Donizo - Vita di Mathilde de Canossa - 1984

About the powerful mediator in the famous Investiture Controversy: The life and works of the devout Mathilda of Canossa in the gold-decorated miniatures of a talented Benedictine monk

First edition. Publisher: Belser, Zürich, 1984. Facsimile in a blind-stamped leather binding with 180 pages and a commentary in a linen binding with 221 pages in the illustrated slipcase, one of 2,000 copies. 21 x 16 cm
---------------------------------
The Vita of Mathilde of Canossa was written between 1111 and 1115 by the Benedictine monk Donizo.
The work, completed already during her lifetime, deals in its first part with the powerful Italian princely family Canossa, while in the second part the pious life and political career of the Margravine Mathilde of Canossa (1046–1115) are the focus. The codex is concluded with a lament for the dead, having been completed in the year of the mighty aristocrat’s death. This temporal proximity makes the text one of the most important sources on the historical figure.

The manuscript was moreover equipped with eight splendid gold-decorated miniatures and numerous, partly zoomorphic decorative initials. Particularly noteworthy is the impressive dedication image at the beginning of the codex, presenting Mathilde seated on a throne and as a ruler against a purple background.
A true jewel of secular Romanesque book art!
---------------------------------
Tadelloses neuwertiges Exemplar.