A 13TH CENTURY ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT MINOR PROPHETS AND LIVES OF SAINTS IDENTIFIED AS A RELATIVE OF THE BERTHOLD MISSAL BY DR. HANNS SWARZENSKI Several years ago the Library purchased, for the Spencer Collection of Illustrated Books, a large folio volume because of its fine miniatures and initial letters, as well as its interesting writing and binding. Nothing was known about its history except that a bookplate showed it had been in the collection of Baron Vernon. The dealer had suggested correctly that it was a German production, but erred in assigning it to the eleventh century. During a visit to the Library early this year by Dr. Hanns Swarzenski, a Fellow of the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, he examined the Library's early German illuminated manuscripts and so began the study of this volume's provenance. He soon suspected its relationship to the fine Berthold Missal in the Morgan Library and hence its place of origin as the monastery of Weingarten, in Suabia, South Germany. A subsequent examination of the manuscript by him, in company with Professor Adolf Goldschmidt, of Berlin, led them, independently of one another, to assign it definitely to the Weingarten School. The present article is the result of Dr. Swarzenski's studies both here and in Germany. It was written in German and translated for him. The author is the son of Dr. Georg Swarzenski, Director of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfort on the Main, Germany. Both father and son are devoted to the study of early German art. The Library is indebted to Dr. Swarzenski for the communication of his discoveries. The Weingarten illuminators produced miniatures of individuality and originality. They were creative artists, who abandoned almost completely the technique of design by pen, using a gouache method, so that there is a striking richness to the colors. Keeper of Manuscripts. A FEW years ago the Morgan Library acquired from the estate of Lord Leicester the famous codices coming from the treasures of the Benedictine Monastery Weingarten in Suabia. One of these manuscripts, the Missal of Abbot Berthold of Weingarten1 (1200-1235) is, with its fiftythree illuminations (many of them full-page), one of the most important. creations of the thirteenth-century art. For richness of artistic invention, for force of expression and excellence of purely technical skill, it is unrivaled in German book illustration of the period. Such an accomplishment challenges one to search for the existence and the whereabouts of other works of master and scriptorium. But one looks in vain for related works among [ 647 ] the relatively rich contents of the old library of the monastery (now in the Landesbibliothek of Stuttgart and Fulda). Only in the Codex I 240 in Stuttgart2 are to be found two miniatures (Nativity3 and the Evangelist St. Matthew) showing clearly the style of the Berthold Missal. We have two documents which give us an excellent idea of the scope of the library and the treasures of the Weingarten Monastery. On page 264 of the Berthold Missal are mentioned in the handwriting of the writer — for reasons of safety as he explains - those manuscripts which had been written "de novo" for Abbot Berthold. Among others, we find: "Preterea duo libri matutinales, in uno quorum XII minores prophete in altero passiones et legende sanctorum continentur." The other document is the "catalogus codicum manuscriptorum in biblioteca wingartense existentium 1781" by Bommer, a librarian of the Monastery, newly published by Professor C. Löffler in "Die Handschriften des Klosters Weingarten." This very reliable and exact catalogue is of great importance as a history of the Weingarten Manuscripts, since Professor Löffler had succeeded in locating a large number of them. Among the few which could not be identified, is a Bible manuscript with the signature A 9 fol., and the following contents, important for our investigation: "Biblia. V. T. libri VI; homiliae Augustini, Gregorii, Hieronymi, Maximi; vitae Aegidii, Agnetis, Alexii, Altonis abbatis Weingartensis, Antonii Aegyptiaci, Augustini, Barbarae, Bonifacii et sociorum, Conradi episcopi, Gordiani et Epimachi, Leonardi, Magni abbatis, Margarethae, Oswaldi, Pantaleonis, Remigii, Thomae archiepiscopi, Ursulae; Elfini abbatis origo conceptionis B. V. festivitatis; Isidori sermo in laudem S. Joannis Evangelistae." We may assume that the activity of the scriptorium at Weingarten was more intense than would be judged on the basis of the number of extant monuments, and that the Berthold Missal was not an entirely isolated artistic achievement. Among the manuscripts of The New York Public Library is one which must now be considered as belonging not only to the Weingarten School, but as being the very one which is mentioned as number A 9 folio in Bommer's catalogue. This again seems to be the one which was mentioned in the list of manuscripts in the Berthold Missal. The codex comes from Baron Vernon's collection, has his bookplate, and was acquired in 1919 by the Library. Beyond that, the provenance could not be established. The manuscript contains the last six of the "Minor Prophets," and the "Lives of the Saints." The binding of brown leather decorated on both sides with small stamps representing King David, the Resurrection, the Apostle Paul, and a mythological combat between chari oteers, is to be regarded as a German work, probably of the first half of the sixteenth century. The contents and the decorations are as follows: Leaf 51 Leaf 51 Leaf 44 Initial "O" of Prologus Malachi (fig. 6) Leaf 45 Initial "O" of Malachi (fig. 4) Leaf 50' "de st. Barbara lectiones" (different writing) "Incipit vita s. Antonii" (first writing) Initial "I" of vita st. Antonii Leaf 86 Leaf 89 Initial "Q" of Homiliae Gregorii (outline, not painted) Leaf 96 Initial "E" of vita st. Augustini Leaf 137 Leaf 141 Initial "T" of Elfini abb. origo conceptionis B. V. festivitatis Leaf 145 "In octa. s. Agnetis❞ Leaf 145 in nativitate st. Agathae virg. The manuscript has 146 leaves; between p. 48 and 49 one leaf has not been counted in the present numbering. The text is in two columns of |