The rare publication of an English monograph on Ottonian art is always cause for celebration. Still too little known, the art produced in the Germanic realms in the forty years on either side of CE is among the most sumptuous and complex of the entire Middle Ages. Over the course of a snappy historical introduction and three richly analytical chapters, Garrison conveys the complexity behind this deceptively simple claim as she explores the multiple ways that each ruler manipulated art to further his political and spiritual goals.
In any event, the connection between the crown and the church was so intimate among the Ottonians that there is little to gain from distinguishing between the two with regard to these imperial images. That is not to say that we should avoid parsing subtle differences between individual motivations and aspirations: Garrison is at her best when peeling away the many levels of these imperial commissions.
The complexity embedded in these objects nonetheless motivates us to ask for more precision about the mechanics of their creation. For example, Garrison spends several pages describing the so-called Star Mantle of Henry II, a spectacular embroidered silk with Christological imagery, zodiac signs, and constellations, which survives today in the Bamberg Diocesan Museum.
Scholars generally agree that stylistic indications suggest a Regensburg provenance for the cloak. Garrison situates the cloak in a tight nexus of political and spiritual aspirations that coalesced in Bamberg in the year How would he have commissioned it from Regensburg?
While it may be impossible to answer such questions, skirting them makes one wonder about who, really, was responsible for the ideas that Garrison imputes to the rulers themselves without much consideration of the ecclesiastics who surrounded the Ottonian rulers. Bernward of Hildesheim, for instance, rates a mere three mentions.
