Publisher's Synopsis
Under Prince-Bishop Wilhelm von Reichenau (r. 1464-1496), the Eichstätt Monastery ordered works of art of European standing. Through a variety of artistic media, the bishop and his court communicated the sacredness of the Eichstätt church and at the same time legitimized their claim to power. The artistically extremely productive phase in Eichstätt manifests itself in a wide variety of picture genres: carving, stone carving, book illumination, goldsmithing and Textile art. The most important works are the sculptures of the late Gothic high altar retable of the Eichstätter Dom, which are identified as misunderstood masterpieces of the Nuremberg carving art around 1465-70. Further chapters are devoted to the "Pontifical Gundekarianum", a splendid manuscript in which the Eichstatt Church continued its own tradition in text and images, the "Rationale" as a specific insignia of the Eichstatt bishops, the architectural discourse at the bishop's court and the artistic staging of the diocesan patrons. The interplay of all these aspects results in a multifaceted tableau of the visual representation of a late medieval episcopal church.
