Exhibition catalogue (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 17, 2013–January 5, 2014)

Publisher's description:
Hildesheim, Germany, was a leading center of metallurgical art in the Middle Ages, producing many masterpieces between 1000 and 1250. In 1985, UNESCO designated St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim a world cultural heritage site, recognizing them as monuments of medieval art with exceptionally rich treasures.
But despite its significance, Hildesheim's incomparable collection of medieval church furnishings is little known in the United States. This book, published to accompany a rare exhibition of these treasures outside of Hildesheim, provides the first comprehensive overview of the collection in English. It examines the local clergy's thousand-year history of commissioning and collecting outstanding objects, highlighting some fifty works that include the monumental Ringelheim Crucifix, a unique ensemble of gilded openwork liturgical fans studded with gemstones, illuminated manuscripts lavishly bound in jeweled covers, an immense bronze baptismal font that is a tour de force of thirteenth-century metalwork, the finely wrought silver Crosier of Abbot Erkanbald, and the Reliquary of Saint Oswald, one of the great surviving masterpieces of medieval goldsmiths' work.
Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim delves into sublime objects of religious devotion and introduces the visionary ecclesiastics who inspired and acquired them, immersing readers in the splendors of medieval art.