The Monk, the Monarch, and the Court Painter: On the Production, Uses, and Artistic Significance of the Green Collection's Speculum Humanae Salvationis

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce the reader to the Green Collection’s copy of the Speculum humanae salvationis (Shelfmark MS.GC.000321), a previously unstudied illuminated manuscript which I have had access to through the Green Scholars Initiative. Produced for a Cistercian community in fourteenth century Austria, the Green Speculum is one of many extant editions of a medieval typological work called the Speculum humanae salvationis ["The Mirror of Human Salvation"]. The book presents an illustrated summary of the Christian story, showing the reader how the salvific events of the New Testament are prefigured in those of the Old. My thesis work deals with—among other things—the manuscript's origins in the Tyrolean court, its place in the tradition of Speculum humanae salvationis production, the significance of its illuminations, and its theological resonance in the Cistercian context.