Abstract:
My Thesis studies the ambo of Nicholas of Verdun (activity 1180-1205) from a paleographical, iconographical, epigraphical, and theological standpoint.
Successive to a study on the state of the literature, I established and distinguished the role attributed to the ambo in the XII century romanesque basilica of Klosterneuburg. Moreover, by examining the employed materials and technique, I identified the origin, the role of the artist, as his workshop, for this particular commission.
It follows the paleographic analysis of the redialed commissioner inscription, which revealed similarities with manuscripts realized in abbeys located nearby, which, like the one of Klosterneuburg, were restored in those years following the gregorian reform: this circumstantial aspect allowed me to question the discussion on the existence of a reformed art (arte riformata).
Furthermore, to understand the purpose the commission of the Verduner Altar had, I opposed the literary production of the local theologian Gerhoch von Reichersberg ( 1098-1168) combined with the ones of the main theologians known at that time, as Ugo of St. Victor (1096-1141) and Honorius Augustodunensis (1080-1151), with the complex program of the representations as to the inscriptions of the Verduner Altar. The results of this comparison gave me the possibility to mark the potential existence of a reformed art in the XII century and by acknowledging that the abbey of Klosterneuburg was a double one, I parse the role of the Virgin and the other women throughout those particular circumstances of reformations and contingencies. Consequently, my entire thesis is based on a comparative study that underlines how and why one may actually acknowledge the existence of reformed art in Austria.
My research becomes a new chapter within the studies of art by identifying the phenomena of Reformed Art as an international one, spread in more than just a few communities.
