I first discovered the charming 14th-century goldwork embroideries of the former Abbey Church of St. Johann in Burtscheid, near Aachen, in the literature. My first visit a couple of months ago was graciously made possible by the parish sacristan and the Historical Society of Burtscheid. We agreed that these embroideries Read more
In the coming blog posts, we will look at medieval goldwork embroidery produced in Venice, Italy. We are going to start with a beautifully embroidered mitre kept in the Germanisches National Museum in Nuremberg, Germany. The mitre (KG 709) was purchased by the museum from an antiques dealer in Cologne Read more
Last year, I spent many delightful hours studying the Bologna Cope at the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna, Italy. This Opus anglicanum cope was made in England between AD 1310 and 1320. The cope was also displayed at the epic Opus anglicanum exhibition in the V&A in 2016/2017. Although the Read more
Several Italian museums hold Opus anglicanum embroidered vestments. On the one hand, this is a testament to the popularity of Opus anglicanum among European clergy in the 13th and 14th centuries. However, it was also the result of the Italians remaining Catholic while England underwent the destruction of the Reformation. Read more
Last week, we looked at the mitre of St Isidoro, with beautiful pearl embroidery, dating to the second quarter of the 14th century. Today’s mitre with pearl embroidery is slightly younger, dating to the last quarter of the 14th century, and was likely made in Paris. It was once housed Read more
The Saint Stefano church, one of the churches of the seven-churches complex in Bologna, houses a spectacular mitre with pearl embroidery from the second quarter of the 14th century. The iconography is not your average Christian fare, featuring dragons, birds, and lion masks amid foliage. It is, in fact, so Read more
Late last year, I visited the Domschatz Fritzlar. This is a small museum with several embroidered medieval textiles on display, which you can photograph as long as you don’t use flash. The textiles are extremely well-lit and very close to the display case glass. This means that you can examine them Read more
In a bid to compensate people for high energy prices, Germany offers regional transport tickets for only 9 euros per month during June, July, and August. Apparently, to get commuters out of their cars and into public transport. Good luck to those of us living in rural areas. For example, Read more
We have no contemporary eyewitness accounts of the first Christmas. Still, quite a few of the nativity scenes in the Western world look very much the same. How did that happen? And how does this relate to a group of almost identical embroidered vestments made in Germany in the second Read more