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Bradley, John William, 1830-1916

"Illuminated Manuscripts"

Similar is the "Legenda Aurea" of 1362 in the Public
Library at Munich (Cod. Germ. 6). A very interesting MS. with miniatures
of costumes and curious usages is the "Bellifortis" of Conrad Kyeser
(G?ttingen, Public Library, Philos., No. 63). The Evangeliary of Troppau
is most beautifully written; its text is a model of elegant and perfect
penmanship; its ornaments distinctly Bohemian. Three or four Prag MSS.
executed for Charles's son Wenzel (1378-1409) are, it may be said,
typical. Of these the grandest, though incomplete, is the illuminated
Bible, called the Wenzel Bible, executed by order of Martin Rotl?w for
presentation to the Emperor. The choice of illustrations in this
singular performance are rather more than on a par with the woodcuts of
the great English Bible of Cranmer. The "Wilhelm von Oranse" of 1387,
now in the Ambras Museum at Vienna (No. 7), affords splendid examples of
the fine embroidered and richly coloured backgrounds we so often see
towards 1400 in English MSS., and the Golden Bull of Charles IV., also
in the Imperial Library at Vienna (j. c. 338), has the softly curling
foliages variously coloured, which form the characteristic difference
between the French and English illumination of the fifteenth century.


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