bavarikon4UDescription
This Latin manuscript containing readings for the feast days of selected saints features ten illustrations by the noted German Renaissance painter Berthold Furtmeyr (active, 1460-1501). The illustrations are framed by initials from the text. For stylistic reasons, scholars have dated these illuminations with tendrils to the last decade of the 15th century and ascribed them to the Ratisbon (present-day Regensburg) artist and his studio. Furtmeyr and his followers were important contributors to the age-old Ratisbon School of Illumination. An artist of great renown, Furtmeyr illuminated many impressive works, including this manuscript, the Furtmeyr Bible, and the Salzburg feast missal in five volumes (all now at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, Germany), and many other works. In his works, the artist mastered the difficult task of successfully combining pictures, ornament, and text with great authority. Furtmeyr is famous for his handling of colors, his brightly shining illuminations, and the extreme diligence that marks his craftsmanship. Although he was still deeply rooted in the Middle Ages, his love of color, nocturnal scenes, and female nudes mark a transition to the Renaissance.