Toggenburg Bible

The Toggenburg-Chronik (also known as the Toggenburg Bible, Toggenburg World Chronicle, German: Toggenburg-Bibel, or Toggenburg-Weltchronik) is an illuminated manuscript that was created c. 1411 for Frederick VII, Graf of Toggenburg and his wife, Gräfin Elisabeth von Matsch.[1] Toggenburg is a region of what is now Canton St. Gallen in Switzerland, which is in the general vicinity of Liechtenstein. The codex was produced by a local chaplain, Dietrich von Lichtensteig, or "Dietrich of Lichtensteig."[2] Von Lichtensteig based his manuscript on a previous Weltchronik by Rudolph von Ems.[2] Per Barbara Wilk-Mincu, the artist who created the illustrations "most likely worked in Konstanz [and] seems to have been trained in the Prague Wenceslas workshop, but has influences from South Tyrol and Verona."[3]

A page from the High Gothic Toggenburg Chronicle

Since 1889 the Toggenburg Bible is held in the collection of the Berlin State Museums (German: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), identification number Hs.78 E 1.[4] A facsimile of the chronicle, edited by Fedja Anzelewsky, was published 1960 by Verlag Woldemar Klein.[5]

The book consists of 267 parchment sheets with 149 miniatures in opaque colors. It includes the complete text of the world chronicle of Rudolf von Ems: from the beginning of the world to the book of Solomon. The text is expanded to include descriptions of non-Biblical parallel events, such as the story of the Trojan War. Central events are depicted in great detail in numerous, almost side-touching, miniatures.