But that is scarcely an excuse for the monstrous hands
and feet and exaggerated facial expression of the miniatures. The
Italian monk Angelico, in spite of his monastic limitations, succeeded
in a most graceful rendering of the figure, and a charming delicacy in
the forms of the hands. As in some instances the artist does reach a
fair standard, it must be admitted that where he does not is owing to
actual inability in himself and not in his system. The three emperors
who give the name of Othonian to the period immediately succeeding the
Carolingian ruled Germany, and had much to do with the ruling of Italy,
from 936, when Otho I., called the Great, succeeded Henry the Fowler
about five years before the death of Athelstan, whose sister Eadgyth[20]
was Otho's first wife. His mother Mathilda was the patroness of the
cloister-schools for women, working in them personally. She herself
taught her servants and maids the art of reading. Her daughter Mathilda,
the famous Abbess of Quedlinburg, in 969 persuaded the Abbat Wittikind
of Corvey to write the History of the Saxon Kings, Henry her father, and
Otho her brother (now in the Royal Library at Dresden). Hazecha, the
Treasury-mistress of Quedlinburg, also employed the monks of Corvey,
with whose beautiful initial drawing she was greatly pleased, to
illuminate her own Life of St.
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