Lindau gospel

Upper cover of the Lindau gospel. 8th Century CE The Lindau gospels, MS M1 in the Morgan Library & Museum, was written and illuminated in the Abby of St. Gall, Switzerland, possibly by the scribe, Folchard, who also may have been the artist. It contains four title and four incipit pages in gold on vellum stained purple, twelve canon tables on purple backgrounds, lettered in gold and silver, 2 carpet pages. link The upper cover is very lavishly studded with large gems, and uses low repousse’ relief. The composition also centres on a cross, but here a whole Crucifixion scene with a figure of Jesus on the cross and much smaller ones of the Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist. Each of these is in a compartment below the arms of the cross, paired with iconographically unusual female figures; the matching compartments above the arms each contain two angels. Identifications for these lower figures vary; they are described by the Morgan Library as anonymous mourners, “two dishevelled female figures thought to be personifications of Christian souls saluting their Redeemer" as their file note puts it. but Peter Lasko, calls them instead “the curiously duplicated figure of St Mary Magdalen." To Needham they are Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleopas. All eight figures are represented crouching or sideways, or hovering horizontally in the case of the angels, above and below clusters of gems.