Formbacher Missale

Staatliche Bibliothek Passau

Description

After the Formbach Bible, the most important large parchment manuscript owned by the Staatliche Bibliothek Passau (State Library Passau) is the Formbach Missal. It is richly decorated with "lombards" in blue and red. Occasionally, one encounters capitals rendered in opaque paint and set against a gold background with gold-embellished floral pen-work (fleuronné), reminiscent of the book ornaments of the Formbach Bible. Its luminous brightness, however, is abandoned in the Formbach Missal in favour of a more discreet colouring in pale pastel shades. The gilding as well is more restrained and less intensively accentuated by punch-marks and lines. The highlight of the manuscript is, of course, the full-size illumination of "Christ Crucified" (Bl. 101v), as well as the "Te igitur" on the opposite page, surrounded on three sides by rich floral pen-work. In contrast to the bold, detailed reality of the Formbach Bible, the pictorial language here is quite subdued in accordance with the subject: The flesh tone of the figures of Christ, Mary and John is pale, the limbs in their anatomy only hinted at, slim and unnaturally elongated. The garments are hardly deepened spatially, and their folds seem almost geometrically abstract. The suggested landscape with rock and meadow is also stylized and untouched by the theory of perspective. Datum: 2016

Author

Staatliche Bibliothek Passau

Rights Statement Description

CC0