Questions to Dagulf: On the Psalterium Codex 1861 at the Austrian National Library

The early Carolingian psalter (Austrian National Library Codex 1861), the so-called Dagulf psalter has fascinated people for many centuries. Dagulf and presumably a second scribe created the manuscript on the court of Charlemagne between 782 and 795. The book was originally dedicated to Pope Hadrian I. The manuscript is a testimony to the Carolingian minuscule and the reform of the liturgy. The precious materials of the psalter have changed their appearance but still strike the viewer in their splendour. In a multi-disciplinary effort, we have tried to discover how the manuscript was created and how its initial appearance might have looked like. The investigation was initiated by Thomas Rainer and his research on medieval purple manuscripts at the University of Zurich. We investigated the parchment, the gold and silver inks, the pigments of the initials and the three decorative pages on folios 25r, 67v and 108v. The non-invasive methods included Fibre optical reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), both point analysis and elemental mappings. The results of analysis were compared with visual observations of the parchment, the writing and painting technique. Microscopic images and analytical data were put in context. In material and digital reconstructions, we try to imagine the original appearance. In our discussions the view points of art history, conservation and natural science were brought together. The scribes used pure gold inks of similar composition. The initials show the colour scheme of orcein-based purple, ultramarine and indigo. Degradation patterns of silver ink and purple parchment were compared with the 6th century manuscript, the Vienna Genesis. In both manuscripts the silver ink contains chlorine but has led to different forms of corrosion and parchment degradation. We will present the results of our investigations, our theories on the art technology and the open questions to the scribe Dagulf.