Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at the Upper Austrian State Library: c. 1220-1400

The objective of the present research project is to draw up a scientific catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts held by the Upper Austrian Library (OÖLB) in Linz that were made between c. 1220 and c. 1400. This catalogue shall be published in printed form as well as in an online-version. On a long-term basis it is planned to catalogue the library`s complete holdings of illuminated items. Ist late-mediaeval manuscripts and incunabula having already been described in the projects P18282 and P21481 the present project represents a further step towards this end. The stock to be described consists of about 80 manuscripts of which a large number were apparently executed in monastic scriptoria. While those of these books which date from the 13th c. generally contain initials ornamented with scrolls that were often enriched with animals and human figures, in the 14th c. the pen-flourished initial gradually became the predominating form of book decoration. One of the scientific aims of the present project is to examine whether characteristic individual styles were developed in each of the different monasteries and in what respect they differ from one another. A second group of books comprises manuscripts with rich decoration consisting of initials in full-paint, miniatures or tinted drawings. These volumes were probably imported from other regions or commissioned from foreign workshops. To classify them more precisely by a renewed in-depth analysis of their decoration is another aim of the present project. As concerns the method, the researchers intend to follow the guidelines established for the cataloguing of the illuminated manuscripts held by the ÖNB. In the planned catalogue the main emphasis will therefore be put on the description and analysis of the decoration of the books. But the catalogue texts will also contain detailed codicological descriptions of the examined volumes and accurate characterisations of their bindings as well as precise accounts of their textual contents and their history. Thus every single feature of the described manuscripts shall be taken into account to reconstruct the respective circumstances of their making as precisely as possible. Furthermore, through the synthetical interpretation of the gained data, more general scientific results, relating to the book-production in a given monastery or to the work of a given illuminator or workshop, are to be obtained. These results will contribute to a more complete and more accurate picture of the development of book-illumination and book-production in Upper-Austria and ist neighbouring regions during the relevant period. Generally speaking, the planned project-work represents valuable basic research that will be of great scientific relevance not only to art-historians, but also to historians, philologists, theologians and paleographers whom the catalogue will provide with a very rich source of information.

The purpose of the project was to draw up a scientific catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts from the Upper Austrian State Library (OÖLB) in Linz that were executed between the middle of the 13th c. and the beginning of the 15th c. It is planned to submit this volume to the Austrian Academy of Sciences for printing. In addition, first drafts of the scientific entries are being published online on the homepage of the OÖLB. The object of the research done in the project was essentially to give a detailed and accurate description of the examined volumes and fragments and to reconstruct their individual history, especially their respective age and place of origin, as precisely as possible. To this end, all the codicological features of the books were examined very closely and evidence for former ownership was carefully recorded and interpreted. Moreover, the scientific entries include a complete and up-dated account of the textual contents of the books. However, the main method employed for classifying the items described was the art-historical assessment of their decoration by means of a careful and thorough analysis of the ornament and figural motives. Apart from the individual scientific entries, the printed publication will also contain a certain number of introductory texts in which the findings are interpreted synthetically and conclusions of a more general kind are presented. The results of the project will be particularly relevant to researchers processing mediaeval books for whom the newly classified Linz items will constitute valuable points of reference for further research, and to art-historians concerned with stylistic and iconographical issues. But beyond that, the catalogue will also constitute a very rich source of information for scholars such as historians, literary historians, classical philologists and theologists. Last but not least, the catalogue and the scientific entries published online will supply the holding institution, the OÖLB, with very useful working tools. The following are some examples of the most important findings of the project: A large group of supposedly Italian manuscripts belonging to the monastery at Garsten and made at the beginning of the 14th c. could be shown to be in fact of Parisian origin. Another convolute of books from the same abbey dating from the middle of the centurythe date of execution of one of the items concerned had to be corrected from 1306 to 1350/60were very probably illuminated at the local scriptorium, although their decoration shows strong influence by works from the Upper Rhine region. Other manuscripts that were later kept at one of the Upper Austria monasteries (Baumgartenberg, Garsten, Gleink, Waldhausen etc.), could be localised to Bohemia, Bologna or Nuremberg or shown to have been illuminated at a neighbouring convent (Kremsmünster, St. Florian, Seitenstetten etc.). And lastly, new light was shed on the paths of transfer of iconographic programmes and stylistic features. In summary, the work done in the project can be regarded as essential ground-laying research. The new findings add significantly to a broader and deepened knowledge of book- illumination and book-production in the 13th and 14th c. in Austria and neighbouring regions, while the Linz catalogue represents a major contribution to the large-scale cataloguing campaign that in the long term aims to catalogue all collections of illuminated mediaeval books in Austria.