Christmas - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1996 - 80 Pfennig

On 14 November 1996, the Christmas stamps will be issued in favor of the Free Welfare. The recipient of the contract proceeds is the Federal Association of Free Welfare e.V., Bonn. The motifs of this year's Christmas stamps - Adoration of the Magi and the Nativity - were taken from the rich picture decoration of the pericope book Heinrich II, a precious manuscript of the early 11th century (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4452, fol. 9r and fol. 17v ). This is a liturgical manuscript containing selected sections of the Gospels (pericopes) that were needed for the readings of the celebration celebration of Sundays and holidays as well as the saints' feasts of the liturgical year. The Codex was probably commissioned by the last Ottonian Emperor Henry II between 1007 and 1012 in the most important scriptorium of the time, the writing and illumination workshop of the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau. Due to the high quality artistic equipment by a single Buchmaler with u.a. Twenty-eight full-page miniatures, which mainly illustrate events from the life of Christ, are among the main works of the so-called Reichenau painting school. Heinrich II donated it to his favorite foundation, the Bamberger Dom, presumably on the occasion of its consecration on May 6, 1012. For centuries it was kept there in the cathedral treasury, until it was in the course of secularization in 1803, together with its splendor in the then Royal Court and State Library arrived to Munich. (Text: Nicole Buchmann, M.A., Bonn)