Bamberg Apocalypse

Folio 10 verso from the Bamberg Apocalypse

The Two Witnesses, as depicted in the Bamberg Apocalypse

The Bamberg Apocalypse (Bamberg State Library, Msc.Bibl.140) is an 11th-century richly illuminated manuscript containing the Book of Revelation and a Gospel Lectionary.

It was created in the scriptorium at Reichenau between 1000 and 1020 and is closely related to other Reichenau manuscripts including the Pericopes of Henry II and the Munich Gospels of Otto III.

It was commissioned by Otto III. The manuscript was unfinished at the time of Otto's death and was ordered completed by Henry II, who then, along with his wife, Cunigunde, donated it to the newly established Collegiate Abbey of St. Stephan at Bamberg. It is the only extant illustrated Ottonian Apocalypse manuscript.

The manuscript has 106 folios and is illuminated with 57 gilded miniatures and over 100 gilded initials. In 2003 it, along with other Ottonian manuscripts produced at Reichenau, was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register.

References

• Forbes, Andrew ; Henley, David (2012). Apocalypse: The Illustrated Book of Revelation (with illuminated illustrations from the Bamberg apocalypse). Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B008WAK9SS
• Walther, Ingo F. and Norbert Wolf. Codices Illustres: The world's most famous illuminated manuscripts, 400 to 1600. Köln, TASCHEN, 2005.