{"id":2043,"date":"2018-05-15T15:21:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T19:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2018-07-18T10:44:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T14:44:55","slug":"the-book-of-kells-and-gradual-of-st-katherinenthal-an-exhibit-of-legendary-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/2018\/05\/the-book-of-kells-and-gradual-of-st-katherinenthal-an-exhibit-of-legendary-texts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Kells and Gradual of St. Katherinenthal \u2013 An Exhibit of Legendary Texts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Based on research by Professor Alan Delozier (Book of Kells) and Sarah Ponichtera (Gradual)<\/em><\/p>\n

The Seton Hall University Archives & Special Collections Center is currently exhibiting two recently acquired high quality facsimile volumes of the original Book of Kells<\/em> and The Gradual of St. Katherinenthal<\/em> donated to our institution through the generosity of Mr. Peter Graham.\u00a0 These works each have a distinguished history both in terms of literary content and aesthetic value which allows our community the opportunity to view and study copies of these editions in close detail.<\/p>\n

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Book of Kells<\/em>\u00a0 (Fine Art Facsimile Volume).\u00a0 Fox, Peter, (Faksimile-Verlag, <\/a>Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland)<\/a> Library, Dublin and Lucerne: 1990)\u00a0 [Latin: Codex Cenannensis.\u00a0 Irish: LEABHAR CHEANANNAIS]\u00a0]<\/p>\n

According to scholars, this work was created around the year c. 800 AD and produced through the artistry of a triad of unidentified Columban Monks.\u00a0 The Book of Kells is most famous for its ornate illustrations.\u00a0 Abstract designs and images of plants, animals and Biblical figures not only serve the purpose of glorifying Jesus\u2019 life and message, but also constitute a rich symbolic system<\/a> in themselves.\u00a0 Symbols of the evangelists Matthew (the Man), Mark (the Lion), Luke (the Calf) and John (the Eagle) adorn related sections of the text; in addition, there are full depictions of the Virgin and Child; a portrait of Christ, and complex narrative scenes, which were the earliest to survive in gospel manuscripts, representing the arrest of Christ and his temptation by the Devil.\u00a0 The text grew increasingly well known throughout the nineteenth century.\u00a0 It is thought of as one of the central artistic works of Celtic culture, and a source of national pride for Ireland.<\/p>\n

The text proper includes the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the Vulgate (Latin translation) version of the Bible as translated by\u00a0St. Jerome, and also contains texts from an earlier Old Latin translation featuring more specialized religious texts.\u00a0\u00a0It was only brought to the altar a few times per year and only during important liturgical events within the Church, especially the Easter Vigil.\u00a0 The book remained in Kells until 1654 when the original was moved to protect it from the invading armies of Oliver Cromwell and transferred to Dublin and the Library at Trinity College where it remains on display<\/a> to this day and seen by upwards of half a million visitors per year on average.\u00a0This facsimile edition was produced with scrupulous attention to detail, hand-sewn, and compared against the original by an expert at Trinity College, Dublin.\u00a0 At present, approximately 81 other libraries across the globe own a copy.\u00a0 The original<\/a> has been completely digitized by Trinity College and made available to the public free of charge.<\/p>\n

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Gradual of St. Katherinenthal, Upper Rhine, 1312<\/em>. (Fine Art Facsimile Volume No. 729).\u00a0 Duft, Johannes, (Faksimile-Verlag, Luzern: 1980).<\/p>\n

The Gradual of St. Katherinenthal is a collection of church hymns, which were recited by the Gregorian choir during mass in the 14th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 The sheet music is embellished with brightly colored pictures backed with the finest gold leaf.\u00a0 The work is widely regarded as the finest example of Gothic book art in the world.\u00a0 The unusual size is meant to allow all the singers of the choir, even those standing further away, to easily read the pages.\u00a0 The book opens with two pages that contain calendric information.\u00a0 The following pages contain musical scores in the Gregorian four line system, that each incorporate staves and lines of text.\u00a0 The book includes 71 elaborately designed miniatures with gold decoration, 13 flowers painted to form letters, and a considerable amount of calligraphy.\u00a0 The origin of the gradual from the St. Katherinenthal monastery and its time of creation, circa 1312, is recorded in handwriting on the inside of the front cover.\u00a0 At least six artists were involved in the creation of the work, but their names were not recorded here.\u00a0 The St. Katherinenthal Abbey was a monastery of Dominican nuns located near Lake Constance, Switzerland, and represented one of the oldest communities of nuns in that part of the world.\u00a0 The original Abbey, along with the town, was burned to the ground in 1388, but was rebuilt in the beginning of the fifteenth century.\u00a0 The community was exceptionally well-documented for that time period, and we have personal stories of many of the nuns recorded in the \u201cSister Book\u201d of the Abbey.<\/p>\n

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This is one of the stories written by the nuns who would have sung the songs in\u00a0The Gradual of St. Katherinenthal.\u00a0 <\/em>This book, written in Medieval High German, is being\u00a0translated by Amiri Ayanna, a project for which she won the PEN translation award in 2011.\u00a0 These stories<\/a> give a window into the world of the nuns of that day.\u00a0 Today the Abbey<\/a> continues to operate in what is now the town of Weesen, and runs a bakery that produces Eucharistic breads, as well as a guesthouse.<\/p>\n

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The exhibit also features a 3D printed Gothic cathedral, to give a richer sense of the aesthetic that produced the gradual.\u00a0 The cathedral was printed at Space 154<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more on rare books at Seton Hall, see our LibGuide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on research by Professor Alan Delozier (Book of Kells) and Sarah Ponichtera (Gradual) The Seton Hall University Archives & Special Collections Center is currently exhibiting two recently acquired high quality facsimile volumes of the original Book of Kells and The Gradual of St. Katherinenthal donated to our institution through the generosity of Mr. Peter … Continue reading “The Book of Kells and Gradual of St. Katherinenthal \u2013 An Exhibit of Legendary Texts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4204,"featured_media":2050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,40,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives-and-special-collections","category-exhibits","category-new-accessions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2117,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}