3-039-929 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Annunciation, Virgin Mary, shortly after 1053. Additional info: The Irmengard Codex, containing a series of readings for use during the celebration of Christian mass, was created at the famed Reichenau scriptorium in Germany in the middle of the eleventh century. The illumination program includes portraits of the four evangelists as well as narrative images that highlight the most important Christian feasts of the liturgical year. Stately figures...gesture performatively with long-fingered hands and stare from the page with oversized eyes. These powerful and theatrical figures underscore the stateliness of the Christian ceremony for which this book was created. A hallmark of Ottonian and Salian style was an emphasis on dramatic gesture and art that enabled mediation with the divine. It is thought that the text of the Irmengard Codex was written out around 1030-50, but that the fifteen full-page miniatures were added shortly after 1053 at the behest of Irmengard of Nellenburg, the codex's patron. During this period, women held significant political and financial power. Irmengard was a member of a powerful local ruling family, the House of Egisheim-Dagsburg.