The Gero Codex or Gero-Codex is an

Ottonian The Ottonian dynasty (german: Ottonen) was a Saxon dynasty of German monarchs (919–1024), named after three of its kings and Holy Roman Emperors named Otto, especially its first Emperor Otto I. It is also known as the Saxon dynasty after the ...

illuminated manuscript probably produced at

Reichenau Abbey Reichenau Abbey was a Benedictine monastery on Reichenau Island (known in Latin as Augia Dives). It was founded in 724 by the itinerant Saint Pirmin, who is said to have fled Spain ahead of the Moorish invaders, with patronage that included Charl ...

in Germany between 950 and 970. It is one of the first and most splendid of the Eburnant group of early Ottonian manuscripts. It contains miniatures of the four evangelists, the monk-scribe Anno handing it to

Gero Gero I ( – 20 May 965), sometimes called the Great ( la, magnus),Thompson, 486. Also se was a German nobleman who ruled an initially modest march centred on Merseburg in the south of the present German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which he expande ...

(probably of Cologne) and Gero handing it to

Saint Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupat ...

. The manuscripts illuminations bear similarities with those of the ninth-century

Lorsch Gospels The ''Codex Aureus of Lorsch'' or Lorsch Gospels (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 50, and Alba Iulia, Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, s.n.) is an illuminated Gospel Book written in Latin between 778 and 820, roughly coinciding with th ...

, particularly the

Christ in Majesty Christ in Majesty or Christ in Glory ( la, Maiestas Domini) is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world, always seen frontally in the centre of the composition, and often flanked by other sacred figures, whos ...

which is copied from a Carolingian model. It is closely related to the contemporaneous Petershausen Sacramentary, which borrows from the Gero Codex's Christ in Majesty and Ecclesia (personification of the church), and the Hornbach Sacramentary, which was probably produced at the same scriptorium.Dodwell, p. 134 It is held at University and State Library Darmstadt (Cod. 1948).

Gallery

File:Gero-Kodex01.jpg, Dedicatory miniature of Anno and Gero, folio 7v File:Gero Codex Evangelist Matthäus.jpg, Matthew File:Gero Codex Evangelis Markus.jpg, Mark File:Gero Codex Evangelist Lukas.jpg, Luke File:Gero Codex Evangelist Johannes.jpg, John File:Meister des Gero-Codex 001.jpg, An initial "S" File:Gero Codex Widmungsgedicht Petrus.jpg

References

Bibliography

* * Michael Gosmann, Peter Michael Kleine, Kathrin Ueberholz: ''Der Gero-Codex kehrt zurück. Das gemalte Buch von Wedinghausen''. Dokumentationsband über die Ausstellung des Gero-Codex im Kloster Wedinghausen vom 24. Oktober 2009 bis 17. Januar 2010. Stadtarchiv, Arnsberg 2010, {{Authority control Ottonian illuminated manuscripts 10th-century illuminated manuscripts 960s 950s works 10th century in Germany