Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts from Ottonian Cologne
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Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts From Ottonian Cologne The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation O'Driscoll, Joshua. 2015. Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts From Ottonian Cologne. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467286 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts from Ottonian Cologne A dissertation presented by Joshua O'Driscoll to The Department of History of Art and Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History of Art and Architecture Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2015 © 2015 Joshua O'Driscoll All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Jeffrey Hamburger Joshua O'Driscoll Image and Inscription in the Painterly Manuscripts from Ottonian Cologne ABSTRACT Focusing on a small number of richly illuminated manuscripts produced in Cologne around the year 1000—and known to scholars since the early twentieth century as the so-called "painterly" group of manuscripts—this dissertation takes the close study of a well-defined group of objects as the starting point for an examination of issues central to broader histories of medieval art. A diptych-like pairing of miniatures with inscriptions, each of which is given a full page, constitutes a characteristic feature of these manuscripts. Because these inscriptions were written specifically to accompany the facing images, the manuscripts from Cologne afford us a rare glimpse of a discourse on art and image making in the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as providing insights into how such miniatures were meant to be viewed. The first chapter establishes a theoretical framework for the project, which examines both the historical and the scholarly origins of the Cologne School. Moreover, the concept of a "painterly" style is scrutinized and its use is traced back to significant developments in German art-historical writing of the late nineteenth century. The second chapter—devoted to a remarkable, yet relatively unknown tenth-century gospel book in Milan—demonstrates how the manuscript's carefully-crafted pictorial program draws upon an impressive tradition of Carolingian poetry and epigraphy in order to instill a pointed moralizing lesson on its recipient. A closely related sister- manuscript, preserved today in Paris, forms the subject of the third chapter, which demonstrates iii how the designer of its program employed philosophical and dialectical terms—taken from the school texts of the day—in order to devise an ambitiously complex set of miniatures and inscriptions, centered on a contemplative engagement with the paintings. The dissertation concludes with a chapter on the more famous Hitda Codex, illuminated at the behest of a powerful abbess in the early eleventh century. Through an analysis of the manuscript's narrative program, the chapter details how both image and inscription coordinate the active engagement of the viewer—prompting a consideration of the ways in which the pairings function as allegories of introspection. Throughout the dissertation I aim to reconcile the innovative formal qualities of the miniatures with the unusual complexity of their accompanying inscriptions. As a consequence of this study, it can be demonstrated that in the painterly manuscripts from Cologne, the close intertwining of image and inscription results in sophisticated programs of illumination, which elucidate an unprecedented contemporary reflection on the nature of painting in age otherwise known for its scarcity of written sources on art. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xi List of Figures................................................................................................................. xiii Preface.................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Beginnings..................................................................................................3 Cologne at the Millennium ..................................................................................................7 Inventing the Painterly Group............................................................................................22 The Insight of Inscriptions.................................................................................................39 Chapter Two: The Milan Gospels in the Ambrosiana .................................................52 The Book of Life................................................................................................................59 An Image of God ...............................................................................................................72 A Demanding Image..........................................................................................................88 The Nurturing Father .......................................................................................................104 The Evangelists and their Tituli.......................................................................................114 Chapter Three: The Gereon Sacramentary in Paris..................................................129 Overshadowing the Virgin...............................................................................................144 A Material Contemplation ...............................................................................................160 Hic erit contemplandum...................................................................................................176 Looking into Heaven .......................................................................................................194 v Chapter Four: The Hitda Codex in Darmstadt ..........................................................209 Virgo paritura..................................................................................................................221 The Signs of Christ ..........................................................................................................235 Perpetual Light.................................................................................................................252 Favored Above All...........................................................................................................273 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................289 Appendix.........................................................................................................................294 Bibliography...................................................................................................................299 Figures.............................................................................................................................333 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A project such as this could not have been accomplished without the generous and continued support of several individuals and organizations. It is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge here the extent of such support and to try, as best as I can, to express the true depth of my gratitude to all those who have helped me along the way. To my advisor, Jeffrey Hamburger, I owe my first and foremost debt of gratitude. His unwavering encouragement at every stage in the process, along with his critical eye and open mind were absolutely crucial elements in seeing this dissertation through to its end. Whether as a student, a scholar, or a writer, I have learned immensely from him, and I know that in the years to come I will continue to draw on the memories of our many discussions and our shared encounters with works of art. I am ever grateful to Herbert Kessler, in whose seminar on early medieval illumination I first encountered the Ottonian manuscripts from Cologne. Both teacher and mentor, Herb has been a steadfast source of support, advice, and feedback over the years, and I cannot adequately express how important that has been to me. I thank my committee members, Ioli Kalavrezou and David Roxburgh, for their close and critical reading of my text, as well as for their perceptive comments and for sharing their expertise with vii me. Their input has helped me consider my work from several different angles, and I know that their comments will be vital in helping me take the dissertation to its final stage as a book. Of all the institutions and foundations that have supported my research I must first thank the unparalleled and generous support provided by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.). Because of a three-year Paul Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, I was able