
Ms. sacramentary; written and illuminated at the Benediktinerabtei Weingarten between 1215 and 1217.
Musical notation: staveless; neumes on fol. 14v.
Decoration: 21 full-page, 5 half-page, and 2 small miniatures; 6 full-page illuminated texts; 19 historiated initials; numerous decorated initials; many with gold- and silver-leaf, some highly burnished.
Textiles: protective curtains over some of the initials and miniatures.
The manuscript contains numerous emroidered repairs.
Artist: Master of the Berthold Sacramentary.
The Berthold Sacramentary, the masterpiece of Weingarten illumination, is the finest, most luxurious German manuscript of the time. A major monument of Romanesque art, the book retains its original jeweled binding. The cover is dominated by a silver-gilt high relief figure of the Virgin and Child, anchored by a framed cross. Surrounding the Virgin, whose prominence reflects her important cult in Weingarten, are twelve repoussé figures identified by inscriptions: the four Evangelists, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the virtues Virginity and Humility, SS. Oswald and Martin (patron saints), St. Nicholas, and Abbot Berthold himself.