bavarikon4UDescription
The most striking characteristics of this codex are three full-page, exceptionally large miniatures at the beginning of the manuscript, before and after the calendar, as well as a large-format illustration and 54 historiated initials. The calendar and the psalms are followed by canticles, hymns, an Office of the Virgin Mary, and an Office of the Dead. Numerous clues, such as the entries of the saints, the mention of the consecration of the church on the first Sunday before the feast of the 11,000 virgins (Oct. 21), and the illumination suggest that the manuscript was produced on behalf of the Benedictine Abbey of Tegernsee. In the very first miniature, depicting the crest of the monastery of Tegernsee, the brothers Adalbert and Otkarius are mentioned. Adalbert was the first abbot of Tegernsee, and both brothers were founders of the abbey. Maurus Leyrer, from 1512 to 1528 abbot and in this function the person who commissioned the Psalter, is seen kneeling before St Quirin, the patron saint of Tegernsee, in the full-page miniature on leaf 8 verso, with the imperial insignia and the facial features of Emperor Maximilian I. Two other saints are shown in the same miniature, St Chrysogonus and St Castor. The Psalter probably was written in 1514 by Paul Wigg. The elaborate, high-quality illumination was produced by the year 1515 by Jörg Gutknecht from Augsburg (died 1515 or 1516). Of the 54 historiated initials, 37 illuminate the psalms, ten the canticles, and seven the remaining texts. The large initial B at the beginning of the first psalm shows the supposed author of the psalms, King David. As was common for many artists of that time, Gutknecht used imprints as a source of inspiration. The illuminator found his models especially in the woodcut Passion by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), printed in Nuremberg in 1511. The manuscript came to Munich in 1803, in the course of the secularization of the Tegernsee Monastery
Author
Beatrice Hernad