Austrian and German illuminated mss. ca. 1350-1450/60

Research project P 14403 Austrian and German illuminated mss. 1350-1450/60 Gerhard SCHMIDT 08.05.2000 Whereas the Austrian State Library`s holdings of illuminated manuscripts from Western Europe and Italy are for the most part published by now, its extensive funds of Central European manuscripts are still largely unknown even to the specialist (apart from the "German Romanesque Manuscripts", published by H.J. Hermann in 1926). In 1989 a small team of art historians began to catalogue the material from the Early Gothic period and produced a substantial volume on "Central European Schools, 1250-1350", published in 1997.The purpose of the present project is twofold: a) to finish the subsequent volume on Austrian and German manuscripts from 1350 to 1410, supported by the current project 12480 ARS and expected to be ready for publication by December 2000, and b) to begin work on a third volume that will be devoted to manuscripts from 1410 to 1450/60. Material from other Central European areas (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Hungary), produced from c. 1350 onward, will henceforth be published in a special series devoted to the "Schools of Eastern Central Europe". The preparation of these volumes is not subsidized by the FWF so far.

Only a small percentage of medieval wall- and panel paintings have come down to us, and even these few remains of former glory had often suffered from ravages of time. The miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, however, survived in much greater number and, for the most part, in perfect condition. Hence it follows that they are of particular importance for the history of art. The Austrian National Library owns a world-famous collection of illuminated manuscripts from the Romanesque and Gothic periods. To a large part, these treasures were catalogued, from the 1920ies to the 1980ies, in more than twenty volumes; only the many Gothic manuscripts from Central Europe (Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Bohemia) had been neglected so far. At last, in 1990, the cataloguing of this part of the collection was tackled, and up to this day, three volumes (on manuscripts dating from 13th and 14th centuries) were published. In the course of the present project the volume "Mitteleuropäische Schulen II (1350-1410) Österreich - Deutschland - Schweiz" went to the press, and subsequently work on the codices from the first half of 15th century was taken up. Most remarkable among the latter are the luxury manuscripts written for emperor Frederic III and illustrated by the leading Viennese illuminators of that period. The cataloguing of manuscripts comprises not only the thorough description and classification of their painted or pen-drawn decoration but also the recording of their external attributes and the identification of the texts they contain. Thus, our catalogues provide a variety of information that is of importance for students of many fields (art history, history of civilisation, German philology etc.). The general public, too, is profiting from our catalogues: Our research provided the basis for exhibitions on cultural topics as e. g. "Gothic Treasures of Upper Austria" staged at Linz in 2002.