### ARCHAEOLOGY
Cologne has open Christian cemeteries with shrines dedicated to St. Ursula, St. Gereon, and St. Severinus. The burial system consisted of wooden coffins, stone sarcophagi, or simple graves with stone slabs. At St. Severinus it has been established that the Christian cemetery was established above an earlier pagan one. Later, Frankish tombs were superimposed on the same site. The Christian cemetery yielded gold-glass vessels from the 4th century. A fine inscription of a Concordia from the end of the 4th century displays the monogram K with the letters A and Q and two palm branches; another inscription in the city museum recalls a *Romula societate martyribus* (CIL, XIII, 8486). Even more important than those at Cologne are the discoveries of a Christian cemetery at Bonn, beneath the church already dedicated to St. Martin but which also preserves the name of St. Cassius, companion of Florentius, who are the two martyrs of Bonn. Another crypt was found beneath the Romanesque basilica belonging to an earlier sacred building. Beneath the crypt’s pavement a large sepulchral area was uncovered with stone sarcophagi.
Of great value is the glass cup (4th century) found at Münstersdorf with biblical scenes on a gold ground.
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### ART
The greatest flourishing of the Cologne school of painting occurred between the late 14th and the mid-15th century. The works of the school display a traditionalist character imbued with a gentle lyricism, sometimes verging on the saccharine and tending toward the graceful and the miniaturistic.
The Cologne masters, almost all of foreign origin and mostly anonymous, lived in the Schildergasse and belonged to one of the 22 *Gaffeln*, which regulated their production.
Among the most noteworthy painters of the school are:
Wilhelm von Herle, author of a *Madonna with Pea Blossoms* (Wallraf Museum), a *St. Veronica* (Munich Pinacoteca), and an altarpiece for the Clarisses (1380) in which the Sienese influence, transmitted via Prague and Avignon, is visible. It is here that the type of fair-haired Virgin with rounded forehead, downcast eyes, and small mouth first appears, a type that would recur in all the works of the Cologne masters.
Stephen Lochner, originally from Meersburg on Lake Constance, emigrated to Cologne where he died in 1451. He may be considered the quintessential representative, the most significant figure of the school. The works that can be attributed to him with certainty are the *Last Judgment* (the oldest, Cologne Museum), the *Madonna of the Rose Garden* (Wallraf Museum), the *Madonna with the Violet* (Archiepiscopal Museum), the *Presentation in the Temple* (Darmstadt Museum), the only dated work (1447, the artist’s maturity), and the triptych in the Cathedral (c. 1440), a true masterpiece for its admirable balance, the characteristic rendering of types, and the masterful technique and expressive power.
After him, the Cologne masters (first half of the 15th century) were influenced by the Flemish artists of Bruges and Louvain, especially Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden. Among them are the so-called *Meister des Marien-Lebens*, author of seven panels of the life of the Virgin (Munich Pinacoteca) and the *Vision of St. Bernard*, in which, through the influence of Thierry Bouts, a profound sentiment is expressed alongside refined realism. A lesser painter is the *Meister der Verherrlichung Maria*, with whom the Cologne school increasingly departs from mysticism. The *Meister der Heiligen Sippe* takes his name from a panel with that subject (Cologne Museum); his is also a dramatically effective *St. Sebastian*.
The *Meister von St. Severin* dominates the school at the end of the 15th century: in the *Adoration of the Magi* and the *Cycle of St. Ursula* he reacts against the cloying idealism of his predecessors by exaggerating, without falling into the banal, the ugliness and vulgarity of the figures. With him the influence of Roger van der Weyden ceases and that of Quentin Metsys begins; he also deserves credit for being the first portraitist of the school.
The *Meister des Bartholomäus-Salz-Taschen*, if not in style, at the beginning of the 16th century and trained in the school of Martin Schongauer: his works (several altarpieces and a *Deposition* that is a masterpiece) redeem themselves from a certain sophisticated vulgarity through the magnificence of vivid colors filtered through a shadowy background.
In the 16th century, the Cologne masters were influenced by the masters of Antwerp, such as Scorel, Heems-Kerk, and especially Joos van Cleve. The latter had a great impact on Barthel Bruyn (b. at Wesel in 1493, of Dutch origin, d. 1557), who gained considerable fame as a portraitist; his religious paintings are cold imitations of Italian mannerists known through Jan van Scorel.
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