ars vivendi – ars moriendi

The receipt of the most significant gift that a museum in Cologne has ever enjoyed rounds off the jubilee year in the new Kolumba building. Renate König has presented her unique collection of medieval manuscripts to the Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums. | This collection was developed over a period of 36 years with great care and the utmost attention to quality. It contains 39 magnificently illustrated codices as well as a block book, starting in the late 13th century and ending in the early 16th century. The books of hours, breviaries and psalteries it includes are among the most precious objects ever produced in the miniature painting and book art of the cultural centres of Europe. These mainly handwritten codices were an effective guarantee for their owner of success in everyday life, with texts intended for repeated daily reading or for prayer in particular life situations, often in connection with the granting of indulgences for the eternal soul’s salvation, along with illustrated stories and depictions of the saints, the amusing drolleries of a “world-turned-upside-down” and diverse ornamentation. Their use held the promise of wide-ranging aid in the “art of correct living and the art of good dying”. – This collection – certainly the best in private German ownership – is a rich source for the pictorial idiom of medieval piety and the spiritual foundation of private worship. It covers books that were created for buyers who remained anonymous as well as those with texts and features individually designed for the high-ranking figures who commissioned them. Examples of book illumination from the top workshops in Paris and Barcelona, Naples, Bruges, Utrecht, London and many other locations document a cultural phenomenon of European proportions.