Anbotor Christi 1450

Created in the year 1840, this small codex contains a series of eleven medieval woodcuts consisting of a title page and ten illustrations showing the Anbotor Christi, the messengers or heralds of Christ. Each figure is labelled with a letter or ligature corresponding to a handwritten note on the opposite page by Georg Kaspar Nagler, an art historian and owner of an antiquarian bookshop. Some woodcuts depict biblical scenes with explanatory banderoles such as the Expulsion from Paradise as well as texts written in red and blue ink. This curious codex, this oddity attests to the revival of interest in the Middle Ages that occurred during the 19th century. The only known surviving copy of the work is stored today in the British Library.