Vita Annonis Minor
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The Vita Annonis Minor is a hagiography of Saint Anno (archbishop of Cologne), No. 509 in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (BHL). The only extant mediaeval manuscript is in the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt under reference Hs. 945.
The manuscript was created in about 1180 in Michaelsberg Abbey, Siegburg. It later entered the possession of Grafschaft Abbey, either in 1186 or with the relics of Saint Anno in 1374. It was first documented in the mid-17th century by the Cologne clergyman and historian Aegidius Gelenius in a list of the manuscripts of Grafschaft. After secularisation and the transfer of the Duchy of Westphalia to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt in 1804, the Vita Annonis came to the court library of Ludwig X in Darmstadt.
Description
The manuscript is made of parchment and measures 19 × 14 centimetres. It comprises 68 pages. On the reverse of the first page is a depiction of Saint Anno with the caption Sanctus Anno episcopus coloniensis. The bishop is surrounded by five illustrations of churches and monasteries, probably those which he founded: the churches of St. Maria ad Gradus and St. Georg in Cologne, and the monasteries of Grafschaft Abbey in the Sauerland, Saalfeld Abbey on the Saale and Michaelsberg Abbey in Siegburg.
