Colors Between Covers

In the 15th century, painters did not only decorate handwritten and printed books, but also single sheets of parchment.

This leaf imitates a textile sign of honour which formed
part of the ritual dress of popes and bishops. A similar breast plate is
mentioned in the Old Testament as belonging to the official dress of Jewish
high priests. The so-called 'Bamberg Rationale' resembles a surviving 11th-century
liturgical vestment kept in the Dioce­san Museum at Bamberg. It may have served as a "sewing pattern" and was probably created by a Bohemian painter who came to Franconia as a refugee from the wars with the Hussites.

In the centre of the sheet, the lamb from the Apocalypse is depicted below Christ as a judge. The lamb has seven horns and seven eyes and is standing on the open book with seven seals. It is surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists and portraits of six apostles.

Among the saints shown at either side of the sheet is emperor Henry II, the patron saint of Bamberg ...

... on the opposite side, his wife Kunigunde holds a model of Bamberg cathedral.

The drawing was created around the year 1420, but the garment that served as a model is much older.

Woodcuts made it much easier to illustrate books, as they could simply be pasted in a handwritten text and coloured. The text was written by a Dominican nun of Saint Catherine in Nuremberg and used for reading aloud during meals.

This image has been printed from two separate woodblocks: one with an image of Saint Catherine, the patron saint of the Nuremberg convent, another for the floral border.

This initial shows the Annunciation. The virgin Mary is seated in a wicker chair, reading a book placed open on a pulpit. In the top right-hand corner, the archangel Gabriel can be seen.

Influences of the Nuremberg style can be detected in the red pen flourishes as well as the dragon in the letter, whose outline is created by green and red paint.

Mary sits on the cross stroke of the initial E - next to another tiny dragon.

The painted decoration of this manuscript resembles older models from Nuremberg and may have been created by a nun from the Cistercian convent at Sonnefeld or in a workshop in the area.

Medieval books did not always survive the centuries intact. After the invention of printing around 1450, many manuscripts were replaced with printed books. But sometimes, at least the painted decoration escaped destruction: Initials and miniatures were cut out and collected. Thus, numerous fragments of great artistic quality have been preserved.

One of the most beautiful examples of 15th-century book illumination in Franconia is this annunciation scene from a lost Antiphonary. The initial M may have been created in the workshop of the Nuremberg painter Hans Pleydenwurff.

The virgin Mary holds a book in her left hand which resembles a contemporary manuscript. Lines mark the layout of the page, and red lines indicate headings in the text.

In this initial, an oxen and a donkey observe ...

... the birth of Christ. Joseph and Mary pray next to the newborn Jesus who is surrounded by golden rays of light - illuminating the world.

The historiated initial originally decorated a gradual, a book used for singing in mass on the steps leading to the altar. The style of painting points towards the region of Bohemia.

The ascension of Christ into heaven is often depicted in this simple form. Only Christ's feet are visible, his body has already left the Earth.

The scene is integrated into an initial V, as the hymn for the feast of the Ascension begins with the words Viri galilei (Men of Galilee).

Many painted images in books show scenes with books. Scribes are shown writing with the quill, saints hold religious books, and readers are seated at a pulpit with an open book. Frequently, historiated initials at the beginning of a text depict the author leafing through his own work.

This manuscript from the region of Mainz contains the letters of Saint Augustine. In the initial, the church father is shown reading rather than writing, as he is pointing towards the book rather than holding a pen.

At the bottom of the page, two coats of arms have been painted. This was a way of showing who owned a book - and of preserving their memory. However, the names of the owners have not yet been identified.

The most famous painter of Antiquity was Apelles, who lived in Greece in the 4th century B.C. However, none of his works has been preserved. Therefore, artists attempted to recreate his pictures from literary descriptions. The satirical author Lucianus of Samosata (2nd century) describes a painting by Apelles in his treatise ʻOn calumnyʼ. In a 15th-century manuscript of Lucianus's works, a student from Heidelberg created the first version of the picture which exists north of the Alps.

The painting shows the young king Midas with long ears, listening to the words of women lavelled as suspicion, ignorance, captation (of benevolence) and deception - four vices a ruler should avoid.

The painting is surrounded by a floral border inhabited by a pair of goldfinches - one of them seems to be whispering into the other's ear.

The leaf was formerly part of a manuscript held in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart.

In this printed edition of the German Bible which was published in Nuremberg in 1483, a woodcut shows the creation of Eve from one of Adam's ribs. Various animals, including a unicorn, inhabit the Garden of Eden, and the Earth is surrounded by the sea filled with fish and a mermaid.

The Earth is created by the word of God which flows from his mouth. Angels surround the cosmos, and the four winds blow in the corners. The gold leaf representing the universe has been decorated with punches.

The Bible printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger was published several decades before Luther's famous translation. It is the ninth out of fourteen editions of the German Bible before Luther.

Ten years after Gutenberg published his Latin Bible in Mainz, the first German printers set up workshops in Italy. When exporting their products across the Alps, they packed lose leaves into barrels to reduce weight. Bindings and painted decoration were added later.

This edition of the works of Plato came out in Florence in 1483. The painted border was added after the book had reached Augsburg. The style is typical for the workshop of Johannes Bämler, where numerous books were enhanced with borders and initials.

The printer Johann Sensenschmidt produced the first edition of a missal for the diocese of Bamberg. Several copies were purchased by the wealthy Nuremberg citizen Sebald Schreyer for the church of St Sebaldus. The donors are shown here kneeling in front of the patron saint, who holds a model on the church in his hands.

While the front of the leaf bears a painted miniature showing the saint and the two donors of the book ...

... the back shows a coloured woodcut with a crucifixion scene: Christ on the cross between his mother Mary and favourite apostle John.

A close look reveals the expressive face of the suffering Christ in the woodcut. The painter made the scene even more dramatic by adding streams of red blood and a glittering gold background.

According to the Gospels, the place where Christ was crucified is called Golgotha or place of the skull, because Adam's skull was buried here.

For a Franconian painter, Palm Sunday had nothing to do with palm trees: Christ is greeted by the men of Jerusalem with branches of willows instead of palm leaves.

Accompanied by three apostles, Jesus is depicted riding a donkey; a spring landscape can be seen in the background. The miniature of a Bamberg painter is based on a copper engraving by the so-called ‚Meister AG‘.

On the first Sunday of Advent, the reading in mass comes from the gospel of Matthew and describes Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A monk from St Michael's in Bamberg wrote this book of pericopes.

This manuscript was owned by Margrave Albrecht von Brandenburg (1490-1545), the most important spiritual ruler in the Holy Roman Empire. His coat of arms shows his great political power and is crowned by the cardinal’s hat.

The initials GS belong to Georg Stierlein, Albrecht’s scribe, who also created the painted decoration of the manuscript.