almost give the impression of "roses on a trellis, with nodding heads." A particular apt example of this is the figure of Mary with the baby Jesus in the depiction of the Adoration of the Magi: while her lower body is still in low relief, her upper body and Christ project out further, and finally Mary's shoulders and head are cast in the round. This unusual style was used for artistic reasons, not because of technical limitations. Identity of the artist Unlike, for example, the Market Portal of the Mainz Cathedral, the identity of the artist responsible for the Bernward Doors is not preserved. As a result, older research attempted to identify a varying number of different artists on the basis of stylistic analysis of the individual panels. Rainer Kahsnitz has since put these attributions in doubt, since the differences in execution between the reliefs is so marginal that they might as easily be the result of technical requirements as different artistic styles. Probably a single artist was responsible for the creation of the Bernward Doors, with a small group of apprentices and assistants. Predecessors and later works There are various possibilities for the model of the Hildesheim doors as panelled doors (on the Roman model) and for the material used. Outstanding examples of monumental bronzeworking of the period include the doors of the Palatine chapel (c.800) and the doors of the Marktportal of Mainz Cathedral, which Archbishop Willigis had the founder Berenger cast in 1009. However, these doors have no figural decoration, except for door handles in the shape of lion's heads on the Aachen Wolfstür. As his biographer Thangmar reported in the Vita Bernwardi, Bishop Bernward lived first in the Hostel of the Schola Francorum at the Vatican and then in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine during his stay at Rome in 1001/2. He would have had the opportunity to view the monumental bronze door at the entrance to Old St. Peter's. He probably also saw the Late Antique wooden doors of Santa Sabina with their relief cycle in which Old and New Testament scenes are arranged opposite each other in a typology. The Late Antique doors of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan are also a possible model. Franz Dibelius first pointed out the clear parallels between illumination of manuscripts in the time of Charles the Bald and the composition of the images and figures of the left door.