of: signet rings seals and sealing 46, 122, 124, 126, 129, 200, 217–21, 219, 220, 221, 222, 314n27. See also jewelry, types of: signet rings semi-grisaille. See under grisaille shahada 216 shell brass 107. See also granular brass; powdered brass shell gold. See under gold media, types of shell silver. See under silver media, types of shields, depiction of 28n43, 184, 423, 428 shofar 66n69 show-through – green 73, 75, 77 – silver 9, 11, 12, 14, 42, 60, 62, 281, 428n12, 448, 449, 450 Shrine Madonnas 313 Shrine of Thomas Becket 68 Siegburg, library of. See under libraries (specific collections) siege tower 189–91 siegecraft 46, 167–95 signet rings. See under jewelry, types of Silhouettenbilder 24n38 silks. See also curtain silks – Byzantine 17n28, 21, 22, 328n55 – central Asian 17 – Near Eastern 309, 318, 318, 321, 328 – Sasanian 328n55 silver leaf. See under silver media, types of silver media, types of – argento meccato 460–61 – granular silver 9, 62, 450 – powdered silver 107, 109 – shell silver 107, 428 – silver leaf 52, 55, 62, 86, 100, 109, 428n12, 450, 459

silver migration 62, 281, 449. See also silver, tarnish and oxidation of silver oxide 297 silver sulfide 297 silver, tarnish and oxidation of 14, 42, 43, 48, 60, 61–62, 63, 64, 84, 107, 108, 132, 182n22, 223, 242, 280n6, 281, 281–82, 283, 284–85, 284, 290, 291, 398, 403, 405, 428, 428n12, 429, 443–53, 444, 447, 448, 449, 450, 455, 456–62, 457, 459. See also show-through: silver; silver migration silver-stain technique 296–97, 296 silver-wrapped threads 280n6 skeuomorphism 222, 396, 413, 419 snail glue 77 Soiscéal Molaise 317, 318 soldering 425, 434, 436 solidus. See under coinage, denominations of Son of Man 40–42, 451n12 Song of Songs 9 Souda 187–88 south Italian coinage. See under coinage, types of Spanish gold. See under gold, types of spiritual vision. See under vision splits 81, 94. See also faulting sponge (of Stephaton). See under relics St. Adrian at Geraardsbergen. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Augustine’s Abbey (Canterbury), treasury of. See under treasuries (specific collections) St. Catherine, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Cornelius at Ninove. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Dymphna at Gheel. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Eligius, jade vessel of 233, 235–36 St. Emmeram treasury. See under treasuries, depictions of; treasuries (specific collections) St. Emmeram, library of. See under libraries (specific collections) St. George, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Godelieve at Gistel. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Hubert, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of

Subject Index

St. Josse-sur-Mer. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Maurontius of Douai. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Michael, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Servatius at Maastricht. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of St. Veronica, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Stavelot Altar. See under portable altars steel 61, 187, 194 sterling silver 128, 235n27 stippling 97–100 stole (stola). See under liturgical vestments, types of sub-Saharan gold. See under gold, types of sulfur 62, 72, 103 sura dividers and headings 199, 200, 201, 205, 211 swords, depictions of 40, 172, 186, 189, 191, 193n39, 194, 282, 282n15, 382, 405, 423, 427 swords, fabrication of 172, 188–89, 191, 194, 213 sylvinite 56 Symbolic Crucifixion 305, 313, 324–27, 332. See also Crucifixion Synagoga 327. See also Ecclesia Synopsis of Histories 183 tablet reliquaries 368–69 tapetum 133 tari. See under coinage, denominations of Temple of Solomon 53 tetramorph 30 Teutonic Knights 423n5 textile bindings. See under bindings textile page 18, 19 textile relics. See under relics The Learned Banqueters 188 theater state 295 thesaurus 15, 347. See also treasuries (in general) Thirty Years’ War 430 Thomas Becket at Canterbury, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace 7n13, 144

529

Three Kings at Cologne, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of Three Marys at the Tomb 144, 252, 257, 262, 267, 271. See also Resurrection, iconography of the Throne of Wisdom 323–24 thuribles. See liturgical objects, types of: censers tin 14, 59, 75, 103, 126, 131, 132, 255, 280, 281, 282n12, 282, 398n9, 443 tin disulfide. See mosaic gold tomb and altar of Saint-Sylvain (Ahun) 350, 352 tooling 86, 97–100, 133–34 Torah ark 66n69 tortoises 175–78, 179, 181, 189, 193n38 touch needles 58 “touch of Paris” 128 touchstone 58 Tractatus de laudibus Parisius 122 Transfiguration 53, 86–87, 94 translatio imperii 7 Translatio S. Dionysii Areopagitae 15 treasure bindings. See under bindings treasuries (in general) 3, 15, 26, 40–42, 47, 234, 263, 347, 357–58, 368, 419 treasuries (specific collections) – Constantinople (imperial chapel) 384 – Hildesheim 328n55, 338–39 – Niedermünster, Regensburg 303, 325–26, 327–28 – Oviedo 25–30 – Saint-Aubin 337–38, 342–43, 354, 355–56, 358–59 – Saint-Denis 6, 38–39, 357 – Sainte-Chapelle 47, 361–90 – St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury 21n35 – St. Emmeram 328, 339 treasuries, depictions of – Hildesheim 328n55, 338–39 – Niedermünster, Regensburg 325–26, 327–28 – Oviedo 25–30 – Saint-Aubin 337–38 – Sainte-Chapelle 361–90 – St. Emmeram 328, 339 treasury inventories 5, 15, 69n87, 163, 232–33, 234, 341n18, 347, 343, 352, 357, 369n13, 373, 379, 389 Tree of Jesse 247, 263, 267, 270, 271

530

Subject Index

tremissis. See under coinage, denominations of trompe l’oeil borders 287, 290, 395, 396, 398, 412, 421, 438–39, 441–42 True Cross, relics of the. See under relics tunic. See under liturgical vestments, types of tutia 59 ultramarine 105, 460 varietas 47, 52, 86–87, 100, 110, 251, 252–56, 270–73 veil of Veronica. See under relics Venetian coinage. See under coinage, types of Vera Icon. See relics: veil of Veronica Vere dignum 30–32, 460, 461n33 vermilion red 62, 91, 115 vernis brun 261–62, 261, 263, 272 verse markers 46, 201–15, 222 Victorine theology 39, 437n31 Virgin and Child, depictions of 42–44, 105, 142, 305, 323–24, 326, 396–99, 401n13, 405n16. See also Throne of Wisdom Virgin and Child, pilgrim’s badge of. See under pilgrim’s badges, specific types of vision. See also anagogy – corporeal 37, 48, 438, 440–42 – four modes of 37–38

– spiritual 37, 48, 324, 438, 440–42 vita of St. Eligius 234, 244 vita of St. Erhard 325 vita of St. Wolfgang 325 Vita Sancti Albini 333n2, 334–35, 343–44 Vita, personification of 327 water gilding. See under gilding, specific types of West African gold. See under gold, types of whetstone 124 white gold (lefkos crysόs). See under gold, types of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) 52, 63–64, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80–81, 80, 81, 86, 90, 91, 96, 97, 169, 459, 461n33 yellow ocher 91 zinc 58–59, 73, 75 zinc carbonate ore 59 zinc oxide 59 Zwischgold (half-gold, or de Milan, or de moitié, oro di metà, oro di Milano, oro mezzano, part-gold) 82–86, 110, 461n33 Zwischgold-wrapped threads 82–83, 84