Národní galerie v Praze — Valdštejnská jízdárna: Otevři zahradu rajskou. Benediktini v srdci Evropy 800-1300
Last day in Prague, so last museum. Yesterday while on my public transport tram tour, I passed the Valdštejnská jízdárna, Wallenstein Riding School and saw The Benedictines in the Heart of Europe 800-1300 “Open the Gates of Paradise”, which despite the cloudless sky, sun and 15º day, I took myself along to, hoping to educate myself a little about the six hundred years between 600 and 1200CE, or as I think of it, between Hild and Caroline Walker Bynum.
Many manuscripts, some with funny marginalia, jewellery and decorations of all types, stonework, sculpture, masonry, wooden eating utensils, vast embroideries, a reliquary with pieces of the True Cross, pilgrims badges, illuminations, architectural models and drawings, astronomical and medicinal herb guides. Many of the items were of a similar age to what I’ve so far been looking at in Prague, but seemed much older. Some of them—the reliquaries and badges—referred directly to Bynum’s work, Wonderful Blood; others—the chalices (not shown here)—reminded me of the one Hild carried to King Edwin, though around a hundred years younger than that story. Slowly though I am discovering those periods, and the six centuries between.
Tomorrow, to Budapest. More museums. More other things,
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 1: Figure of lamb, Lower Silesia, ~1000
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 2: Stylus, Mosaburg/Zalavár (?) ~12th-13th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 3: The so-called Ciborium of St Wolfgang, Köln, ~1200
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 4: Ground plan of an ideal Benedictine monastery from St. Gall, Reichenau, ~3rd decade of 9th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 5: Abbot Rupert’s Pastoral, Salzburg, 12th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 6: Hexagon tile with a lion (Ostrov variant), late 11th – early 12th century (?)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 7: Set of wooden vessels, Bohemia, 14th-15th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 8: Poppy, from Apuleius Madaurensis, De medicaminibus herbarum
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 9: Absinthe/Wormwood, from Apuleius Madaurensis, De medicaminibus herbarum
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 10: Aurelius Augustinus: De civitate Dei, Prague (workshop of Hildbert & Everwinus), 1142-1150
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 11: Aurelius Augustinus: De civitate Dei, Prague (workshop of Hildbert & Everwinus), 1142-1150 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 12: Antependium from Cheb, Lower Saxony (?), 1280s-1290s
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 13: Antependium from Cheb, Lower Saxony (?), 1280s-1290s (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 14: Antependium from the Benedictine convent in Rupertsberg near Bingen, ~1230 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 15: The “Regensburg Astrolabe”, Regensburg, Benedictine Abbey St Emmeram, ~1052-1065 (reverse side)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 16: Volume of manuscripts by Pacificus of Verona, St. Gallen, ~1000
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 17: Volume of manuscripts by Pacificus of Verona, St. Gallen, ~1000 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 18: Rupertus Abbas Tuitiensis: Explanatio in Cantica Canticorum, Göttweg, 1160-1170
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 19: Rupertus Abbas Tuitiensis: Explanatio in Cantica Canticorum, Göttweg, 1160-1170 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 20: Mater verborum, Bohemia, second quarter 13th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 21: Passional of Abbess Kunigunde, Bohemia (early Luxembourg court workshops ?), 1312-1321
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 22: Passional of Abbess Kunigunde, Bohemia (early Luxembourg court workshops ?), 1312-1321 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 23: Passional of Abbess Kunigunde, Bohemia (early Luxembourg court workshops ?), 1312-1321 (detail)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 24: Part of a tympanum with Christ (?) between Sts Peter and Paul (?), Ventral Bohemia, ~1100
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 25: Three-part relief from the Basilica of St George, Prague, prior to 1228
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 26: The Enthroned Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus, Northern Spain — Navarra or Castile, ~1300
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 27: Reliquary panel from the Benedictine Convent of St George at Prague Castle (II), Bohemia, after 1330
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 28: Reliquary panel from the Benedictine Convent of St George at Prague Castle (II), Bohemia, after 1330 (detail of wood of True Cross)
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 29: Pectoral relic cross from Opočnice, Mainz or Salzburg, ~1000
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 30: The Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus — Sedes sapientiae, Iberian Peninsula (Catalonia ?), 13th-14th century
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 31: The Sedlec Antiphonary, Bohemia, ~1250
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 32: Pilgrim’s badge of St. Prokop, Karlova Hut, near Beroun after 1380
Národní galerie v Praze – Otevři zahradu rajskou — 33: Pilgrim’s badge of St. Prokop, Jinolice, near Jičin, 14th-15th century
