Mysterious book illumination

Much has already been researched about the Middle Ages, but not all the mysteries and customs of this epoch, which spanned around 1000 years, have been deciphered. The Getty Center in Los Angeles uses medieval book illumination to present the variety of symbols and signs, some of which are still puzzling today: In elaborate monograms, overlapping letters and complex symbols, monks who wrote the elaborate manuscripts conveyed secular messages and divine knowledge in a very compact manner. They proved to be fascinating creatives who occasionally revealed their playful side. Symbols and Signs: Decoding Medieval Manuscripts runs from May 20 to August 10.

Among other things, the museum also displays the Irmengard Codex from the 11th century. The codex was acquired by the Catholic University of Lille in 2023 for a rumored 10 million euros. The controversial purchase was made after earlier attempts to protect the codex as a national cultural asset failed. The images in the manuscript serve as an example of the Ottonian style and the perspective of meaning in which the most important details and people in the picture were painted at their largest. In the picture above, it is the gesture of blessing with the long fingers. The perspective of meaning, omnipresent in the Middle Ages, was lost in the course of the Renaissance and tends to be ridiculed today. However, the paintings offer direct access to the world of thought and the daily perception of the world in the Middle Ages.