Codex Aureus of Lorsch

The Lorsch Gospels, also known as the Codex Aureus Laureshamensis, is a Carolingian illuminated manuscript that is believed to have originated in the court school of Charlemagne. Your creation is dated to about 810. Its name from the manuscript to the monastery Lorsch, in which it was kept by the 9th century until the abolition of the monastery in 1556. The important for the development of book illumination manuscript is now in two parts in the Vatican Library and the branch of the Romanian National Library in Alba Julia. The cover to the book belonging ivory panels are located in the Vatican Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Description

The manuscript measures 37.4 x 27 cm, originally it comprised 474 pages. The text area measures 27 x 17.5 cm. Use was best vellum. The pages are written and rubrifiziert columns with 31 rows in uncial. The font decorative sides and headings are held in Capitalis, Capitulare deposed by Carolingian minuscule. Striking feature is the consistent use of gold ink. In the magazine pages each column are framed by a varied foliage, font decorative sides are partly written in purple on a gold background. In the miniatures, the four evangelists and a Majestas Domini gold and silver colors were also used.

The ivory panels of the cover showed a Mary and a representation of Christ.

The manuscript containing the four Gospels of a good text template, two letters of Jerome, twelve canon tables, four prefaces to the Gospels and a Capitulare.

History

The Gospel book was probably written at the court of Charlemagne. The use of high quality materials, such as gold and purple ink, as well as the excellent carved ivory panels of the cover, the handwriting already recorded from the time of origin as luxury manuscript for special occasions. The individual parts of the manuscript have, despite their checkered fate hardly wear.

The first mention of the manuscript in a library catalog of the monastery Lorsch to 860 as euangelium pictum, cum auro scriptum, habens tabulas eburneas ( Pictured Gospel, written with gold, ivory panels ). In the Lorsch manuscript was rebound in 1479, while it was probably separated into two volumes. 1556 lifted Elector Otto Heinrich of the Palatinate Lorsch Abbey, and brought his library with the Lorsch Gospels of his own library, the Bibliotheca Palatina to. There, the two parts of the book remained until 1622, when the Protestant Heidelberg was occupied during the Thirty Years' War by Catholic troops. The Palatine Library was confiscated in favor of the Pope, the Latin parts of the Palatina still form a significant single collection of the Vatican Library. The rear, 124 -page sub-band of the Lorsch Gospels of Luke and the Gospel of John is one of the signature Pal. Lat. 50 for this position. The ivory panel associated with this part was separated, it is in the Vatican Museums.

Contrast, the second part had a more adventurous destiny. Leone Allacci, the institution responsible for the transport of Heidelberg to Rome papal envoy, branched off twelve boxes of books from the transport for themselves, these books probably belonged to the second part. Allacci bequeathed his books later the Greek College in Rome. The Collegium Graecum later sold part of his library, about 1711 was the subband to be lost. The ivory plaque with the part that was originally linked was separated from the book before 1785. This year, the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Anton Migazzi parts of his library sold, including the front part of the Lorsch Gospels to the Bishop of Transylvania Ignatius Batthyány. With the later donated by this library, the Batthyaneum, the subband changed hands several times: first the Grand Duchy of Transylvania, then to 1918, the Kingdom of Hungary, later the Kingdom of Romania, the People's Republic in 1945 was. 1961 Batthyaneum was a branch of the Romanian National Library. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the whereabouts of the Lorsch Gospels fragment was at times unclear, because the library did not answer any more questions. Only in 1992 it became known that this part of the Gospels which had remained intact. 1999 could this part be issued in the Lorsch monastery. The ivory plate that had been separated prior to 1785 by this part of the book was reached in 1853 with the collection of a Russian nobleman in the art trade, it is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum ( Inv. No. 138-1866 ).

Art Historical Significance

Charlemagne had let the religious liturgy rearrange, in this context created numerous manuscripts, including the Lorsch Gospels counts. The illustration of the manuscripts required a new pictorial language that was developed at the court of Charles unknown templates. The canon tables and the evangelists was probably resorted to unknown Byzantine or Italic styles. In these writing schools decorative initials were uncommon, so that was used for that on insular models. In Lorsch Gospels the swashes are already reduced in the ornaments is a tendency to greater plasticity significantly.

The Lorsch Gospels influenced by his writing style from the onset about 820 writing style of Lorsch scriptorium, his book paintings influenced significantly the later manuscript illumination, such as the monastery of Reichenau, as for example demonstrated on the Majestas Domini of Gero - Codex.