Covers: silver and gilded silver with niello, filigree, semiprecious stones, and late 10th-century Byzantihne (Constantinople) ivory on wood core; manuscript: tempera, gold and silver on parchment German, Hildesheim, ca. 1015; refurbished ca 1194 Dom-Museum Hildesheim (ds 18) Bishop Bernward donated this gospel book with its elaborate cover of precious materials to the abbey of Saint Michael in Hildesheim. Then central ivory plaque, taken from a prestigious Byzantine triptych, depicts Christ flanked by Mary and John. The cover's renewal in the late twelth century, probably to secure or commemorate Bernward's canonization, added the gilded silver crucifix and symbols of the Evangelists, antique intaglios, and precious and semiprecious stones.
aperture=f2.8 focal length: 60.0 mm exposure 1/60 sec ISO: 2000