ABSTRACT
The impression of monumentality conveyed by the illumination in the St Gall Gospels lies not in an assortment of ambitious features, however, but in their integration in a coherently conceived design which structures the book and is both visually unified and thematically rich. Unusual elements in the illumination of other pages in St Gall also invite comparison with grand liturgical Gospel books. Full-page evangelist symbols are depicted instead of evangelist portraits before the four constituent gospels in the Book of Durrow, the Echternach Gospels and the London-Canterbury Gospels. St Matthew’s portrait in the St Gall Gospels has no such architectural setting, though the top rail of the throne forms a lintel above his head. There is considerable variety within each broad category in Insular gospels and some manuscripts use more than one iconographic type. There is every sign that the portraits in the St Gall Gospels were not a haphazard collection but were composed as two broadly matched pairs: Matthew and Luke, Mark and John Higgitt.
