Henry Mayr-Harting Knihy

This book brings to light an aesthetic passage of European history which has never before received full-scale treatment in English. It explains the origins and momentum of a magnificent movement of German art, and demonstrates how religion and political ideology were intertwined in Ottonianculture from about 950 to 1050. Besides dealing with the great imperial books (including the Gospel Book of Otto III and the Pericopes Book of Henry II), as well as other splendid liturgical manuscripts, the author writes with penetrating insight about the great art-loving bishops such as Egbert ofTrier and Bernward of Hildesheim, whose aims and personalities are expressed in the books they commissioned. The most important art centers of the Ottonian Empire are also discussed in detail.

It explains, historically and with illustrations, many of them in colour, the origins and momentum of a movement of German art, and shows, through art, how religion and political ideology were intertwined in Ottonian culture from about 950 to 1050. Dr Mayr-Harting, well known as a medieval historian, was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford during Michaelmas Term 1987, and the present work is an expanded version of his Slade Lectures. In this volume the author traces the relationship between Ottonian society and its artistic expression through a comparative examination of the major illuminated manuscripts of the period, including the two great imperial books, the Gospel Book of Otto III and the Pericopes Book of Henry II, as well as other liturgical manuscripts. He concentrates on the significance of the themes represented in these manuscripts and the extent to which they reflect the religious thought, ritual and devotional attitudes of the imperial court as well as Ottonian society in general.