The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany (review)

222 Reviews Cohen, A d a m S., The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in EleventhCentury Germany, University Park, Penn State University Press, 2000; cloth; pp. xiv, 276; 16 colour plates, 74 b/w illustrations; R R P US$65; ISBN 0-27101959 -X. The interplay between word and image is a subject of ongoing fascination fo art historians, and particularly for those working with manuscripts where the relationship is central. A d a m S. Cohen's work Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany tackles this issue in masterly fashion. Based on a P h D dissertation, the book reflects the particular areas of interest explored by such scholars as Herbert Kessler who have researched Carolingian and Ottonian art. Cohen's careful reading of the Uta Codex highlights the advantages of exploring both the iconography and design of the image together with the textual components, demonstrating both the indivisibility of these elements and the need to look beyond textual analysis to see the wealth of meaning held within the visual. The Uta Codex (Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm. 13601) is an evangeliary, a collection of gospel readings (or pericopes) for the Mass. While the manuscript is still in its splendidly bejeweled, eleventh-century book box, i t was rebound in white leather in recent years. The work was produced for Uta, the Abbess of Niedermiinster, probably in Regensburg at the scriptorium of the nearby monastery of St. Emmeram, sometime between 1025 and 1045, although this dating is debated. The manuscript is noted for its elaborate and beautiful sequence of 4frontispieces,as well as for the four full-page Evangelist portrait pages with their accompanying initial pages. In his introduction, Cohen demonstrates how this book is of relevance to those interested in current 'hot' topics in recent medieval scholarship. These include the broad issues of female monastic patronage, intellectual activities, spirituality and artistic production, as well as questions concerning how images may have operated within medieval memory systems. Cohen also opens out the discussion of Ottonian manuscripts from a more narrow focus on provenance and the identification of visual sources, or the search for the archetype, to a more considered examination of content and meaning. H e also discusses the relationship between Uta, monastic reform and the iconographical programme of the manuscript. While these avenues are all explored within the book, in greater or lesser detail, readers interested in female intellectual or artistic activity or spirituality will find that there is still much to be done in terms of Ottonian Reviews 223 manuscript studies. It is in Cohen's analysis of each ofthe full-page images that the particular strength ofthis work is found. The book is organised into three sections, examining the four frontispieces, the Evangelist portraits, and a section dealing with broader questions concerning the manuscript such as the construction of the illuminations and the making and use of the Uta Codex. Thefirstsection on thefrontispiecesdevotes a chapter to each page, the subject matter of which are: The Hand of God; The Dedication to the Virgin, which also shows Uta, the manuscript's patron; The Symbolic Crucifixion and Saint Erhard Celebrating the Mass. In these chapters Cohen ably shows h o w the relationship between the geometry of the underlying framework contributes to the active contemplation of the meaning of each page as much as an understanding of the imagery and tituli. He also draws out the way meaning is spread across the folios, something often overlooked when analyzing the iconography ofparticular illustrations. The visual harmony conveyed by the continuation of geometric pattern across these folios unifies the visual experience while at the same time strengthens the ongoing unity ofthe themes depicted. The analysis demonstrates also how the construction ofthese pages drew on complex understandings ofAugustinian and Neoplationic thought, such as found in the writings of Eriugena, as well as mathematics and medieval studies of musical theory. While very few of the tituli, of which Cohen provides a comprehensive translation, are direct quotations, they concisely convey ideas based on these writers, revealing a sophisticated grasp on contemporary theological thought. The images themselves are also complicated with references to both established and evolving iconography. Cohen...