Rogatrix atque donatrix: the silver cover of the Berta Evangeliary (Vatican, S. Maria in Via Lata, MS. I 45) and the patronage of art by women in early medieval Rome

Abstract

A luxury silver manuscript cover in the Vatican Library bearing an inscription identifying the patron as a nun named Berta offers the opportunity to investigate the patronage of art by women in early medieval Rome. The cover housed an evangeliary that served the female monastic community of SS. Ciriaco e Nicola in Via Lata founded in the tenth century by the family of Prince Alberic of Rome (d. 954). This paper argues that the cover was a product of Roman monasticism that had personal and liturgical significance for the nun Berta, who was a scion of the monastery's founding family.