Carolingian manuscripts1/24/2024 Furthermore, the Boethius manuscript’s illustrations also relate directly to the imagery and poetry of the First Bible of Charles the Bald, which was presented to Charles by the monks of St. Rather, their visual details can be attributed to specific Carolingian concerns about the nature of Christian education. As I shall show,the appearance of the miniatures does not need to be explained by citing a lost exemplar. The goal of this paper is to understand the appearance of the two miniatures and to investigate how they relate to the overall decorative program of the Bamberg manuscript and to the specific concerns of the manuscript’s designers. As the only early medieval example of the iconography, the Boethius manuscript’s quadrivium miniature has often been cited as evidence for the prescience of the Carolingian educational reforms, but has not been studied in detail. It is also the only such image that is known before the twelfth century, when personifications of the liberal arts became popular for cathedral portals and manuscript illustrations. The Bamberg manuscript contains the only example of the image of Boethius presenting his book to Symmachus and the earliest extant visual depiction of any of the personified liberal arts. Although it is possible that the Bamberg Boethius is a close copy of a Late Antique manuscript, there is no direct evidence for Gibson’s assumption. Because, as she assumed, the exemplar must have been a grand manuscript, Gibson suggested that the now-lost model might even have been the very manuscript that Boethius presented to his father-in-law in the fifth century. Photo: with the permission of the Bamberg Staatsbibliothek.Īlthough the unusual decorative features of the Bamberg Boethius can be attributed to its purpose as a royal gift, in her study of illustrated Boethius manuscripts, Margaret Gibson asserted that the illustrations in the Bamberg manuscript were copied from a Late Antique version of the text. 840-877), whose grandfather was Charlemagne.įigure 2: Dedication poem, Boethius, De institutione arithmetica, c. Although the poem does not identify the king directly, it states that he shares his name with his grandfather, implying that the recipient was Charles the Bald (r. (Figure 5) A three-part dedication poem, written in alternating lines of silver and gold on purple-painted parchment, (Figure2) explains the manuscript’s lavishness it was made to be presented as a gift for a king. Also unique to the manuscript are its two full-page miniatures, one of which depicts Boethius presenting his treatise to his father-in-law, (Figure 7) while the other portrays four female personifications of the quadrivial arts: music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. (Figure 1 above) Unlike other versions of the treatise, the Bamberg manuscript’s numerous diagrams are embellished with silver and gold and decorated with foliage and animals. Of the early medieval copies of Boethius’s De institutione arithmetica, by far the most sumptuous is a ninth-century manuscript that is presently housed in the Staatsbibliothek in Bamberg. This quadrivium miniature has often been cited as evidence for the prescience of the Carolingian educational reforms. Photo: with the permission of the Bamberg Staatsbibliothek. For more information about copyright, fair use and permissions, refer to Columbia University Library’s Copyright Advisory Services at, and the Copyright & Permissions for Online Exhibitions & Digital Collections.Figure 1Mathematical diagram, Boethius, De institutione arithmetica, c. A violation of these terms may subject you to potential liability for copyright infringement. In addition, Columbia University Libraries may employ technical measures to prevent any further copying, downloading, or distribution of the materials. Any subsequent copying, downloading or distributing materials accessed by you in the Columbia University Libraries Digital Libraries Collection that are subject to copyright protection may constitute copyright infringement. One of these specific conditions is that the reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than your own private study, scholarship, or research. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a reproduction. Terms of Use: The copyright law of the United States (title 17, United States Code) governs the making of reproductions of copyrighted material. Members of the Columbia University community may log in here to access this content.
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