"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/1_oct_15_notes/redet_list.jpg";"/blog/tm_333_.jpg";"Notes to Self";"Scribal Promptings in the Margins";"2015-10-07";"Here’s a medieval manuscript personality test: when you look at these pages and think about how this book came into being do you (a.) marvel at the skill and hard work of their makers or (b.) think about all the ways in which things could have gone horribly wrong?";"  Detail from a monastic manuscript, Carthusian Rules and Sermons for Visitation, TM 333, f. 1, Northern Italy (Venice?),ca. 1500-1525, with later additions c. 1534 Here’s a medieval manuscript personality test: when you look at these pages below and think about how this book came into being do you (a.) marvel at the skill and hard work of their makers or (b.) think about all the ways in which things could have gone horribly wrong?                                             An illuminated opening from the same manuscript,TM 333, ff. 4v-5 Making decorated medieval manuscripts like this was a time-consuming, multi-stage process.  Whether it involved several people laboring over different aspects of a book’s production or one person working in multiple capacities, the factors of time and complexity – to say nothing of funding and availability of materials –  left plenty of room for error.Take the red headings on these pages, known as rubrication (or rubrics) on account of their color (in Latin the verb rubricare means ‘to color red’). Detail from TM 333, f. 5 Rubrics like this one would have been written in after the main text had been copied.  The scribe had to leave space for them as he or she copied the main text and then the same scribe or a separate rubricator had to go back over the manuscript, copying the correct headings in their proper places. This (very faded!) rubric has been copied by the primary scribe in this historical manuscript, an Italian translation of the Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum of Martinus Polonus, TM 117, f. 128v (detail), Northern Italy (Vicenza), dated 1472 Same manuscript, same scribe, new rubricator.  Here a second scribe has added a rubric that the first scribe missed inTM 117, f. 130 (detail)  This didn’t always work according to plan. Below we see a manuscript that simply did not make it through all of these stages of production.  The empty spaces in the second column on the left page indicate that the scribe anticipated the addition of rubrication (and also two painted initials). An opening from the Summa de virtutibus of William Peraldus in a Dominican miscellany, TM 839, f. 26v, Eastern France, Southwestern Germany, or Switzerland (Upper Rhine), c. 1400-1440  In fact, a close look at the margins of this page reveals that this scribe, like many others, took practical measures to ensure that rubrications would be accurate when they were added.  Here beside an empty space left for a new chapter heading we can see a note in the margin spelling out that heading, “De oratione” (Of prayer). Further down on the same page, a whole line has been left empty for a longer chapter heading to be added (see below).  Again, the scribe has left a note identifying the appropriate heading, “Octo sunt que nos incitant ad orationem” (Eight are the things that urge us on to prayer), this time at the bottom of the text column, where it can fit and be read more easily. Written in ink on paper in close proximity to the main text, these prompts, once added, became permanent additions to the page.  This is fortunate for modern manuscript scholars, since these prompts reveal part of the manuscript-making process.  And, in this case, this was presumably appreciated by medieval readers as well, since these notes for the rubricator remain the only chapter headings in this text.  They would have made it much easier for a medieval reader to navigate this rather lengthy treatise on the virtues Christians were expected to cultivate. Why don’t we find them in manuscript margins as a matter of course, then?  For one thing, they were not always necessary, especially for scribes adding their own rubrics and working from another copy of the same text.  In other cases, though, prompts like these served as temporary aids.  As many manuscripts testify, medieval makers and collectors of books valued the look of broad, clean margins.  Notes for rubricators could be removed so as to preserve these wide open spaces. An opening from a legal reference book, the Margarita Decreti et Decretalium of Martinus Polonus, TM 642, ff. 33v-34, Italy, c. 1425-1450                                                                                                                                            In the opening just above, we can see that the scribe left prompts in the inner and outer margins.  The notes in the gutter, or inner margin, do survive intact, but those in the outer margin have been largely cropped away. Where prompts were not being written in ink on paper, there were more options for their removal.  Can you make out the notes for the rubrication in this opening? Because they have been written on parchment, the scribe was able to go back and largely scrape them away after adding the rubric.  Now they are barely visible: An opening from a medieval bestseller, the De miseria humanae conditionis of Lotario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III),TM 814, ff. 8v-9, Northern France, c. 1450-1475  Want to see more of the manuscripts featured here or read about their contents?  You can learn more about TMs 117, 333, 642, 814, and 839 in their full descriptions, all up on our Textmanuscripts site. ";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/layout,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";75644;"6_oct_15_notes-to-self";"/blog/entries/6_oct_15_notes-to-self";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/oct_15_facesintheflourishes/675---f1det-list.jpg";"/blog/oct_15_facesintheflourishes/fbfaces.jpg";"Faces in the Flourishes";;"2015-10-15";"We all know that it is a pleasure to look through the pages of a decorated manuscript.  It is especially exciting when the book looks back! Miniatures can become windows into vivid moments of human action and interaction...";"This historiated initial depicts author Isaac of Nineveh presenting his Liber de contemptu mundi to Christ. The initial opens the same text in a Franciscan miscellany, TM 675, f. 1 (detail), Northern Italy, c. 1260-1280 and c. 1280-1300 We all know that it is a pleasure to look through the pages of a decorated manuscript. It is especially exciting when the book looks back! Miniatures can become windows into vivid moments of human action and interaction.Saint Jerome (far right) gives an epistle to a messenger, who is also depicted handing it to Furia (far left), its intended recipient, in this elegant frontispiece, painted by the Master of Spencer 6, in this deluxe copy of Jerome’s Letter LIV to Furia, in the French translation of Charles Bonin, f. 5, France, likely Bourges, c. 1500-1510 Painted initials on glimmering golden grounds frame saints at their devotions. An unidentified saint clasps his hands in prayer in this historiated initial within an illuminated Carthusian Breviary, TM 815, f. 40v (detail), Northern Italy (Lombardy?), c. 1430-1450 Illuminated figures like these complement the texts they accompany in ways we can understand, by putting us face to face with saintly intercessors in a book of prayer, or showing us the patrons (whether divine or human) of the very texts we are reading. Just as powerful, if often less comprehensible, are the human faces that peer out from the page in less expected places.TM 815, ff. 169v-170 This fellow is part of the decorative flourishing on an initial whose placement on the page gave someone – probably the scribe? – the space to embellish a bit. He’s not alone either. Here, again, extra space in the upper margin has provided the pen flourisher with an irresistible playground. Detail of TM 815, f.151 There are many more of these. What’s more, these fanciful faces are all drawn in the same prayer book with the more traditional historiated initials shown earlier!                            Saint Jerome beats his chest in penance in this detail of TM 815, f. 30v While the saints in initials like this one follow an established iconography though – we know we’re looking at a penitent Jerome here because he is clothed in a chest-baring robe and holding a stone with which to beat his breast – these flourished faces and their exhalations do not parse so easily. Are they blowing smoke rings? Speaking? Singing? In most cases the lines emanating from their mouths do end in crosses. Could it be that they are praying and that, for all of their strangeness, they represent the users of the prayerbook themselves? This seems to be a possibility in another prayerbook, teeming with faces drawn by an adept pen flourisher: Dominican Breviary, TM 829, ff. 185v-186, Southern Germany or Alsace (Upper Rhineland), dated 1370, with fifteenth-century additions The tonsured face gazing upward atop this handsome initial could represent an imagined user of this finely decorated Breviary. And he’s not alone. Along with the dog-like creatures frisking in this Breviary’s initials, there is a veritable community of tonsured men facing – or sometimes even singing or shouting – out into the margins and gazing heavenward.                    Details from TM 829, f. 233v; f. 226v What stands out even more in these flourished faces, though, is the artist’s evident interest in capturing a range of features and expressions. Curled lips, wry smiles, and crooked noses are the products of his or her own delight in the work. A similar relish is on display in this English manuscript:Entranced by the pen decoration curling overhead, this face adorns an initial in a chronicle of English history, the Eulogium historiarum, TM 836, f. 20v (detail), England (Malmesbury?), c. 1375-1400 As in the Breviary just above, merely decorative pen flourishings periodically give way to lively faces peering out into the margins. They’re fascinatingly variable – and inexplicable – but most of all they are vividly expressive.You can practically see this pen-drawing sigh in weary resignation, TM 836, f. 23v (detail); and this one rolls his eyes in evident exasperation, TM 836, f. 25v (detail)A sufferer from leaf and mouth disease?, TM 836, f. 44v (detail)As if these weren’t enough, there’s much more happening in the margins of this wonderful book. Check back soon for an upcoming post on the dead men in the manuscript’s margins!";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory";"1";79814;"oct_15_facesintheflourishes";"/blog/entries/oct_15_facesintheflourishes";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/oct_15_dead_men_in-_the_margins/list-det.jpg";"/blog/oct_15_dead_men_in-_the_margins/tm-836.jpg";"Dead Men in the Margins";;"2015-10-22";"If you caught our post on faces in the flourishes, you will have seen some of the quirky drawings. What you won’t have seen there, though, are the three places in that book’s margins where we can put a name to a face.  In fact, as you can see here, the scribe has done so himself...  ";"Burnished gold and intricate pen decorations grace a chapter opening in this chronicle of English history, the Eulogium historiarum, TM 836, ff. 9v-10, England (Malmesbury?), c. 1375-1400 If you caught our post on faces in the flourishes, you will have seen some of the quirky drawings in our newly posted English chronicle manuscript. What you won’t have seen there, though, are the three places in that book’s margins where we can put a name to a face. In fact, as you can see here, the scribe has done so himself. The king who gazes out of the margin here accompanies the caption “de rege Edmundo” (of King Edmund), TM 836, f. 38v Many kings in this chronicle are identified by marginal notes like this one. And yet, those noted earlier in the margin do not receive such portraits, nor do many that follow. So why King Edmund? Why not Leir or Arthur or any number of other fascinating figures in Britain’s early history? Edmund’s sole claim to fame is his grisly death. A ninth-century Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia, he almost certainly died at the hands of a Viking invading force named, rather dramatically, the Great Heathen Army. But medieval writers of histories and saints’ lives tell a more colorful story. This chronicle, for example, relates how this formidable army, having realized Edmund was a Christian and a king, tied him to an oak tree and shot him with arrows until, as the text puts it, his body bristled with as many shafts as a hedgehog has spines. Then, in the interest of being thorough, they chopped off his head. Some stories of his martyrdom continue with accounts of the adventures of the disembodied head, its miraculous speech, and its devoted wolf friend. So perhaps the artist had a penchant for English martyrs?                                                            Thomas à Becket's grisly end, TM 836, f. 56v (detail)                              In that case, the next marginal portrait certainly fits. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in the twelfth century, is one of England’s best-known saints (his is the shrine the pilgrims wish to visit in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales), and the drawing of him here emphasizes the manner of his martyrdom. Look closely at the faded image and you can see that the top of his head has been almost entirely hacked off. A sword protrudes from his head where the skull cap has been removed. Though shocking to us, such depictions of Thomas were not at all uncommon in the Middle Ages and they follow contemporary accounts of Thomas’s death by the swords of four knights, acting in the interests of King Henry II – and possibly even at his implicit command.                                                              Both the drawing and the text to its right show signs of erasure, TM 836, ff. 56v-57 (detail)  Wondering why this drawing is so difficult to make out now? It was probably erased by an early reader in an act of censorship, along with Thomas’s name. Since Becket was celebrated as a man of the Church who stood up to royal power, his cult was a particular target of Henry VIII after his break with Rome. Henry, for obvious reasons, wished to discourage such resistance, and in 1538 he and Thomas Cromwell issued a Royal Proclamation denouncing Becket as a traitor and calling for the removal of his name and image from churches and books.                                                                 King John poised to drink his poison, TM 836, f. 62 (detail) This final figure was no saint. Best known, perhaps, as the English king whose rebellious barons compelled him to agree to the Magna Carta in 1215, King John had a similarly troubled relationship with the Church – he was even briefly excommunicated following a dispute over his rights to make ecclesiastical appointments. He was also reviled by medieval chroniclers – writing after his death, the thirteenth-century monk and historian Matthew Paris went so far as to write, “Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John” – and he was damned as an incompetent ruler, cruel tyrant, sexual predator, and murderer.   A monk presents King John with a poisoned drink as his brothers look on in this book of English chronicles and cartularies, London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xii, f. 5v In light of this unconcealed loathing, it is not surprising that many medieval histories attributed his death not to dysentery (the likely culprit) but to poisoning at the hands of a heroic monk. That is the view adopted in this chronicle. During John’s visit to Swineshead Abbey, a monk presents him with a chalice of poison and the traditional Saxon salute, “Wassayl.” John speaks the customary response, “Drinkhayl,” and, once the monk has drunk from the chalice, drinks freely from it himself. Both then die in horrible agony, though, as the text notes, the community mourns the monk and honors his sacrifice – King John? not so much. This third marginal drawing follows the first two, then, in celebrating an English martyrdom. In fact, the chronicle explicitly identifies the monk’s act in this way. Here, though, we may speculate that at least one among the book’s monastic audience derived some satisfaction from the immediate fall-out of his fellow monk’s death, that in dying, he brought down a king as well.";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";79882;"oct_15_dead_men_in_the_margins";"/blog/entries/oct_15_dead_men_in_the_margins";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/oct_15_nervous_nelly/det-list.jpg";"/blog/oct_15_nervous_nelly/fb_tm-521ff.-40v-41.jpg";"A Nervous Nelly?";;"2015-10-28";"Page numbers are one of the features of the modern book that we all take for granted since it seems such an essential – and simple – tool.   You may be surprised, therefore, to learn that medieval manuscripts do not include page numbers...";" Page numbers are one of the features of the modern book that we all take for granted since it seems such an essential – and simple – tool.  You may be surprised, therefore, to learn that medieval manuscripts do not include page numbers.  Some, although it is relatively uncommon, do include folio numbers (numbering the physical leaf rather than the page – each leaf or folio of a book, in other words, would be the equivalent of two pages in a modern book) – a subject for future posts for sure.  The second scribe of this fourteenth-century sermon manuscript added folio numbers in red; TM 779, ff. 90v-91, Italy or Southern France (?), c. 1300-50 (?) Scribes did need to keep things in order, however, especially before the manuscript was sewn together and placed securely in a binding. Look at the mouse in this image.  You can imagine the disastrous results if it jumped on the pages the scribe is copying, scattering them to all corners of the room (the text of the book that Hildebertus is copying begins “Wretched mouse who angers me so often”). Prague, Metropolitan Library, MS A XXI/1, f. 153v To understand how they did this, you need to understand that in the Middle Ages, manuscript books were made of a series of quires, that is groups of leaves folded in half, and then stacked one inside the other to form little booklets of varying lengths – often with four, five, or six leaves (i.e. eight, ten or twelve pages – remember?).  These quires were then sewn together to form the complete book.  Early in the Middle Ages scribes often simply numbered each quire, usually on the last leaf. Here is an early example of a numbered quire in a tenth-century Gospel Book; Liesborn Gospels, Northwestern Germany (Liesborn Abbey?), c. 980-1000, p. 34  At some point in the twelfth century, some clever person came up with the idea of writing the first word of the next quire at the end of each quire; catchwords are a very effective means of keeping things in order, and they also make it impossible to mix up quires meant for two different books.  (In the thirteenth century an even more sophisticated system of leaf and quire signatures appeared – but again, something to discuss in a later post.) These utilitarian aspects of the book can be fun – some scribes decorated them.               Decorated catchword, formerly TM 521, ff. 8v-9 and ff. 40v-41, Noted Pontifical, France, c. 1350-1400  And other scribes seem to have been really eager to make sure that things didn’t get out of control.  In this thirteenth-century Breviary from Italy, the quires are numbered with a bold red Roman numeral, and the scribe also (redundantly), added the catchword, in red or the brown ink used to copy the text, decorated with squiggly lines. Here is a picture of the end of the original first quire, TM 785, Choir Breviary, Italy, s. 1260-1300, f. 21v (detail)  Later users of this book – perhaps because they knew you didn’t need both – appear to have erased two of the catchwords in subsequent quires.                                              TM 785, Choir Breviary, Italy, s. 1260-1300, f. 33v and f. 45v  In one case, the catchword isn’t erased; note that it reads “ec est.”  The following page begins “Hec est”, but the “H” is a blue initial decorated in red.  The catchword reflects accurately the next words the scribe would copy, since he must have left a blank space for the colored initial, which was added later (if you look very closely though, the scribe did add the “h” in a  tiny letter off to one side).  It was probably the scribe himself who filled in the colored initials and other colored details in this book, so he was covering all the bases (true to the over-careful personality that emerges from these details).                                                                 TM 785, Choir Breviary, Italy, s. 1260-1300, f. 67v Is this important? Well, certainly not earth-shaking.  But I would argue that it does tell us something about when and how this manuscript was copied.  Perhaps this scribe wasn’t completely comfortable with the “modern” idea of a catchword – was he old? Or was this manuscript copied somewhere a bit isolated or provincial?  It might also be a clue that could allow us some day to find other books copied at this scriptorium by this scribe.  As a last note, this manuscript actually has a third system of numbering the quires – several texts are added before the Breviary text itself, including a calendar, organized over three quires.  Someone – I would guess the fifteenth-century binder of the volume – added letters at the beginning of the quires in a series that include these preliminary texts.                                                         TM 785, Choir Breviary, Italy, s. 1260-1300, ff.21v-22  A full description of TM 785 can be found here ";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/layout,/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/new-inventory";"1";79888;"oct_15_nervous_nelly";"/blog/entries/oct_15_nervous_nelly";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde ";"/blog/12_15_dosanddon-ts/list.jpg";"/blog/12_15_dosanddon-ts/fb-tm-818.jpg";"The Dos and Don’ts of Medieval Heraldry";;"2015-12-10";"If called upon to imagine a medieval knight, odds are most of us picture someone looking a bit like the knights in this Arthurian miniature, clad in armor, helmeted, swords drawn for battle.  With their visors mostly down, these knights are practically encased in their battle gear...";"Detail from a miniature cut from a copy of the Livre du Lancelot de Lac, with rich illuminations that have been attributed to the Dunois Master (possibly Jean Haincelin), France, Paris, c. 1440-1450 If called upon to imagine a medieval knight, odds are most of us picture someone looking a bit like the knights in this detail from an Arthurian miniature, clad in armor, helmeted, swords drawn for battle.  With their visors mostly down, these knights are practically encased in their battle gear. Now take another look, this time at the full miniature (see below).  If you had to distinguish these figures, pick one knight out from the fray, how would you do it?  This being a picture, you could simply specify “knight on the far left” and make your selection clear, but if you were actually witnessing this medieval melee and that knight was not obligingly maintaining his position on the far left, his only distinguishing feature would be his blue and gold shield, which would be blazoned (that is, described formally in heraldic language) as azure, a chevron or (blue, with a gold chevron).   This miniature, shown here in full, depicts Gawain and nine companions in search of Lancelot People adopted personal or corporate emblems long before the Middle Ages, but the systematic use of colored devices on shields to identify knights grew out of the need to make them recognizable in battles and tournaments, where their armor rendered them virtually anonymous otherwise.  In fact, medieval Arthurian romances are full of scenarios in which knights can go incognito or falsify their identities simply by swapping the shields bearing their own heraldic arms with others. The combined arms of William the Conqueror and his wife, Matilda of Flanders; the arms of William’s son Richard, who died young; and the arms of William’s son William Rufus, who succeeded his father as King of England, demonstrate the hereditary nature of coats of arms.  These are all featured in this genealogy of the kings and queens of England, TM 627, f. 1rv, England, after 1558 and prior to 1603, c. 1590-1600  As codified in the late Middle Ages, heraldry was restricted to those who had earned the right to bear arms.  It was also hereditary: once a man had a coat of arms, he could pass it on in some form to his children, a practice you can see illustrated in the Tudor roll of arms above.  And it also carried legal weight: one’s heraldic device could be used in one’s official seal, for example.  As such, it was carefully regulated by officers of arms, and it continues to be regulated in different countries to this day.   The coat of arms of one of these regulatory bodies, the College of Arms, official heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and much of the Commonwealth This regulation extends even to the components of heraldic arms, as attested by the Traité du blason, written by the fifteenth-century heraldist, Clément Prinsault.  One of the earliest heraldic treatises, the Traité carefully breaks down the various components of a coat of arms and describes how to blazon them.  In other words, if you’re new to heraldry, this handbook makes for an instructive read – and often a very interesting one!  The shields painted on the left of this opening illustrate the ordinaries, or basic geometric figures, used in heraldry, Clément Prinsault’s Traité du blason, TM 818, ff. 7v-8, Northeastern France or the Low Countries (Flanders or Hainault), c. 1480-1500  Particularly noteworthy are Prinsault’s instructions on how to distinguish false arms from true ones.  Interesting in their own right, they also hint at the likelihood that there was a significant proliferation of false arms in medieval Europe.  Rolls of arms like the one above offered one way of recording legitimate arms and their rightful bearers, but apparently false arms might also give themselves away through incorrect choices of tincture (that is, the colors, metals, or fur patterns used in heraldry).  Mixing or (gold) and argent (silver), for example?  A major no-no.                                                                   A rogues’ gallery of false arms, TM 818, , f. 9v (detail)  Prinsault’s chapter on the symbolic meanings of the colors and metals assigned in heraldry is also a fascinating read.  For each of these tinctures, Prinsault identifies corresponding virtues, gemstones, signs of the Zodiac, elements, humors, planets, and even days of the week.                                          These shields illustrate the tinctures used in heraldry, detail from TM 818, f. 4v  You might not be surprised to learn that the tincture gules (red) carried associations with the ruby and the element of fire.  But what about Prinsault’s connection of the tincture to the virtue of courage, the zodiacal signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, and the choleric humor (associated, among other things, with a quickness to anger)?  And, if those make some amount of intuitive sense, what of its association with Saturday (or Tuesday, in this particular manuscript)?                                             This shield illustrates the tincture gules (red), TM 818, f. 4v (detail)  Perhaps most fascinating of all, though, are the coats of arms themselves.  In addition to the fairly simple coats of arms Prinsault uses to teach the fundamentals of blazoning, he includes some more challenging arms at the close of the treatise, presumably as a final challenge to the reader, now well-schooled in the basics.                                                                                         Detail from TM 818, f. 13                                             Arms proliferate in one of the final openings of TM 818, ff. 13v-14                                                                                                          TM 818, f. 15v  Shining with their brilliant tinctures and alive with leaping dolphins and rampant beasts, these arms offer a glimpse of the vivid pageantry with which medieval knights displayed their true colors.";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory";"1";80012;"12_15_dosanddon-ts";"/blog/entries/12_15_dosanddon-ts";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/11_15_dreaming_the_middle_ages/det_list.jpg";"/blog/11_15_dreaming_the_middle_ages/fb_neogothic.jpg";"Dreaming the Middle Ages";;"2015-11-17";"Forgotten today, Clothilde Coulaux, was responsible for the writing and illuminating an enchanting Missal dated June 29, 1906.  She signed her manuscript, full of literally hundreds of illuminations, on the last folio, “living in the city of Molsheim on the street of Notre-Dame facing the parish church.”  ...";"  Forgotten today, Clothilde Coulaux, was responsible for the writing and illuminating an enchanting Missal dated June 29, 1906.  She signed her manuscript, full of literally hundreds of illuminations, on the last folio, “living in the city of Molsheim on the street of Notre-Dame facing the parish church.”  There she included a delightful self-portrait of herself looking like a fairy-tale princess seated at her lectern writing.     Missal, by Clothilde Coulaux, p. 172-173, Colophon, illustrated by a miniature of a young woman writing (a self-portrait?)  A decade earlier in 1896 Clothilde took second prize in a competition for illuminators, for which she received an annual subscription to the magazine Coloriste-Enluminure, a journal promoting manuscript illumination as a domestic activity most suitable to young women.  The other competitors were all women.Clothilde’s Missal reveals her considerable accomplishments, her wide range of artistic sources, and her lively imagination. Many images are faithful reproductions of German Renaissance prints mostly by Albrecht Dürer, but also Hans Holbein and Urs Graf; still others are likely based on personal observation (local street scenes, church spires, images of daily life).     Coulaux Missal, p. 10-11, Virgin and child, after Albrecht Dürer’s engraving, Virgin and Child with a monkey  A Crucifixion resembles a stone sculpture in her home-town church, and the opening pages may depict the tower and porch of the same church, especially considering she took pains to write that she lived facing the parish church. Coulaux Missal, p. 2-3, Full-page, Adam and Eve at the top; below, a street scene, possibly depicting a scene in Molsheim or elsewhere in Alsace  In this make-believe world of the Middle Ages there is an owl in a belfry, a cat in a window, a man dragging a pig, a lady serving wine, a jester with a basket of fruit, and countless lords and ladies, all in fanciful medieval dress, private daydreams of a time long ago.                      Coulaux Missal,  p. 75, owl in belfry; p. 9, cat in window; p. 135, man and pig (details)  “It seems that people like the Middle Ages,” so wrote Umberto Eco in 1986 in a book of essays called “Dreaming the Middle Ages.”  Those who chronicle medievalism – defined as the "continuing process of creating the Middle Ages” – point to a sort of nostalgia about medieval times that indicates dissatisfaction with contemporary life.  Certainly Clothilde, gazing at medieval buildings outside her window a century ago, dreamed of the medieval era.  A host of scholars today argue that phenomena as diverse as Hollywood movies like Braveheart, video games like Elder Scrolls, television shows like Game of Thrones, and even the Trump Tower as a model of feudalism's split between the well-to-do and the masses reflect modern-day society’s dreams of the Middle Ages.  Read our just-published catalogue “Neo-Gothic Book Production and Medievalism” for further examples of manuscripts that prompt an exploration of the meaning medieval had, then and now. ";"/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/neo-gothic,/blog/categories/medievalism";"1";80024;"11_15_dreaming_the_middle_ages";"/blog/entries/11_15_dreaming_the_middle_ages";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/11_15_magician_of_iron/list.jpg";"/blog/e_enlum.jpg";"Magician of Iron";"Gustave Eiffel";"2015-11-25";"Praised as “the magician of iron,” Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) was also scorned for his “useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower,” which some described as “ridiculous … dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack.”  ...";" Praised as “the magician of iron,” Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) was also scorned for his “useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower,” which some described as “ridiculous … dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack.”  This previously unpublished manuscript portrays another side of Gustave Eiffel.  It is a Prayer Book he commissioned as a family heirloom for his daughter Claire (1863-1934) between 1898 and 1899.                  Caricature of Gustave Eiffel, who compares his tower to the Egyptian Pyramids; The Eiffel Tower, 2015   Napoleone Verga, Prayer Book commissioned by Gustave Eiffel, Renaissance style frontispiece; p. 41 ter, Virgin and Child with Infant St. John the Baptist, St. Francis, and unidentified saint   Whereas the Eiffel Tower was avant-garde, employing a new lattice style of construction made up of cast iron and wrought iron framing, Eiffel turned to the past for his Prayer Book.  He ordered it from Napoleone Verga (d. 1916), who painted page after page of miniature versions of High Renaissance paintings (66 total), opulently rendered in tempera and gold leaf on parchment in the manner of medieval manuscript illumination. Little is known today about Verga, a painter of the Romantic School, who was a professor of design in Perugia, but in the nineteenth century he was highly acclaimed as “superior to almost all other ancient magnates in the art of illuminations on vellum.”  Perhaps the Verga and Eiffel met in Nice, where Verga emigrated from Perugia, while Eiffel was working in 1886 on his project for the dome of the Observatory of Nice.   Napoleone Verga, The Massacre at Perugia, 1870, Perugia, Fondazione Accademia P. Vannucci; Prayer Book, p. 55, colophon  Among the important Renaissance artists who inspired Verga are Raphael, Botticelli, Correggio, and Andrea del Sarto. Verga used well-known paintings by these masters to illustrate appropriate sections of the Prayer Book.  Prayer Book, p. 22 ; Raphael, La belle jardinière, or Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, 1507, Paris, Musée du Louvre                                             Prayer Book, p. 35 ; Botticelli, Madonna of the Pomegranate, c. 1487, Florence, Uffizi    For example, Raphael’s painting of the Madonna and Child with John the Baptist introduces a prayer for “my husband and my children” (p. 22) while Correggio’s Noli me tangere precedes a prayer to Jesus (p. 13).  Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna of the Harpies set within a frame and richly finished with text and gold illustrates the Ave Maria (Hail Mary) (p. 2), and Botticelli’s Virgin with the Pomegranate comes before miscellaneous prayers (p. 35).                                          Prayer Book, p. 13 ; Correggio, Noli me tangere, c. 1523-24, Madrid, Prado Museum                                          Prayer Book, p. 7 ; Andrea del Sarto, Charity, 1518, Paris, Musée du Louvre  In vivid blues, reds, and greens with some gold and silver leaf, these paintings are not exact copies of High Renaissance paintings; rather they are free renditions closely inspired by the originals.  Curiously, the original manuscript even includes a list that identifies the sources of the paintings page by page (Are these credits by Verga?  Or references for the reader?).                                                                                    Prayer Book, p. 52, Table  For the section on the genealogy of Claire’s family toward the end of the manuscript, Verga departed from this practice of using High Renaissance models.  On p. 46, for Claire’s daughter, named Genevieve, he borrowed the central scene of the fresco of the Childhood of Saint Genevieve that Puvis de Chavannes had just completed in 1874-78 for the Church of Ste.-Genevieve in Paris (today known as the Pantheon).  Compare the triptych of the same subject in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.  Prayer Book, p. 46; Puvis de Chavannes, La vie pastorale de sainte Geneviève, 1879,  Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum (detail) Surely hubris dictated the next illustration on page 48 devoted to Claire’s famous father, Eiffel himself.  Tributes to his greatest achievements are arranged in a frame, starting with the Pia Maria Bridge in Portugal, followed by a portrait medallion of Eiffel, then images of the Eiffel Tower, the Observatory in Nice, and the Viaduct of Rouzat in central France.    Eiffel & Cie, Maria Pia Bridge, 1877, Portugal, Porto; Rouzat Viaduct, 1869, France, Rouzat; Charles Garnier and Gustave Eiffel, Nice Observatory, 1878, France, Nice  A lavish Art Nouveau binding in red morocco with gold inlay by Petrus Ruban, who won a silver medal for his accomplishments in 1886, the same year that Eiffel won his bid for the tower, completes the Eiffel Prayer Book, as a veritable tour de force.  Prayer Book, p. 48, Eiffel Family, images of Gustave’s Paris tower, Rouzat and Pia Maria bridges, and the observatory in Nice; binding  Gustave Eiffel’s Renaissance-inspired Prayer Book adds another dimension to our understanding of the man and the engineer, whose legacy today lies not only in the construction of one of the world’s most iconic monuments but also in the origins of the modern skyscraper.  Defending his tower, Eiffel wrote “can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us…?”  The newly discovered Eiffel Prayer Book survives as another testimony to what Eiffel may have meant by “beauty.”  For the Eiffel Prayer Book and fourteen manuscripts and books inspired by the medieval and Renaissance eras, see our latest Primer, Neo-Gothic Book Production and Medievalism.";"/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/neo-gothic,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/new-inventory";"1";80046;"11_15_magician_of_iron";"/blog/entries/11_15_magician_of_iron";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/12_15_hats/802_ff.24v-25_detail1.png";"/blog/12_15_hats/802_ff.24v_detail_fb.png";"When Coats of Arms Wear Many Hats";;"2015-12-21";"Capping our last post on medieval heraldry, this week’s post is dedicated to heraldic headgear and the stories it can tell us. The previous post addressed, among other things, the symbolic meanings and associations linked to the colors of a coat of arms...";"The arms of the Grimani family in a Venetian heraldic miscellany, TM 802, f. 16v (detail), Italy (Venice), c. 1565-1567 Capping our last post on medieval heraldry, this week’s post is dedicated to heraldic headgear and the stories it can tell us.  The previous post addressed, among other things, the symbolic meanings and associations linked to the colors of a coat of arms.  But what about their sartorial add-ons, like the hats here (and above)? Hatted coats of arms bedeck this opening in a list of the Venetian nobility, TM 802, ff. 13v-14 Today’s post focuses on different kinds of meaning recorded in coats of arms, specifically, what caps and crowns like these can tell us about the histories of the bearers of these arms or their families – or even about the manuscripts in which they survive. The combined arms of Edward II and his wife, Isabella of France; the arms of Edward’s elder brother Alphonso, who died young; the arms of Edward’s sister Elizabeth and her first husband, John I, Count of Holland; the arms of Edward III and his wife, Philippa of Hainault; and the arms of David II and his wife, Joan of the Tower, sister of Edward III, all featured in this genealogy of the kings and queens of England, TM 627, f. 5, England, after 1558 and prior to 1603, c. 1590-1600 Consider this Tudor roll of arms.  It contains a genealogy of the English royal family, which explains the abundance of crowns and coronets surmounting these coats of arms.  But why so many different kinds of crown?  The two largest crowns in the center of the page surmount the combined arms of fourteenth-century kings of England Edward II  and Edward III  and of their queens’ families.   The two remaining types of crown are coronets denoting the ranks of duke and count.  In one instance the ducal coronet surmounts the combined arms of David II, king of Scotland, and his English wife – perhaps a slight on Scotland, which England had attempted to annex in both the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The other coronet more predictably accompanies the combined arms of John I, Count of Holland, and his English wife.  And what of the arms with no crown whatsoever?  These belong to Alphonso, heir to the throne of England, who died at the age of twelve and was therefore never crowned.  His younger brother, Edward, subsequently bore these arms (specific to the heir apparent) and later became the ill-fated Edward II.  But back to the manuscript with the hats!  This sixteenth-century book presents the arms of the Venetian nobility, a subject in keeping with its broader focus on who counted among that nobility and why.  Here there are no royal crowns in evidence. A selection of arms from the list of the Venetian nobility, TM 802 (details) Venice was a republic at the time and subject to neither king nor emperor. Instead, the Republic of Venice was governed by a doge, who was elected for life; an aristocratic senate; and a number of councils, most notably the Great Council, whose members were drawn from the very families identified in this manuscript.  Even at a glance, this manuscript attests to the fact that a number of doges were appointed from these families too.  The unusual hat atop so many of the Venetian arms actually represents part of the doge’s regalia and is known as the corno ducale, the doge’s crown. Doge Leonardo Loredan (1436-1521) wears the corno ducale in this portrait by Giovanni Bellini, painted after his appointment in 1501, London, National Gallery And there’s more.  The doge’s crown was not the only kind of headgear that a Venetian might be honored to set atop his arms.  When a member of one of these families was appointed to high ecclesiastical position, specifically cardinal or pope, the appropriate headgear has also been included.A red cardinal’s hat surmounts the Navagier family arms, TM 802, f. 27v (detail) The hatting did not even end with this manuscript’s production.  There are several clear instances in which later (and somewhat less artistically gifted) hands have added hats – several doge’s crowns and a cardinal’s hat – atop (or beside) a family’s arms.In addition to two added lines updating this entry for the Cicogna family, note the somewhat smudged and clumsy corno ducale that has been added to the family arms, TM 802, f. 10 (detail) These additions provide valuable information about this manuscript.  Specifically, they help narrow the period when this book could have been produced.  For example, we can be reasonably certain that this portion of the manuscript was completed before 1585 because this was the year when the first doge from the Cicogna family was appointed and the corno ducale above the Cicogna arms is not the work of the original artist.  It was added at a later date, presumably shortly after Pasquale Cicogna’s election.  (And, indeed, other evidence corroborates this pre-1585 dating, as you can read in our full description of the book.) Even more significant, though, is the mere existence of these additions.  A similar doge’s crown above the Sagredo family arms tells us that as late as 1674, when the first doge in the Sagredo family was elected, this book had belonged to one or more owners who were not only keeping abreast of Venetian politics, but were invested enough in what this book stood for that they were updating it.  Drawing awkward peaked hats into the margins of the books, they were keeping a record of the continuing achievements of Venice’s noble families.";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/archives";"1";80067;"12_15_hats";"/blog/entries/12_15_hats";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/1_16_smuggled_-banned/1.-list.jpg";"/blog/1_16_smuggled_-banned/1.-fb.jpg";"Smuggled Writings and Banned Books";"Girolamo Savonarola’s Textual Afterlives";"2016-01-07";"He prophesied a “Sword of of the Lord” poised over the earth.  He oversaw the immolation of great works of art and literature in so-called bonfires of the vanities.  He brought down the Medici and defied the pope.  He was challenged to a trial by fire...";" He prophesied a “Sword of of the Lord” poised over the earth.  He oversaw the immolation of great works of art and literature in so-called bonfires of the vanities.  He brought down the Medici and defied the pope.  He was challenged to a trial by fire.  No matter what we might think of preacher and firebrand Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), his message, or his methods, it’s undeniable that he led an extraordinary life.     Girolamo Savonarola, painted in profile by Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1497-1498, Florence, Museo di San Marco, Florence His death was similarly sensational.  Savonarola lost a great deal of popular support after one of his followers agreed to represent him in the proposed trial by fire, which was then delayed and finally canceled.  Enraged by Savonarola’s failure to deliver a miracle – a feat of which many believed him capable – an angry mob assaulted the Dominican convent to which he belonged.  An early depiction of Savonarola’s public hanging and burning in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498, attributed to Francesco di Lorenzo Rosselli, Florence, Museo di San Marco  Savonarola was arrested on charges of sedition and uttering false prophecies and imprisoned for over a month.  By the permission of the pope, Savonarola was tortured until he confessed his guilt, only to deny it and confess it again.  Still, as he awaited his impending execution – Savonarola and two of his followers would first be hanged and then burned on 23 May 1498 – he was not idle.  The opening lines of Psalm 51, Miserere mei deus, stand out starkly in this opening from Girolamo Savonarola’s meditation on the Psalm, TM 824, II, ff. 1v-2, Flanders, c. 1490-1510 and c. 1520-1530   Here is a copy of one of Savonarola’s final works, a meditation on the penitential Psalm Miserere mei deus (“Have mercy on me, O God”), which he wrote during his time in prison.  Savonarola begins, “I am unhappy and stripped of all help, for I have sinned against heaven and earth.  Where shall I go?  Where shall I turn?  To whom shall I flee?  Who will take pity on me?” (John Patrick Donnelly’s translation).                                                            The opening of Savonarola’s meditation, TM 824, II, f. 1  This tormented cri de cœur sets the tone for the intensely personal soul-searching that follows.  As he ponders each of the Psalm’s nineteen verses, Savonarola acknowledges his sinfulness and prays for God’s mercy.  Savonarola completed this meditation just weeks before his death, and it was swiftly smuggled out of his prison to be published.  His words spread like wildfire.  Within three years of Savonarola’s death the meditation had been issued in over fifteen editions.  It also inspired a number of composers, including Josquin des Prez  (c. 1450/1455-1521) and William Byrd (c. 1539/1540-1623).                  The opening of Savonarola’s vita, TM 708, f. 1, Northern Italy, Tuscany?, c. 1600 (after 1566)  Meanwhile, the miracles Savonarola did not deliver in life were accumulating in his name following his death.  Here an Italian translation of Savonarola’s vita, a narrative of his life supporting his veneration as a saint, recounts miracles attributed to him over the 150-year period following his death.  Vitae of Savonarola like this one circulated widely in manuscripts, but for over a century after his death were never printed on account of political and ecclesiastical opposition.  (Some of Savonarola’s own writings were even on the Index of Prohibited Books!)  The vitae were also subject to censorship, and reading them was particularly dangerous under the Medici, who had regained power in Florence and would hold it, almost without interruption, until the eighteenth century. Carefully preserved and disseminated in the face of official opposition, the texts preserved in these two manuscripts bear witness to Savonarola’s continuing influence after his death, to his textual afterlives.  Full descriptions of the manuscripts discussed here, TM 824 and TM 708, can be found on our website www.textmanuscripts.com";"/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/authors,/blog/categories/history";"1";80092;"1_16_smuggled_-banned";"/blog/entries/1_16_smuggled_-banned";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/1_16_sons-in-law_and_lovers/list_tm-848.jpg";"/blog/1_16_sons-in-law_and_lovers/tm-848-fb.jpg";"Sons(-in-Law) and Lovers";"How Scribes Reveal and Conceal Themselves";"2016-01-19";"In most of our encounters with writing on the medieval manuscript page, we know very little about the person who set pen to parchment (or paper) long ago.  Their script may tell us a bit about them.  Paleographers, those who study early handwriting, can often place and date scribes’ hands on the basis of particular script features...";"  In most of our encounters with writing on the medieval manuscript page, we know very little about the person who set pen to parchment (or paper) long ago.  Their script may tell us a bit about them.  Paleographers, those who study early handwriting, can often place and date scribes’ hands on the basis of particular script features or even recognize a particular hand in multiple manuscripts.  For us to put a name to a hand, though, we still generally need some additional help from the scribe. This scribe has signed his name at the end of this substantial sermon collection that he copied, the Sermones de sanctis et de communi sanctorum of Nicolaus de Aquavilla, TM 783, f. 210v (detail), France (Paris?), c. 1275-1325   In this case, the scribe, one Gaufridus, has obligingly named himself in a colophon, a sort of scribal “signature,” at the close of a book of sermons he had copied.  This one reads in full, “Nomen scriptoris Gaufridus cultor amoris.” The name of the scribe is Gaufridus, a devotee of love.  Scribal colophons like this one are relatively uncommon in medieval manuscripts, though they did become more common in the later Middle Ages, and were then adapted into a print convention.  One of our recent posts even features a twentieth century scribe who identified herself in a colophon!  This early twentieth-century scribal colophon is not only extremely informative but it may accompany a self-portrait of the scribe and artist, Clothild Coulaux, who created this charming Missal, p. 173, France (Alsace, Molsheim), June 29, 1906  Colophons might share relatively practical information concerning a book’s production, say, the place or year in which it was completed, as in this twentieth-century instance.  Some medieval scribes even record the precise duration of their labors, a particularly exciting bit of information for those of us who study manuscripts and their production!  Scribes might also share how they felt about their work (as one might expect, complaints of tedium, cold, and tired fingers tend to crop up) or their motivations (money, perhaps, or spiritual reward).  Requests for prayers and curses upon book thieves also appear with some frequency in colophons.  And, of course, plenty of colophons supply scribes’ names. This colophon, written in red, identifies who commissioned this manuscript, an Office of the Dead, made for the church of St. Kunibert, in Cologne, TM 644, ff.2-3, Germany, Cologne, 1487 (with 1727 additions)  Going back to Gaufridus, a tantalizing tidbit accompanies his identification.  He is, he tells us from across seven centuries, a cultor amoris, a devotee of love.  He is not the only medieval scribe to call himself this, and, in fact, the phrase shows up in medieval and early modern, poetry, epitaphs, even a twelfth-century encyclopedia!  Still, it is a perplexing remark, here in this book of sermons.   Even as he shows himself in this colophon, Gaufridus leaves us wondering what this might have meant to him, who he was, whom (or what) he loved. An intricately adorned alphabet showcases the skill of an eighteenth-century calligrapher, Hieronymous Tochtermann, TM 848, Germany, Augsburg, 1734  The writing master who produced this delightful eighteenth-century alphabet sheet, Hieronymous Tochtermann, exhibits a similar flare for mixing revelation with mystery.  In the midst of this display of his calligraphic skill, Tochtermann has concealed a verse colophon.  While most letters are filled with stars or blossoms or other finely detailed patterns, one has been filled instead with micro-script:                                        A verse, written in a fine micro-script, completely fills the letter “m” in TM 848 Ein jeder heist mich TochtermannEin jeder thut auch recht daranJedoch wenn ich darbey begehrDas Heyrathgut find sich fein schwehrUnd gibt man mir nur den BerichtMan könne ja die Tochter nicht Tochtermann identifies himself through this punning verse.  Everyone calls him son-in-law, he remarks, and they are right to do so (this being one meaning of “Tochtermann,” literally “daughter man”).  And yet, he wrily laments, he has no dowries to show for it.  And if there are to be no dowries, he concludes, he will not accept the daughters either.  The pun, the poem, and its sly incorporation into one of the letters speak to Tochtermann’s pride in his skill – even the way he signs his name to his work shows off his abilities!  More than that, though, his playful concealments reveal the calligrapher’s wit and sense of fun, as vivid as though we were encountering the man himself. Look closely and you can see where Tochtermann dated his work – in the period at the end of his alphabet sheet, TM 848  Check out our newest catalogue “Script” to read more about these scribes and their work and to see what you can discover in the script of many more. ";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";80103;"1_16_sons-in-law_and_lovers";"/blog/entries/1_16_sons-in-law_and_lovers";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/2_16_the_deluge_of_doom/holbein_danse_macabre_cutting.jpg";"/blog/2_16_the_deluge_of_doom/holbein_danse_macabre_cuttingfb.jpg";"The Deluge of Doom!";"Early Modern Meteorology and Mass Hysteria";"2016-02-04";"Aside from the prodigious quantity of snow it deposited on the American East Coast, one of the most notable stories about the recent Winter Storm Jonas was...";" Aside from the prodigious quantity of snow it deposited on the American East Coast, one of the most notable stories about the recent Winter Storm Jonas was that meteorologists had been able to predict it early and accurately. But we can probably all conjure up a big storm in recent memory that took us by surprise – in its sudden onslaught or in its total failure to materialize. Sailors face death in a tempest at sea in this woodcut from Hans Holbein the Younger’s Danse Macabre, 1523-1526 Weather prediction has a long history, and for good reason, when you consider the repercussions to human lives and best-laid plans, and to buildings and crops that a bad storm can have even now – and would certainly have had in pre-industrial times.  As early as the seventh century BC, we know that the Babylonians attempted short-term weather prediction based on what they observed in the sky.  Around 340 BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle formulated theories regarding the causes of thunder and lightning and other weather phenomena in the treatise, Meteorologica. The initial opening of a printed almanac, Johannes Stöffler and Jacob Pflaum’s Almanach nova plurimis annis venturis inservientia, with its title page, TM 850, printed in Venice by Lucantonio Giunta, 1522, front pastedown and sig. A1 recto At the dawn of the Age of Discovery, people looked to the heavens to predict the weather.  This fascinating almanac, featured in our recent Text Manuscripts update, contains calculations (covering a period of nine years!) of the daily positions of the seven ‘planets’ known and scrutinized by medieval astrologers – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon.  And what was the discerning reader to do with these tables and tables of calculations?  Make meteorological predictions, among other things. You can see the planets and their signs identified in the outermost field of this working volvelle, a kind of proto-computer, which was added by the book’s early owner and would have allowed him to quickly determine which planet ruled over every hour of every day of the week, TM 850, front pastedown (detail) In fact, we know the book was used this way.  This volume’s earliest owner customized it with many additions.  Chief among them are extensive notes in German that explain how to forecast the weather using the almanac’s tables.  The book’s owner even drew a complex weather diagram, shown below, enabling him and later users to draw correspondences between planetary influence and weather conditions. Also added by this early owner, the weather diagram shown here traces correspondences between the hours of the day, the four classical elements, the seven planets, the signs of the zodiac, and particular weather conditions, TM 850, f. i verso (detail) Why the owner’s interest in the weather?  For one thing, this almanac’s publication had triggered a sensation by this time.  The almanac’s authors, Johannes Stöffler and Jacob Pflaum, having calculated sixteen planetary conjunctions in the watery sign of Pisces for February of 1524, shared their conclusion that these conjunctions would bring about a period of drastic, unprecedented change.  Their conclusions, too vague in their own right to provoke alarm, were given more terrifying shape early in the sixteenth-century by a prominent Italian astrologer, Luca Gaurico, who predicted that the coming conjunctions would cause a catastrophic flood, along with a number of correspondingly apocalyptic events, like massive earthquakes, deadly epidemics, and the arrival of a false prophet. Pisces, marked with a figure of death, looms over a scene of flooding and strife in this title page for a pamphlet advertising the apocalyptic events predicted for 1524, Leonard Reynmann’s Practica vber die grossen vnd manigfaltigen Coniunction der Planeten, printed in Nuremberg by Hieronymus Höltzel in 1523 These predictions generated an early modern media frenzy.  While astrologers argued amongst themselves about the flood prediction (Stöffler, notably, argued against it), some also circulated pamphlets proclaiming the imminent disasters and featuring woodcuts depicting these catastrophes in ghastly detail, as in the pamphlet shown above.  Flood panic swept Europe.  Preachers declared the flood a sign of God’s wrath.  People relocated in an effort to survive the coming deluge.  In fact, a president of the parliament of Toulouse even took a page from the Bible, building an ark upon a mountaintop in preparation for the disaster! One of Leonardo’s ‘deluge’ drawings, quite possibly inspired by the widespread panic and controversy over the flood predicted for 1524, Leonardo da Vinci, A deluge, c. 1517-c. 1518, Royal Collection Trust When February of 1524 arrived, of course, the weather was completely uneventful.  No floods wrought destruction on Europe, and we may imagine the parliamentarian of Toulouse rather ruefully abandoned his ark to resume normal life.  Critics of astrology, like Martin Luther, ridiculed astrologers for the failed prophecy.  And yet astrology retained its authority well into the seventeenth century, as people continued to seek their futures – meteorological or otherwise – in the stars.You can read more about this fascinating almanac here.";"/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/print,/blog/categories/science";"1";87470;"2_16_the_deluge_of_doom";"/blog/entries/2_16_the_deluge_of_doom";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/2_16_a_love_token/spanish-forger---detail.jpg";"/blog/2_16_a_love_token/spanish-forger---detail-for-fb.jpg";"A Love Token";;"2016-02-12";"We’re guessing love is on your mind right now, whether it be a many-splendored thing or full of anxious fear (or both!).";" We’re guessing love is on your mind right now, whether it be a many-splendored thing or full of anxious fear (or both!).  Whether you are celebrating your love for your family, Based on an oil painting by Giovanni Francesco Penni, Giulio Clovio’s superb miniature renders the Holy Family in loving detail, Holy Family or “Madonna del divino amore,” Italy, Rome, c. 1560 (detail) your friends,Elegant men and women mingle and listen to music in a verdant garden beside a castle in this twentieth-century miniature, painted by the Spanish Forger, one of the most skillful forgers of all time, St. Cecilia Playing Music in a Courtly Gathering, France, probably Paris, perhaps after 1925 (detail) your beloved,The short verse, or posy, “In love abide till death deuide” has been engraved on the inside of this Elizabethan gold ring, pressed against the wearer’s skin and concealed from the world, England, 17th century or even yourself, Narcissus gazes at his reflection in this drawing, modeled on a woodcut by Antoine Vérard, in this copy of Guillaume Alexis, Le Passe-temps de tout homme et toute femme and L’ABC des doubles, France, Normandy, Rouen?, c. 1525-1530, ff. 95v-96 (detail) we wish all of our readers a Happy Valentine's Day!  And whatever your feelings on love or romance at the moment, this manuscript has something for you. Fine calligraphy and shining illumination grace this beautiful book of French rondeaux, TM 860, France (Paris?), c. 1500-1515(?), ff. 11v-12 An intimate volume of courtly love poetry, it is closely connected to the splendid French court of King Louis XII and Anne of Brittany, who presided over a period of artistic flourishing in Renaissance France.  The marital union of Louis and Anne was itself the subject of exuberant literary imagining.  Court poets, among them Jean d’Auton and Jean Lemaire de Belges, wrote a series of poetic epistles ostensibly sent to and from Louis during a military campaign in Italy, including letters to and from his wife, Anne (as well as a letter from Hector of Troy!). Anne of Brittany writes to her husband, Louis XII, as she mourns his absence, and he writes back to her in these two miniatures, painted by Jean Bourdichon, from a presentation copy of the Epîtres de poètes royaux, St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS Fr. F. v. XIV, 8, c. 1510, ff. 1v (detail) and 51v (detail) Many of the poems in the present volume were also penned by poets of this court.  In fact, one was the work of the same Jean d’Auton behind some of the aforementioned poetic epistles (Hector’s included).  The poets who wrote the love poems here were largely part of a literary circle known as the Grand Rhétoriqueurs, known for their rich word play and experimentation with sound. Two different kinds of rondeau are on display in this opening from TM 860, ff. 14v-15 The poems here run an emotional gamut from hope to adulation to despair.  All rondeaux, short poems in a fixed verse form, these poems encapsulate different experiences of love pursued, enjoyed, and lost.  One extolls the perfections of the beloved – “I hold her a masterpiece of nature / And know no being in the world / To my pleasure so perfect in beauty ...” – while another laments the transience of affection – “... A woman’s heart transforms and takes its course / Like the moon in its waning ...”.  Others proclaim total devotion to a new beloved, brimming with anticipation of both carnal and emotional varieties. Detail from TM 860, f. 12Was this given as a love token?  Presented to an aristocratic patron? A bit of sophisticated fun between poets?  What we certainly know is that this beautiful little book was made to be perused within a very small circle of readers at court – and that it was intended to please and delight.  We hope that it will soon find new readers to admire its shining pages and to fall in love with its vibrant poetry.If you’re in southern California this weekend, you can see this manuscript (and many others) in person at our booth at the California Antiquarian Book Fair. Stop by and say hello!  If not, you can read more about it here.";"/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";87480;"2_16_a_love_token";"/blog/entries/2_16_a_love_token";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/3_16_medieval-must-haves/list.jpg";;"Medieval Must-Haves";;"2016-03-02";"The text manuscripts  featured on this blog so far range in their contents from the rare or unique to works that would have been circulated and valued within particular circles ...";" The text manuscripts featured on this blog so far range in their contents from the rare or unique to works that would have been circulated and valued within particular circles (astrologers, say, or the French court) in the medieval and early modern world.  But if you want a sense of the kind of book owned and read most widely in the Middle Ages, you need look no further than the Book of Hours.  Delicate sprays of leaves and flowers frame this vivid Annunciation miniature, painted by an artist from the circle of the Master of the Troyes Missal to mark the beginning of the Hours of the Virgin, Book of Hours (Use of Troyes), BOH 131, France (Troyes), 1460-1470, ff. 25v-26  Generally small in size and attractively, even lavishly, illustrated, Books of Hours were chiefly made for the use of lay people, not for priests or monks.  Their contents could be tailored somewhat to the devotions and desires of a particular buyer, but nearly all Books of Hours contain the Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a set of prayers to be said throughout the day at eight canonical hours: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.  One wonders how many lay people prayed all (or, indeed, any) of these hours, but we do encounter accounts of them doing so – some Books of Hours even contain paintings of their owners praying with book in hand!  This charming miniature of Saint Anne teaching the young Virgin Mary how to read, painted by Guillaume II Le Roy, demonstrates one of the other important ways in which lay families used their Books of Hours (Use of Rome), BOH 46, France, Lyons, c. 1495-1510, f. 187v (detail)   This regular and (at least in theory) regimented routine of daily prayer originated in monastic practice.  Monks and nuns were required by the Rules of their orders to pray the canonical hours every day, known as the Divine Office.  Many surviving monastic liturgical manuscripts were dedicated to this endeavor.  Books of Hours derive texts like the Hours of the Virgin from books like this Breviary (shown below), which brought together all of the prayers and other texts a monastic would need to pray the Divine Office. This Breviary, made for the use of Dominican friar or nun, also contains the Hours of the Virgin, along with other prayers, psalms, and short texts to be read at the canonical hours, Diurnal (Dominican Use), TM 835, Southern Germany or Alsace (Upper Rhineland, possibly Strasbourg), c. 1300-1320 (probably c. 1302-1307), with later fourteenth- and fifteenth-century additions, ff. 8v-9  Whether they wanted Books of Hours as prayerbooks, rich in spiritually beneficial contents, or as status objects, resplendent with beautiful paintings, an unprecedented number of people desired and valued these books in the late Middle Ages and beyond.  Deluxe Books of Hours were painted by the best artists of the day as one-of-a-kind art objects tailored to the tastes of the buyer, and you might find a dozen of these in the library of a wealthy aristocratic collector (think Jean, Duc de Berry and his Très Riches Heures.  At the other end of the spectrum, commercial booksellers produced Books of Hours in massive quantity to satisfy the demand of well-to-do families, many of which may not have owned any other books.  Notice the different decorative styles in the border of the Crucifixion miniature on the left and the opening of the Hours of the Cross on the right in this delicate Book of Hours (Use of Rome), BOH 130, Belgium (Bruges), 1400-1410, ff. 27v-28  In that latter vein, this Book of Hours here was not created for a particular buyer.  Instead, it was made on-spec in Bruges, a major producer and exporter of Books of Hours in the fifteenth century.  The miniature on the left was produced independently of the rest of the book.  The book’s buyer could have bought this handsomely illuminated Book of Hours without pictures, but he or she had the funds to upgrade it, and so accordingly purchased five miniatures and had them inserted into their appropriate places in the book. Popular demand for Books of Hours carried over into print, as these two sixteenth-century books illustrate: Painted initials persist in this early printed Book of Hours, with metalcuts of the Adoration of the Magi and scenes from the Book of Tobit following designs by two well-known illuminators, the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany and Jean Pichore, Printed Book of Hours (Use of Rome), BOH 75, Paris, Simon Vostre, c. 1515, sig. H3v-H4r    Surrounded by a border thronging with life, Jesus is shown raising Lazarus from the dead in this engraving, signed by Peeter van der Borcht and Pieter Huys, in this deluxe printed Book of Hours (Use of Rome), BOH 109, Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1570, sig. K6v-K7r And then there’s this much later book of prayers, produced in an era of renewed fascination with the culture, arts, and aesthetics of the Middle Ages:  Executed entirely in woven black and silver silk thread on a machine loom, this book’s Nativity miniature and leafy borders very deliberately recall the look of a medieval Book of Hours, Livre de Prières Tissé, BOH 86, Lyon, R. P. J. Hervier, designer; J. A. Henry, fabricator; for A. Roux, 1886-1887, pp. ix-1  The very old and the very new marry gracefully in this delicate volume, the only illustrated book ever successfully woven on a machine loom.  Specifically, it was made using the punched-card system of the Jacquard looms, which was a primary inspiration for the Analytical Engine of computer pioneer Charles Babbage (1791-1871).  Though this book production technique never caught on, it seems oddly appropriate that this prayerbook, so indebted in many respects to the medieval Book of Hours, should have been made in this simultaneously modern and luxurious medium. Check out these and other Books of Hours on our Books of Hours site, just updated with new inventory.";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/print,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/books-of-hours";"1";87554;"3_16_medieval-must-haves";"/blog/entries/3_16_medieval-must-haves";1;"object"
"";"Christopher de Hamel";"/blog/3_16_reading-the-book-of-hours/list2_1.jpg";"/blog/3_16_reading-the-book-of-hours/boh-110-220v-facebook-pix.jpg";"Reading the Hours";"the Medieval Experience of the Bible";"2017-10-19";"This post takes a closer look at what’s in a Book of Hours, which is arguably the most important text of the late Middle Ages.  This is why...";" This post takes a closer look at what’s in a Book of Hours, which is arguably the most important text of the late Middle Ages.  This is why.  If we are ever to understand social history of any period, we must go to what was known and used by the largest number of people at that time.  One could claim that the Divine Comedy or the Roman de la Rose or Beowulf were the greatest medieval texts, and one might be right, but ultimately these were part of the experience of only a tiny percentage of the population.  BOH 140, The Saxby Psalter-Hours (use of Sarum), England, probably London, c. 1425-40, ff. 7v-8, Annunciation The Book of Hours, however, was the first text read all across Europe by all people at every level of literacy.  Its words reached an enormous audience, more than any written text had ever done.  It was the book from which medieval children were taught to read.  It was a text which most people knew by heart.  Its phases were the most familiar usage of the Latin language for several centuries.  Extraordinarily, although the more famous literary monuments have been published thousands of times, there is still no modern critical edition of the text of the Book of Hours.   It would be an invaluable publication for the study of language and daily life, and as a record of the aspirations and fears of everyday people.BOH 126, Villeneuve Hours, Belgium, Bruges, c. 1450, f. 53, Annunciation (detail) BOH 110, Prayer Book, Belgium, Brussels, c. 1460 and Lille, c. 1475, f. 198 and f. 220v, Virgin seated with a book; Virgin under a baldachin (details) The historian Eamon Duffy has famously said that the history of prayer is as important and as difficult to document as the history of sex, and for many of the same reasons. The Book of Hours brings us directly into the mindset and intimate thought process of a medieval person.  They are very private and personal.  The prayers on death, plague, warfare, travel and bad weather, all found in Books of Hours, touch us with a vividness that no literary text can ever evoke. BOH 3, Circle of Etienne Collault, France, Paris or the Loire Valley (Tours?), c. 1525, f. 13v . Annunciation (detail) To understand the Hours of the Virgin one must go back to the medieval understanding of the Annunciation.   Around the year 0, the archangel Gabriel appeared to an ordinary woman in Nazareth to tell her that she had found ultimate favour with God.  Implicitly, every Christian woman since that moment aspired to such supreme perfection.   What was the Virgin Mary doing at that precise holy instant?   According to medieval tradition, she was interrupted while kneeling in private, reading passages from the Old Testament in a prayer book.   She is shown doing precisely that in the picture for Matins in almost every Book of Hours. BOH 141,  Book of Hours With 7 inserted full-page miniatures by the Assumption Master, with borders and initials by the Monkey Master, The Netherlands (South Holland), c. 1485-90., ff.13v-14, Annunciation Books of Hours were probably mostly used by women.  The texts of the Hours of the Virgin were made up almost entirely from the words of the Bible which Mary could actually have been reading and thinking about.  Probably 85% of the text is extracted directly from the Bible.  It comprises psalms and quotations from the Old Testament prophets, interspersed with the words with which the Virgin was interrupted, “Hail, Mary” and “Blessed art thou among women.”   In reading these texts, a devout medieval woman recreated for herself the identical experience of the Virgin Mary, opening herself to divine favour.  BOH 118, Book of Hours (Use of Rome) with 13 large miniatures from the Workshop of Willem Vrelant, Southern Netherlands, Bruges (Ghistelles?), c.1460s, f. 28, Virgin and Child Enthroned. The Hours of the Cross in a Book of Hours were similarly devised to help evoke the experience of the final day before the death of Christ.  Any Christian man was encouraged to imagine suffering the torments of Christ himself, but a woman too was taught to imagine watching the Crucifixion.   The Virgin, attended by Saint John, appears in nearly every picture of Christ on the Cross.   This is why pictures of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion are the two most common images in all of medieval art and in every Book of Hours. BOH 126, Villeneuve Hours, Belgium, Bruges, c. 1450, f. 33, Crucifixion (detail) The Seven Penitential Psalms in a Book of Hours were reputedly written by King David in remorse for having committed every one of the seven Deadly Sins.  Again, this is a text taken directly from the Old Testament.  In reading them devoutly, the owner of a Book of Hours was repeating the exact words used by David, who was ultimately restored to God’s favour.   BOH 60, Printed Book of Hours (Use of Rome), France, Paris, c. 1526 [almanac 1526-1541], sig. F8, David observing Bathsheba Bathing (Pichore Workshop for Eustace, in-8°, c. 1508) The Office of the Dead was a reminder of the imminence and unpredictability of death.  The most substantial parts of its text are taken from the book of Job, also in the Old Testament.  Every imaginable disaster happened to Job and yet he endured and came through; and in reading the text the medieval owner of the manuscript shared that experience of humanity with humility and patience.  Probably quite literally millions of people had their lives and outlooks on life affected by these ancient texts.   BOH 142, Hours of Philippote de Nanterre (Use of Amiens), France, Amiens, c. 1420s , ff. 158v-159, Funeral Service (detail) Most collectors now regard Books of Hours exclusively as picture-books by illuminators, but in actually reading the text and looking at the images we are transported into the presence and into the most intimate thoughts of men and women (especially) of five hundred years ago.   BOH 142, Hours of Philippote de Nanterre (Use of Amiens), France, Amiens, c. 1420s , ff. 20v-21, Philip and Bartholomew BOH 142, Hours of Philippote de Nanterre (Use of Amiens), France, Amiens, c. 1420s , f18,  James the Great (detail) See a selection of our Books of Hours by clicking here. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/illumination";"1";87572;"3_16_reading-the-book-of-hours";"/blog/entries/3_16_reading-the-book-of-hours";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/4_16_books_of_secrets/ripley_scroll---little-detail.jpg";"/blog/4_16_books_of_secrets/ripley_scroll_fb.jpg";"Book of Secrets";"Concealed Knowledge from the Philosophers' Stone to - Italian Sausage?";"2016-04-05";"Look too briefly at the book below and it might trick you. The faded title written hastily upon its modest binding proclaims it to be...";" Look too briefly at the book below and it might trick you.  The faded title written hastily upon its modest binding proclaims it to be a book of good recipes for human bodies and for horses. Signs of wear on the contemporary limp parchment binding of this miscellany of medical, magical, and alchemical recipes testify to its having been well-used, TM 843, Central Italy (Urbino?), c. 1520-1540, front cover with detail shown upside down. Open the book to its initial pages, and it appears to be just that, a book of medical and veterinary recipes.  Compilations of technical and medical recipes like this one, known as books of secrets, abounded in the sixteenth century, circulating in manuscript and in print.  The recipes here tend to be fairly brief and practical. Bitten by a cat? Mix galbanum (a bitter resin), black pitch, and gelding fat to make an ointment. Suffering from a dry catarrh?  Bring a pound of apples to a foaming boil, remove from the flame and let it cool, and then stir in ground rosemary flowers, nutmeg, and a quantity of cinnamon and cloves until completely incorporated. Then take a chestnut-sized dose in the evening and morning.  And, presumably, enjoy that the treatment can double as a tasty snack. Recipes for human and equine medicines share the opening pages of this volume, as exemplified here, TM 843, f. 5 Beyond these recipes, though, this book contains something quite different at its core.  The volume is made of a single, extremely large gathering of leaves (known as a quire, as discussed in this earlier post) enfolding two standard-sized quires at its center. These central pages contain an alchemical manual, the Liber lucis (Book of Light) of friar and alchemist John of Rupescissa, notorious in the Middle Ages for his apocalyptic prophecies and celebrated now as the father of modern medical chemistry.  The Liber lucis specifically delineates a recipe for the philosophers’ stone, an alchemical substance thought to be capable of transmuting base metals into gold – and therefore very much in demand.  (It was also considered useful for extending life, as popularized in the Harry Potter books and elsewhere.) The opening page of the Liber lucis, nestled among later recipes, TM 843, ff. 22v-23 As you can see here, the Liber lucis was copied in a different, probably earlier hand.  It shares the two added, central quires with alchemical recipes and extracts set down by the same person who copied the medical recipes that fill the rest of the volume, quite probably the person who assembled the book.  This is a strange way to structure a manuscript.  It has led us – and other scholars – to wonder, might the book’s compiler have been hiding these alchemical texts? This symbolically dense alchemical scroll, one of the “Ripley” Scrolls, named for one of England’s most famous alchemists, employs esoteric alchemical emblems to represent the stages by which the philosphers’ stone was produced, New Haven, Beinecke Library, Mellon MS 41, England, c. 1570, details In the sixteenth century, when this book was produced, alchemical texts and their writers embraced secrecy and concealment.  Authors often wrote under pseudonyms, and alchemical texts encoded their secrets in allegory, emblematic imagery (as in the scroll above), and Christian symbolism.  Perhaps our manuscript physically embodies this desire for secrecy, concealing its alchemical contents from casual discovery – or from censure. Alchemists were a popular subject for critique in early modern art, where their dogged pursuits were dismissed as futile and materialistic or even ridiculed as foolish, as in this etching, “The Alchemist,” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, after 1558, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art Alchemical secrets aren’t the only surprise awaiting the reader at the center of this book, though.  Hiding in plain sight there is another witness to the interests of the book’s compiler: a recipe for ... Bolognese sausage. This caption, "For making Bolognese sausage", alerts the attentive reader to the presence of one recipe that is not like its alchemical neighbors, TM 843, f. 41 (detail) This is somewhat curious.  It is not the only culinary recipe in the volume; a recipe for spiced wine appears, less surprisingly, among the medical recipes that fill the outer portions of the book.  But why a sausage recipe here, where it is not even grouped with other recipes?  Was the compiler in such a hurry to set it down that he or she copied it in the midst of this alchemical stint?  Was it added later where there was available space?  Perhaps the compiler felt this placement was fitting, that the knowledge and precision necessary to transmute metals would stand a sausage maker in good stead?  Certainly, it must have been a prized recipe.  This book of secrets is one of more than thirty manuscripts featured in our latest exhibition, Traces: People and the Book , which is opening this week in our New York gallery.  If you are in the area, we hope you will come and explore what manuscripts like this one can tell us about how they were made and used.  You can also explore the show from afar in the exhibition catalogue, now available for purchase or download on our site. Detail from woodcut depicting a kitchen scene, from a printed recipe book, Kuchemaistrey, Nuremberg, 1485 And, since it seems fitting that we should attempt one of the recipes in this book that abounds with them, watch this space for updates on our luck with the sausage recipe – we thought we might have better luck with that one than the philosophers’ stone.";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/science,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/cookery,/blog/categories/alchemy,/blog/categories/traces";"1";87619;"4_16_book_of_secrets";"/blog/entries/4_16_book_of_secrets";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/4_16_beauty-is-on-the-eye/list_.jpg";;"Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder";;"2016-04-20";"Some medieval and Renaissance manuscripts survive in almost pristine condition.  There is a special pleasure in turning the pages of manuscripts such as our copy of Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics...";" Some medieval and Renaissance manuscripts survive in almost pristine condition.  There is a special pleasure in turning the pages of manuscripts such as our copy of Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics (TM 629)                                             TM 629 Thomas Aquinas, Italy (Venice), c. 1470, f. 1  Copied c. 1470 in Venice and illuminated by Leonardo Bellini or a close associate, this large and beautiful manuscript is almost as fresh and clean as the day it was made over five hundred years ago.  Who among us can’t appreciate the beautiful script, the large and clean margins, and the beautiful colors and polished gold of the initials (not to mention the swan swimming peacefully in the border on the first page). In fact, there are many modern historians of the book, and some collectors, who might find this copy of Thomas Aquinas, however beautiful, to be not quite to their taste.  These scholars delight instead in manuscripts with dirty corners and added notes – the more, the better.  Instead of viewing these details as imperfections, they regard them as precious evidence that allows us to understand how books were read over the years.  (Here is a link to Professor Kathryn Rudy’s article on “Dirty Books,” which studies the density of fingerprints in prayer books). TM 789, a thirteenth-century Psalter from Germany from the diocese of Constance or Augsburg, is a perfect example of a manuscript showing signs of use on almost every page.  There are added prayers,                                                TM 789, Psalter, Germany, c. 1240-60, ff. 83v-84 and corners that are worn and dirty from generations of                                            TM 789, Psalter, Germany, c. 1240-60, f. 116v (detail of the dirty corners)   The illuminated initials are far from pristine, and indeed, many have been almost entirely rubbed away.                                              TM 789, Psalter, Germany, c. 1240-60, f. 1  How these initials damaged remains a bit of a mystery – were they damaged through damp, or some other physical mishap? Were they scraped to re-use the gold, and perhaps even some of the pigment? That is also a possibility.  This Psalter is unusual since it includes pictures of the two great saints of the thirteenth century:  St. Dominic, who died in 1221, and was canonized in 1234, and St. Francis, who died in 1226, and was canonized soon after in 1228. When it was copied, its original owner, almost certainly a lay person, would have revered these two great recent saints.  But by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Friars were objects of waves of criticism in many parts of Europe, including Germany.  Look at the two initials depicting these saints.                                                          St. Dominic, TM 789, ff. 72v-73                                                                     St. Francis, TM 789, f. 16v (detail) The damage to these two initials looks like more than simple wear and tear from years of use.  Parts of St. Dominic’s hand and face have been scraped away.  In the case of St. Francis, the damage is much more extensive.  Note how his face, hand, the rope that fastened his tunic, and the book he is holding, have been almost completely obliterated.  Is it possible that these two initials – and in particular the image of St. Francis – were deliberately disfigured to express someone’s disapproval of the Mendicant Friars? Perhaps.  But it is even more likely that these initials were unintentionally damaged by people who loved these saints, and who touched, or even, kissed their images while praying.  Similar damage in fact can be seen in this manuscript at the British Library, where the body of Christ has been almost totally worn away through years of devotion.  The body of his torturer on the right, in contrast, may have been obliterated in iconoclastic anger.   British Library, MS Harley 2966, Book of Hours, Northern Netherlands, fifteenth century, f. 30v.  In closing, take a look at the beautiful image of St. Michael slaying the dragon found before Psalm 51 in the same manuscript.  There is a little wear to this initial, especially on St. Michael’s robe, but his face and hands are intact.  The amount of wear to this image, compared with the more extensive damage to the images of the two mendicant saints, seems quite striking.                                         St. Michael the Archangel, TM 789, f. 37 Further examples of the physical evidence left behind by the people who made, used, read, and owned manuscripts can be found in our latest exhibition, Traces: People and the Book , on view in our New York gallery until April 23.  You can also explore the show from afar in the exhibition catalogue, now available for purchase or download on our site. ";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/traces";"1";87639;"4_16_beauty-is-on-the-eye";"/blog/entries/4_16_beauty-is-on-the-eye";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/05_16_bringing_the_past_alive/boh132_f36_detail.png";"/blog/05_16_bringing_the_past_alive/132-ff.-12v-13._facebookjpg.jpg";"Bringing the Past Alive";"The Dulac Hours";"2016-05-16";"Anyone who has ever handled medieval manuscripts comes away with a sense of how they bring the past alive in a very human way.  In all sorts of manners, manuscripts divulge...";" Anyone who has ever handled medieval manuscripts comes away with a sense of how they bring the past alive in a very human way.  In all sorts of manners, manuscripts divulge evidence of the people who interacted with them over time, those who touched them and turned their pages, doodled in them and proudly inscribed their names in them, rebound them and even sometimes gave them catalogue numbers for posterity.  Perhaps Books of Hours reveal more about their owners than any other type of medieval manuscript. To some extent this is ironic, for we often think of the Book of Hours as the quintessential luxury manuscript of the late Middle Ages. The most famous of all Books of Hours, the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry is full of pristine paintings created by the celebrated illuminators, the Limbourg Brothers, for a consummate bibliophile.   The Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, January. It bears few signs of the kind of use I am talking about.  Yet, nearly every family, even those of much more modest means than the Duke of Berry, owned a Book of Hours, and they often left their traces in them over centuries. Let’s take a close look at one such typical Book of Hours.  We do not know who originally ordered it or for what occasion, but we do know it was made in Paris around 1470 to 1480 by artists associated with the ubiquitous style of the Master François (now identified as François le Barbier).  BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, ff. 12v-13, Saint John on Patmos  I have called it the Dulac Hours because Antoine (or Antonius) Dulac signed the manuscript in two places. BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, f. 34, (detail) Expressing his devotion, Antoine also wrote his motto three times after his name:  Lon tanc a dieu (or in modern French “longtemps a dieu,” meaning “for a long time [devoted] to God”).  This motto is actually an anagram, for its letters when they are rearranged form his name. The only Antoine Dulac I have found recorded was a physician at the sixteenth-century court of France; perhaps he was then the owner of the book, although he was not its first owner.  BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, f. 128v, (detail) Antoine treasured his book enough to write his name in it several times, but he (or someone in his immediate or extended family?) also actively used his book for daily devotion.  Sixteenth-century cursive writing in the margins of the first thirty folios provides guidelines for additional prayers to be said, in Latin and in French:  in the morning upon rising, upon leaving the house, when taking the holy water, when kneeling in front of the crucifix, when the priest turns, when he raises the chalice, and upon taking the pax.  BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, ff. 17v-18 and ff. 18v-19 These prayers are interesting for three reasons.  First, they indicate that the owner took his Book of Hours to Mass and used it there; since Books of Hours do not typically include prayers for the Mass, he wrote them in by hand.  Second, the prayers are to be said in two languages, in the vernacular as well as in Latin, attesting to the increased use of French as a language of religion in Renaissance France.  Third, whereas the Latin prayer is fully written out in the margin, only the rubric is supplied in French, suggesting that the owner knew by heart the French version of the prayer.  This Book of Hours is truly an archive of prayer, as a recent monograph of Books of Hours has called them (see Virginia Reinburg, French Books of Hours.  Making an Archive of Prayer, c. 1400-1600, Cambridge, 2012). One other alteration to the manuscript is noteworthy.  The Annunciation has been repainted to include a later owner – not Antoine but a woman, who kneels in prayer in front of the Virgin Mary. BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, f. 36, Patrons Praying before the Virgin, (detail) The original miniature showed the Virgin Mary before her lectern in prayer, interrupted by the angel Gabriel on the right.  Here, the angel Gabriel is transformed into a man in secular dress, who presents a kneeling donor (his wife?) to the Virgin.  The style suggests a modification made at least a half century after the original book.  Clearly the proud new owner, disappointed with a book containing no personal references, requested this addition to signal her possession. This is such an interesting example of a Book of Hours.  Its extensive illuminations by a notable Parisian workshop make it a good choice for an art-loving bibliophile appreciative of fine paintings.    BOH 132, Dulac Hours, France, Paris, c. 1470-1480, ff. 120v-121 (Crowning of the Virgin) and details of f. 23 (Annunciation), f. 69v (Visitation), f. 121 (Crowning of the Virgin), f.162v (Pentecost), f. 237 (Pietà).  Yet, at the same time, its many personal touches, accretions added to text and illustration over at least a century, let us bring to life the different owners and vividly imagine how they used the book over at least a century.  Turn the pages of the Dulac Hours here. Further examples of the physical evidence left behind by the people who made, used, read, and owned manuscripts can be found in our exhibition, Traces: People and the Book , on view in our New York gallery and extended through May 26, 2016.  Or you can also explore the show from afar in the exhibition catalogue available for purchase or download on our site.";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/margins";"1";87703;"5_16_bringing_the_past_alive";"/blog/entries/5_16_bringing_the_past_alive";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/6_16_wine/bacchus_caravaggio_red.jpg";"/blog/6_16_wine/bacchus_caravaggio_red_fb.jpg";"Beer is made by men, wine by God ";"(Martin Luther)";"2016-06-02";"This week’s post is dedicated to a unique, unpublished wine manuscript from the fifteenth century:  “the Statutes Regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna.”";" This week’s post is dedicated to a unique, unpublished wine manuscript from the fifteenth century:  “the Statutes Regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna.”  TM 274, Statutes regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna, ff. 1v-2 (detail) Wine-growers among you may start watching the weather pretty closely in the early summer months for its effect on the harvest-to-come.  Wine-drinkers – at least those who live in New York – might want to attend MetFridays for the newly inaugurated wine tastings at the Cloisters, where you can even admire some trailing grape vines in the enclosed garden. The Cloisters (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Or, read on for tidbits about the early history of wine. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all drank wine.  Effects of the beverage are widely featured in the visual arts:  from episodes in the Old and New Testament (e.g., the Drunkenness of Noah), Greek mythology (Dionysius as God of Wine), and Persian legend (King Jamshid and the beautiful princess). In beer-drinking Germany, the reformer and bon vivant Martin Luther extolled the virtues of both beer and wine, although he claimed: "Beer is made by men, wine by God!". The earliest evidence of the existence of wine technology comes not from France, the modern world’s pre-eminent wine capital, but from Bronze Age Armenia in c. 4000 BC. From left to right: a woman having wine in solitude, from Chehel Sotoun pavilion in Isfahan, Iran, 17th century (detail); statue of Dionysus, Marble, 2nd century CE, Louvre; Kings MS 5, f. 15r c 1395-1400, Biblia Pauperum, "Noah Drunk" ( detail) , British Library. But, what about wine in medieval manuscripts? Those familiar with the calendars of illuminated Books of Hours, chronicling daily life through the yearly cycle, will remember that September, or sometimes October, is usually illustrated with the grape harvest as the Labor of the Month coupled in this case with the Zodiac Sign. BOH 102, the Monypenny Hours, France, Paris, c.1490, ff. 10v-11, October (detail) In the autumn, the picking of and stomping on grapes must have been a familiar sight in the countryside in medieval Europe.  What else do we know about wine in the Middle Ages?  An excellent volume of Mediaevalia (vol. 30) reveals what made wine tasty to medieval drinkers and how dietary rules (according to the seasons of the year, to the ages of man, and to social classes) affected wine drinking.  Interesting evidence about the colors of wine, wine-producing regions, and even about wine as a sacred commodity in religion also comes to light. Written in Bolognese dialect, our manuscript comes from Emilia-Romagna.  Today, this fertile province is one of Italy’s most prolific wine-producing regions, covering more than 136,000 acres across the entire width of the Italian peninsula. Tenuta Bonzara: a renowned vineyard near Bologna It is also one of the older wine areas.  We know that grapevines were planted there by the Etruscans who transported wine along ancient roadways to other areas of Italy as early as the seventh century before Christ.  By the mid-fifteenth century, the wine trade was already well-regulated in Bologna.  Some forty-eight chapters in our manuscript cover everything from the retail and wholesale cost of wine (chapters 1 and 2) to the parking of the wagons full of barrels of wine at the city gates and the housing for the wholesalers who drove the wagons (chapters 42 and 48).   These medieval city gates still exist in modern-day Bologna.  Bologna, Porta Saragozza, built in the 13-14th centuries. Special reduced prices for wine applied to those in military service (chapter 3).  In certain respects little has changed in wine-making and retailing:  it was forbidden to mix water with wine, and punishments were meted out for those who did not obey (chapter 12).  TM 274, Statutes regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna, ff. 2v-3. Chapter 12, rules concerning mixing water with wine (detail) In other respects today’s wine drinkers are more moderate and, hopefully older.  In medieval Bologna people were free to drink up to five bottles (two liters) of wine per day within the walls of the city or under its gates.  But they had to be at least fourteen years of age (chapter 24)!  TM 274, Statutes regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna, ff. 6v-7. Chapter 24, on who can drink wine and how much (detail) Where did such an extraordinary volume come from? In the twentieth century, the manuscript was part of the famed Giannalisa Feltinelli Foundation Library.  Amassed by the publisher, visionary, and revolutionary Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (d. 1972), whose life is picturesquely recounted in the book by his only son entitled “Riches, Revolution, and Violent Death,” the vast library counted more than 200,000 volumes sold in eight sales at Christie’s in New York in 1997.  Many of the volumes were devoted to the political, economic, and social history that fundamentally interested their owner.   A picture of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli with Fidel Castro. Nothing is known for sure, however, of the manuscript’s earliest history.  The volume bears no ex-libris or original signs of ownership.  But, there is one clue.  A pointing hand in the margin signals a passage of special interest to a tax collector  TM 274, Statutes regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation in Bologna, f.8 (detail of the pointing hand) Perhaps our volume, so full of legal guidelines, served a dutiful civil servant charged with regulating the trade of wine in medieval Bologna.   Not only is the present manuscript a precious document for the study of the medieval wine trade but also for linguistic, monetary, and socio-economic studies in Emilia Romagna.  For a full description and illustrations, click here.  Cheers! Chin chin!  Bottoms up! Santé! ";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/cookery,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/culinary-arts,/blog/categories/books-of-hours";"1";87730;"6_16_wine_statutes_blog";"/blog/entries/6_16_wine_statutes_blog";1;"object"
"";"David Andrés-Fernández and Jane Morlet Hardie";"/blog/7_16_seville_sydney/peacock-for-blog.jpg";"/blog/7_16_seville_sydney/tm-769---f31v-32_detail_fb.jpg";"From Seville to Sydney:";"The Re-discovery of a Manuscript’s Missing Pair";"2016-06-29";"It is always a special pleasure when one of our manuscripts finds the perfect new home (and frankly, we have wonderful clients, so that is often the case).  Today we would like to introduce two distinguished scholars, David Andrés-Fernández (Spain), and Jane Morlet Hardie (Australia)...";" It is always a special pleasure when one of our manuscripts finds the perfect new home (and frankly, we have wonderful clients, so that is often the case).  Today we would like to introduce two distinguished scholars, David Andrés-Fernández (Spain), and Jane Morlet Hardie (Australia), who have contributed this account of two Processionals now in the Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Sydney’s Fisher Library. As you will see, the historical circumstance that lead to two related manuscripts from sixteenth-century Spain being re-united today in Sydney is a remarkable one to contemplate.  And there is a third related manuscript somewhere out there.  If anyone knows where it is, please let us know.So, without further introduction, here is our first guest blog.  We welcome other contributions that explore how our manuscripts are being studied in their new homes.Laura Light University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 358University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 358 (detail) Latin liturgical books’s lifespan makes them fragile.  Over time, changes of liturgical priorities in the Latin Church have resulted in stored books languishing in ecclesiastical library shelves.  After that, wars, robberies, and other unfortunate events make them disappear or to be forgotten.  What was originally an expensive and useful artifact becomes a piece of art to be rediscovered.              Fortunately, the wheel of fortune has been kind and has allowed us to reveal two related sixteenth-century Processional books from Seville now in Sydney. Thanks to serendipity, the sharp eyes at Les Enluminures and the conjunction of two scholars devoted to medieval and early modern Spanish manuscripts, two hitherto unknown liturgico-music books held at the Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Sydney's Fisher Library have turned into two valuable books of plainchant from the ‘hispalense’ cathedral.  They are related. One, University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 358, was already held by the University. University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 358 The second, University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 406 Deane, was recently acquired from Les Enluminures. University of Sydney, RB Add. MS 406 Deane, formerly Les Enluminures, TM 769, ff. 31v-32 Dr. Jane Hardie (Sydney, Australia) and Dr. David Andrés-Fernández (Spain) are responsible for unraveling the puzzle and cracking the rubrics and contents of these manuscripts.  They will be fully discussed in a forthcoming book on the four Sydney Processionals. Now the authors of this blog look for the missing piece: a third Processional book from Seville, which complements the others. A selection of the University of Sydney collection of Spanish Liturgical Music Manuscripts can be accessed here. A resplendent opening of RB Add. MS 406 Deane, formerly TM 769, ff. 28v-29 A final note on Processionals, for those not familiar with liturgical manuscripts: these are liturgical books containing the chants, rubrics, and collects appropriate to liturgical processions.  Since Processionals were intended to be carried, they were often small and portable.  Processions were an important part of the liturgy during the Middle Ages and into the early modern era in both secular churches and within religious orders.   Processions, for example, preceded the celebration of the Mass on each Sunday, were an important part of the liturgical observances on saints’s days and on other important liturgical occasions, and were assembled in times of need, to ask for rain, avert famine, or in the face of other catastrophic events.  The Palm Sunday procession reenacting Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is a notable example that is still celebrated today.  Rites of death and burial were also accompanied by processions.  TM 515, Noted Processional, ff. 94v-95 You can read descriptions, and see images of the Processionals currently offered at Text Manuscripts by following these links: TM 515 and TM 718.  You can now receive periodic Blog post updates by submitting your email in "Follow Us" ";"/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/archives,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/music,/blog/categories/margins";"1";87809;"7_16_from_seville_to_sydney";"/blog/entries/7_16_from_seville_to_sydney";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/8_16_a_legal_reference_book/francesco_guardi_detail.jpg";"/blog/8_16_a_legal_reference_book/francesco_guardi_detail_fb.jpg";"A Legal Reference Book";"and Its Female Audience?";"2016-08-01";"Spend enough time with medieval manuscripts and you wind up wishing their early readers had been a bit more forthcoming in identifying themselves and indicating how they used their books, preferably in the flyleaves and margins of the selfsame books...";" Spend enough time with medieval manuscripts and you wind up wishing their early readers had been a bit more forthcoming in identifying themselves and indicating how they used their books, preferably in the flyleaves and margins of the selfsame books.  Early inscriptions may sometimes offer tantalizing glimpses of a reader’s background (see our earlier post on the subject), but in many more cases we have to extrapolate a manuscript’s origins or early use from its physical components, style of script and decoration, and assortment of contents. Entries on approbation (“Approbacio”), apostles (“Apostoli”), water (“Aqua”), and judgment (“Arbitrium") in a legal reference book, the Margarita Decreti et Decretalium of Martinus Polonus, TM 642, ff. 18v-19, Italy, c. 1425-1450 Not so in the case of this manuscript above!  A legal concordance, this reference book directs readers to passages on specific legal topics within two essential canon law texts of the Middle Ages, Gratian’s Decretum and the Decretals of Gregory IX.  An obliging early reader has left some very helpful clues as to his location, his occupation, and how he may have used this popular text – and the conclusions aren’t necessarily what you’d expect. Additions made by a fifteenth-century reader, TM 642, f. 261v Several leaves were originally left empty at the end of this manuscript.  On this final leaf, a fifteenth-century user has taken advantage of this blank space to record his preaching activities in 1459 in several stints.  He has devoted about three quarters of this page to listing in Latin the subjects of the sermons he preached on specific days, beginning in December and extending well into the Lenten season. Details of TM 642, f. 261v As you can see here, for example, his list begins by noting that he preached on the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, celebrated on 21 December, on the subject of faith (“de fide”), an appropriate, if not particularly surprising, choice for the feast of the original ‘doubting Thomas.’  Further sermon topics for the Christmas season include divine love, obedience, virginity, and grace (a repeat topic, no less!).  In several cases, the preacher appears to have changed his mind or misremembered a topic, hence the corrections visible above. This list on its own is remarkable, a rare survival of an ephemeral kind of record.  What makes it an even more exciting find, though, is that the preacher has given a place and a date for his activities.  We know when he delivered these sermons because he has told us at the top of the page: “These are the sermons made by me in San Zaccaria in the year of our Lord 1459.” This Latin inscription reads, “Iste s[un]t p[re]dicatio[n]es facta p[er] me i[n] s[anc]to çacharia a[n]no do[min]i m[illesim]o cccc. l. 9,” TM 642, f. 261v (detail) Façade of San Zaccaria in Venice, with details of the inside, the "flooded"  ninth-century crypt, and the famous San Zaccaria Altarpiece, painted by Giovanni Bellini in 1505 San Zaccaria was the oldest and most distinguished convent in Venice and, by the end of the Middle Ages, among the wealthiest as well.  Hailing from Venice’s patrician families, the San Zaccaria nuns were aristocratic patrons of the arts, and they were well-educated, literate in Latin. San Zaccaria was an important Venetian house.  Here Francesco Guardi depicts the Venetian doge’s annual Easter procession to the San Zaccaria church in his Procession of the Doge of Venice to San Zaccaria, 1775-1780, Paris, Louvre These nuns were also fiercely independent.  In the early sixteenth century, they protested reformers’ efforts to impose strict enclosure (that is, to enforce a stricter separation from the outside world) by appealing to Venetian and ecclesiastical authorities – and by throwing stones.  (They ultimately failed, though some nuns would later go to great effort to flout enclosure, breaking down walls to admit lovers, for example.) San Zaccaria nuns meet with visitors from the outside world in their parlor, which officials had unsuccessfully attempted to close at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in Francesco Guardi’s Parlor of the Nuns at San Zaccaria, 1750, Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico It may be that this manuscript belonged to the nuns of San Zaccaria; they would certainly have been able to read it, and nuns’ ownership of canon law texts like this one has been documented elsewhere.  Beyond this, the added list of sermons tells us that a preacher had access to this book in 1459.  What’s more, many of his sermon subjects overlap with the topics listed within this reference book.  This opening contains the beginning of an alphabetical table of topics included in this concordance, TM 642, ff. 239v-240 Among the canon law subjects listed alphabetically in this opening alone, the soul (“anima”), the Antichrist (“antichristus”), avarice (“auaricia”), baptism (“baptismus”), blasphemy (“blasphemaus”), charity (“caritas”), confession (“confessio”), and contrition (“contricio”) all appear on the list of sermon topics as well.  In other words, this preaching record may appear here precisely because this preacher was an early reader, using this book to craft his sermons. Fragments of the Babylonian Talmud and visible in this volume’s binding, TM 642, upper board Still, this book preserves some mysteries.  We may divine its early use at San Zaccaria from this preaching record, but its fascinating binding – in fragments of the Talmud with seventeenth-century pastedowns from Spanish judicial interrogations – raises some intriguing questions about where (and to whom!) it went from there. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/law,/blog/categories/preaching,/blog/categories/women-and-the-book,/blog/categories/history";"1";91666;"8_16-a-legal-reference-book";"/blog/entries/8_16-a-legal-reference-book";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/9_16_popess_vello/117_-f.81_small.jpg";"/blog/9_16_popess_vello/martinus-polonus_f9_fb.png";"The Popess and the Vello-Maniac";;"2016-09-07";"It can be mind-boggling to think about how many hands a manuscript has passed through between the time that its pages were copied an";" It can be mind-boggling to think about how many hands a manuscript has passed through between the time that its pages were copied and gathered into a book and the time in which we now look at them, on the screen or in person.  Corrections and additions offer tantalizing glimpses into the responses of early readers (see an earlier post on one such reader) or into the uses to which they put their books (see our most recent post).  Sometimes earlier scholars’ labors over the manuscript come to light.  And of course, the stories of a book’s movements through the libraries of different collectors can be absolutely fascinating. The inscriptions and marks on this manuscript flyleaf preserve traces, some identified and some still a mystery, of the earlier owners of this historical manuscript, an Italian translation of the Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum of Martinus Polonus, TM 117, f. ii recto, Northern Italy (Vicenza), dated 1472 If a book once belonged to a famous collector, I always wonder what human stories lie beyond the hard facts of auction catalogues and ownership marks – what in particular drew the collector to it? did he or she look at it? read it? what were his or her associations with the book? When it comes to the great nineteenth-century British antiquary, book collector, and self-proclaimed “vello-maniac” Sir Thomas Phillipps, pictured below, we are fortunate not only to have a lot of hard facts to work with, but also to have access to his own words on the subject of his collecting and the bibliomania that drove it.  Phillipps once wrote in jest (but not without a grain of sincerity, one suspects) that he wished “to have one copy of every Book in the World!!!!!”.  Where medieval manuscripts are concerned, he came closer to reaching this goal than any private collector ever has, nearly bankrupting himself in the process.  At the time of his death, he had a collection of over 60,000 manuscripts. Photograph of Sir Thomas Phillipps, self-proclaimed “vello-maniac,” seated with two manuscripts from his enormous collection, 1860 This stenciled crest appears in many of the manuscripts in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, as does an accompanying inscription with the shelfmark Phillipps assigned to each of his manuscripts, TM 117, ff. ii recto (detail) and 1 (detail) Because he acquired manuscripts in such quantity, one wonders how many of them passed into Phillipps’s library without ever receiving his close attention.  That said, there is reason to believe that he did take an interest in the manuscript pictured above and below, our copy of Cronica degli pontifici e degli imperatori, a possibly unique Italian translation and continuation of an immensely popular thirteenth-century Latin chronicle. The opening page of the Cronica degli pontifici e degli imperatori features a trace of one of its earliest owners in the coat of arms painted in its lower margin, TM 117, f. 9  Detail of an inscription added by a nineteenth-century hand, TM 117, f. 1 Accompanying the many marks of ownership at the opening of this manuscript, the inscription above not only dates to the long period in which Phillipps owned this manuscript, but also resembles specimens of his handwriting preserved in auction catalogues and correspondence.  Phillipps himself may well have made this note in the front of the book. Possibly in reference to the legend of Pope Joan, the Popess featured in many early tarot decks, including the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck, drawn by Bonifacio Bembo, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, inv. M. 630, c. 1450 In any event, the inscription is correct.  Among the many sensational events that this chronicle recounts is an account, almost certainly fictitious, of Pope Joan, a woman who supposedly disguised herself as a man and was elected pope in the ninth century.  In fact, this chronicle’s Latin source, the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum of Martinus Polonus, furnishes one of the earliest and most popular accounts of this legend. The Cronica’s account of Pope Joan’s reign begins here with the rubricated heading “Ioanni che fo femina non e nel numero di papa [John who was a woman and not numbered among the popes],” TM 117, f. 43 (detail) As the chronicle has it, the woman who would become Pope Joan first dressed as a man in order to follow a lover.  She would go on to receive an advanced education.    After she became pope, her deception came to light in most dramatic fashion when she gave birth to a child in the midst of a papal procession. Pope Joan giving birth in the midst of a papal procession, in a woodcut by Jacob Kallenberg from an edition of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, published in Bern, 1539 Why might Phillipps (or a contemporary) have remarked on this story in particular?  It may simply be that this sensational tale was one of his readiest associations with Martinus’s chronicle.  (It was also not included in every copy, so its presence here might have been considered noteworthy.) Pope Joan, as depicted in a tinted woodcut from Hartmann Schedel’s Liber chronicarum, with woodcuts by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, published in Nuremberg, 1493 But there is another possibility. By the nineteenth century, scholars had long discounted Pope Joan’s tale as legend.  Still, it endured as grist for anti-Catholic polemic, where it was used to undermine the legitimacy of the papacy and paint Catholics as absurdly credulous.  According to A. N. L. Munby, author of the definitive study on Phillipps’s life and collection, such was Phillipps’s own violent hatred of the religion and its practitioners that he feared a Catholic coup, was convinced that Jesuits were meddling with his mail, and, more to the point here, “delighted to discover in his library and publish to the world evidence of unchaste practices in nunneries or the more curious details of Papal elections.”  The story of Pope Joan here may have provided him with an irresistable opportunity to indulge this habit, making the book even more appealing to this avid bibliophile. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/notes";"1";91712;"9_16-the-popess-and-the-vello-maniac";"/blog/entries/9_16-the-popess-and-the-vello-maniac";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/10_16_secret_of_secrets/alexander_the_great_little.jpg";"/blog/10_16_secret_of_secrets/720_f1_cut_facebook.png";"The Secret of Secrets";;"2016-10-11";"We usually try to give our blogs a catchy title.  In this case, we didn’t have to try very hard.  What could be more intriguing than a book called the Secret of Secrets...";" We usually try to give our blogs a catchy title.  In this case, we didn’t have to try very hard.  What could be more intriguing than a book called the Secret of Secrets (in Latin Secretum secretorum)?  Everyone likes secrets, and this title also hints at something tremendously important.  What would your “Secret of Secrets” be? World peace? Eternal youth? A cure for cancer? The perfect recipe for fried chicken? Pseudo- Aristotle, Secret des secrets [Secret of Secrets], anonymous translation. TM 720, f. 1, France (perhaps Arras or Tournai, or Paris?), c. 1300-1320 This text deals with all these topics, in a way (well, maybe not the fried chicken).  The Secret of Secrets is written as an extended letter from the Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384–322 BC) to his former pupil, Alexander the Great (356-320 BC), offering a guide to the art of government and correct royal conduct, in the broadest sense, including moral and political advice, as well as information on science and medicine, health regimen, astrology, physiognomy, alchemy, numerology, and magic.  Knowledge is power, and this small guide promises to provide the key. A messenger from Aristotle kneels before Alexander the Great to present this book. TM 720, f. 1 In actuality, this isn’t a text by Aristotle, but rather an Arabic text known as the Kitāb Sirr-al-asrâr (Book of the Secret of Secrets), written sometime before the late tenth century by an anonymous author, and translated into Latin twice during the Middle Ages, first in a shorter version in the twelfth century, and then c. 1230 by Philip of Tripoli.  It was truly a medieval bestseller, surviving in many hundreds of manuscripts. Charts for determining whether a person will live or die based on the numerical value of the patient's name. Kitāb Sirr al-asrār (The Secret of Secrets), dated Rajab 1264 [= 3 June-2 July 1848], National Library of Medicine, MS A 57, f. 7a.  But it was not a text read only by the learned; there are early translations into most of the vernacular languages, including French.  Many different translations into French survive.  The version in our manuscript – early and known in only four complete copies – is a very faithful translation of the Latin that includes all the scientific advice, medical, alchemical, astrological, and so forth.  Most of the other, more broadly disseminated French translations, in contrast, omitted these topics, concentrating only on the moral and political advice to the sovereign – transforming a scientific Latin text into one belonging to the advice books genre known as “Mirrors of Princes.” Pseudo- Aristotle, Secret des secrets [Secret of Secrets], anonymous translation. TM 720, ff. 60v-61, France (perhaps Arras or Tournai, or Paris?), c. 1300-1320 In this French translation, one can discover how to make a panacea (the gloria inestimabilis in Latin, here called simply “Gloire” or the treasure of the philosophers) that slows aging and boosts intelligence, learn about the hidden properties of stones and herbs, about physiognomy (assessing character from someone’s outward appearance, especially their facial features), about plants and their connection with astrology, and read the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, treasured by alchemists as providing keys to primal matter and the philosopher’s stone, known to all of us now thanks to the Harry Potter books (for another manuscript that includes a recipe for the philosopher’s stone see our post, Book of Secrets.) This French translation follows in the tradition of one of the most fervent supporters of the Secret of Secrets, the Franciscan philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon (c. 1220-c.1292), who accepted it whole-heartedly as a work by Aristotle. The English philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon as an alchemist Michael Maier’s Symbola aurea mensae  A second copy of this particular French translation was made for Charles V (1338-1380), king of France from 1364-1380.  Charles V was a good king, and a learned one.  The Coronation of Charles V in London, British Library, Cottom MS Tiberius b viii, f. 35 He was the founder of the French Royal library, housed in a tower at the Louvre palace.  And he was particularly interested in acquiring the learned works of his day in French.  He commissioned Nicole Oresme, c. 1370, for example, to translate four works by Aristotle, the Ethics, Politics, Economics, and On the Heavens. The Palace of the Louvre, home to the original French royal library. Scholars once thought he may have commissioned this translation as well – it fits perfectly with his interests. Scientific Miscellany made for King Charles V of France, including a French translation of the Secret of Secrets, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 2872, f. 401r. (Source: Gallica, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60002894) This theory has been put to rest by Professor Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, who discovered that our manuscript includes the same translation as the Arsenal copy made decades later for Charles V. Illuminated border, TM 720, f. 1. We don’t know for whom our manuscript was made.  It is small and personal (measuring 157 x 112 mm., or about 6 x 4 1/2 inches), but also very fine, with its lovely illumination, and high quality parchment.   Was this the presentation copy made for someone of high rank and wealth who commissioned the translation early in the fourteenth century?  It seems very likely.  The exact identity of this mysterious person is one secret that has not yet been answered.  TM 720 is one of our newest additions to the Text Manuscripts site, one of thirty-one new manuscripts included in the recent September update.  For more, see www.textmanuscripts.com You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/alchemy,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/manuscripts";"1";91877;"10_16_secret_of_secrets";"/blog/entries/10_16_secret_of_secrets";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/11_16_deadseascrolls/mainpage.jpg";"/blog/11_16_deadseascrolls/5.-jars-and-qumran_facebook.jpg";"The Dead Sea Scrolls ";"Unpublished and previously unknown fragments will be on exhibit in “2000 Years of Jewish Culture”";"2016-11-03";"The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered the “most famous manuscript find of all time” and the “greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century.” Today they surely rank as one of the most important and revered literary and religious manuscripts in existence.  ";" The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered the “most famous manuscript find of all time” and the “greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century.” Today they surely rank as one of the most important and revered literary and religious manuscripts in existence.   Dating from 2,000 years ago, roughly 150 B.C.E. to 70 C.E., they were found concealed in eleven caves in the Judaean wilderness around or beside the Dead Sea.  The Great Isaiah Scroll, 1QIsa The Isaiah Scroll is the only complete biblical book surviving among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in Cave One at Qumran in 1947, it dates from about 120 B.C.E. Written primarily in Hebrew, the more than 10,000 manuscript fragments are also in Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke) and Greek.  The scrolls include the oldest biblical texts ever found, comprising passages from every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther.  The only biblical book that is complete is Isaiah, found in a scroll from Cave I, and it is 24 feet long.                                                       Portion of Copper Scroll at Jordan Archaeological Museum  Perhaps the most mystifying and intriguing is the Copper Scroll from Cave III, composed on thin sheets of copper metal and containing a sort of treasure map of sixty-four spots where massive amounts of gold and silver treasure are buried in the area around the Dead Sea – still not found and the subject of several fictional thrillers. Along with biblical texts, the scrolls include documents about sectarian regulations, such as the Community Rule, and religious writings that do not appear in the Hebrew Bible.  Just why, by whom, and for whom they were written and then buried still remains a subject of lively speculation among scholars.   The best contemporary description of a manuscript in use in Judaea in the period of the Dead Sea Scrolls is actually found in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 4:16-20), which describes Jesus in the synagogue:  “He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him; he unrolled the scroll …” and read, “and he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down,” and began to preach.   The caves where the scrolls were buried are numbered I-XI in the order of their discovery between 1947 and 1956.  The initial finds from Cave I, along with jars they were housed in, were made by Bedouin shepherds, who brought them eventually to a Syrian Christian dealer in antiquities in Bethlehem, Khalil Iskander Shahin.   It is probable that most of the recent discoveries of Dead Sea Scrolls, including the present fragments, are from Cave IV.  This cave is in the cliffs to the south-west of the site of Qumran, from which it is separated by a deep ravine.  An old Bedouin is said to have remembered finding the cave as a young man, and his recollections led his younger compatriots to the site, apparently in August 1952.  They let themselves down by a rope and entered the cave, where they unearthed the remains of masses of matted manuscript fragments, which they took, as their predecessors had done, to Kando in Bethlehem.                                                             Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum It seems almost inconceivable in the twenty-first century that unknown Dead Sea Scrolls could still appear on the market.  The last publicly prominent sale of Dead Sea Scrolls occurred on June 1, 1954, when four finds from Cave I, including the Isaiah Scroll, were offered for sale privately and advertised in the Wall Street Journal.  They were bought immediately by telegram by the state of Israel for $250,000.  These items are now in the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.  The most recent publicly recorded sale of Dead Sea Scrolls was in 2009, when Azusa Pacific University in California acquired five fragments for a price reported in the Los Angeles Times of nearly $2,500,000.  Other fragments exist worldwide in public and private collections:  the University of Chicago, the Museum of the Bible, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Martin Schøyen in Norway, to name the most significant collections.           High-resolution multi-spectral images of 3 fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel, circa 50 B.C.E.- 60 C.E.  Any appearance on the market of unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls is special news. The present group of five fragments, of which two are fragment sets, are among the so-called “W” fragments.  They were acquired by their American owner from the legal heirs of Khalil Iskander Shahin in 2002, and they are almost certainly from Cave IV.  Scrolls from Cave IV were not kept in jars but housed on shelves in ancient-library fashion, identified by dangling tags.  Recently completed high-resolution multi-spectral imaging of these fragments has revealed some Hebrew lettering but the texts are have not yet been identified.  The images will be studied by the leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholars in Israel and the United States this year, and will be published as early as 2017.      High-resolution multi-spectral images of 2 fragments sets of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel, circa 50 B.C.E. - 60 C.E.    These unpublished and previously unknown fragments will be on exhibit in “2000 Years of Jewish Culture” organized by Les Enluminures and Shapero Rare Books at 32 St. George St., London W1, opening on November 2. The asking price is $1,000,000. Read Press Release here";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/dead-sea-scrolls";"1";92017;"11_16_deadseascrolls";"/blog/entries/11_16_deadseascrolls";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/11_16_the_shape_of_the_thing/910_f99v-100_icon.png";"/blog/11_16_the_shape_of_the_thing/910_f99v-100_facebook.png";"The Shape of the Thing:";"the Scroll, the Codex, and Hebrew and Latin Bibles";"2016-11-15";"The iconic image of a Hebrew Bible is the Torah Scroll, the Sefer Torah - monumental scrolls containing the entire Pentateuch (the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that are used for public reading during prayer services...";" The iconic image of a Hebrew Bible is the Torah Scroll, the Sefer Torah ­– monumental scrolls containing the entire Pentateuch (the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that are used for public reading during prayer services.  Torah Scroll and Staves, Nuremberg (Germany), early 18th century, The Jewish Museum, New York, Gift of Samuel and Lucille Lemberg, JM 54-52 Torah scrolls today are still copied by scribes on parchment; they are faithful in form and content to the scrolls copied thousands of years ago in the third or fourth century of the Common Era. (See our previous blog on the Dead Sea Scrolls for a look at the very earliest examples of the Hebrew Scriptures, predating the earliest Torah Scrolls). The Great Isaiah Scroll, 1QIsa The Isaiah Scroll is the only complete biblical book surviving among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in Cave One at Qumran in 1947, it dates from about 120 B.C.E. Think of a Christian Bible, in contrast, and you will almost certainly think of a book in codex form, the technical word for the type of book we still used today ­– a rectangular object presenting text on a series of pages hinged together on one side.  (Of course, nowadays, there is an alternative.  When I said “Bible” did you think of scrolling text read on your computer or your phone?  Even so, for now let’s stick with the image of a book).One (of many) iconic images of the Christian Bible is the very first book printed by moveable type, known as the Gutenberg Bible. Biblia latina, Mainz, Johann Gutenberg, 1455. Otto Vollbehr Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (01.17.00) Before the invention of printing, Christian Bibles, like Torah Scrolls, were copied by hand.  This example is a large illuminated Bible from thirteenth-century Paris. Les Enluminures, Harcourt Bible, Paris, c. 1260-1280 There are many reasons that early Christians in the second and third centuries adopted the codex format – some historical, some practical.  The identification of early Christian texts, including the Bible, and this new format is in fact so close that scholars have argued the codex was deliberately chosen by Christians as a way of distinguishing themselves from their non-Christian contemporaries who wrote on scrolls.  Any of us can agree that these two types of books, the Hebrew Torah Scroll, and the medieval Latin Bible (or the printed Gutenberg Bible) in codex form, are really different.  But during the Middle Ages, (scholars are still debating exactly when, but possibly as late as the ninth or even tenth century), Jewish scribes began to copy Hebrew Bibles as codices.  Although Hebrew biblical codices never replaced the Torah Scroll for liturgical use, codices were used for public reading, study, and private devotion.  Like contemporary medieval Latin Bibles, the variety of their contents and format are important clues to how they were used.  It is easy to emphasize how these two traditions of making Bibles differed; I think it is just as interesting to think about features they have in common. Here are a few examples. This copy of the psalms from twelfth- or thirteenth-century Spain is now incomplete, and includes only part of the Psalter.  Based on its size and format, it is very likely that it originally included all the psalms, but no other books of the Bible.  It is a book in a convenient size (measuring c. 225 x 170-175 mm.) that was well suited for private prayer and study. TM 867, Psalms in Hebrew, Spain, 12th-13th centuries It is copied in a beautiful script, but it is admittedly an austere book compared with this Latin Psalter, copied for a lay person in Germany in the thirteenth century, that includes initials with images of Saints Michael, Francis, and Dominic.  Slightly smaller than our Hebrew Psalter (196 x 145 mm.), this book was also used for private devotion. St. Michael slaying the dragon, TM 789, Latin Psalter, Southern Germany, c. 1240-1260 Even smaller than the Spanish copy of the Psalms, measuring only 170 x 115 mm., this little book from thirteenth-century Germany or Northern France includes the first book of the Bible, Genesis.  It must also have been copied for someone’s personal use.  Its owner may have used it as a study copy, and it is even possible that he brought it along to the synagogue to follow the readings from the Torah (the division of the Torah portions is indicated in the text). TM 865, Genesis in Hebrew, Northern France or Germany, c. 1250-1300 Is it a coincidence that many contemporary Latin Bibles were also copied in a very small format? Probably not; the two communities lived side by side.  Admittedly, although similar in size (this book measures 172 x 123 mm.), this thirteenth-century Latin Bible from Spain is quite different than the Hebrew copy of Genesis, since it includes the entire biblical text from Genesis through the Apocalypse, compressed into one tiny, portable volume. TM 844, Latin Bible, Spain, Kingdom of Castille, c. 1240-1260 One important contrast between Jewish and Christian Bibles is what happened to their Bibles when they were no longer actively used.  In the Jewish tradition, books with the name of God (and especially books of the Bible), were sacred.  They couldn’t be thrown away or otherwise discarded, but instead were buried according to a special religious ceremony.  Before they were buried, communities kept them in storage places known as Genizot.  The most famous of these was the Cairo Genizah, which for some reason was never emptied for centuries, and contained thousands of fragments of manuscripts, some dating as early as the ninth century. This treasure trove was “discovered” by modern scholars in the late nineteenth century.  Putting documents into the Geniza at the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo - Diorama Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv This manuscript containing part of the Pentateuch (Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) is from Yemen, home to a Jewish community from antiquity.  We think that it was copied by a Yemenite scribe from the Benayah family, famous for the accuracy and beauty of their books.  If you look in the margins you can see the notes on how to copy the Bible with the correct vowels known as Masorah (in very tiny script or micrography).  At some point in its history, this venerable codex made its way to Cairo, where it was eventually deposited in the Genizah (TM 867 and 909 may also have been preserved in this way). TM 910, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (incomplete) in Hebrew, Yemen, c. 1450-1500 Did medieval Christians see their Bibles as sacred objects?  This is a very tendentious and under-explored topic.  I would suggest that although medieval Christians certainly revered the text of the Bible as a sacred, for the most part the actual manuscripts containing  the Bible were not treated much differently than any other books (the one exception to this might be Gospel Books).  Any thoughts on this?  Comments are welcome.  You can read more about these books at textmanuscripts.com, and in our newest Primer (no. 10!), on Hebrew Manuscripts. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/dead-sea-scrolls,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/traces,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/codicology";"1";92039;"11_16_the_shape_of_the_thing";"/blog/entries/11_16_the_shape_of_the_thing";1;"object"
"";"Adrienne Albright";"/blog/12_16_gifts_of_the_past/102_86v-87_detail_home_blog.jpg";"/blog/12_16_gifts_of_the_past/les_tres_riches_heures_du_duc_de_berry_janvier_fb.jpg";"Gifts of the Past";;"2016-12-09";"It seems you can’t go anywhere this time of year without a barrage of advertisements flaunting gifts for everyone on your list...";" It seems you can’t go anywhere this time of year without a barrage of advertisements flaunting gifts for everyone on your list. “Ad fatigue” can lead to nostalgia, dreams of the white Christmases of yesteryear when good food and family were all you needed. But was this fantasy ever really a reality? Did gifts carry the same cachet, say, in the medieval period? This full page miniature, painted by the Limbourg brothers for the Trés Riches heures de Jean de Berry, depicts a New Year’s day celebration at the Duke’s castle, Musée Condé ms 65, fol. LV. The simple answer is yes. Gifts were exchanged throughout the holiday season, from Christmas to Epiphany (January 6). In fact, one of the most famous scenes of medieval holiday revelry shows Jean, Duke of Berry (1340 – 1416) presiding over a New Year's Day celebration, known at the time as the étrenne. He gazes out over tables laden with glittering objects suitably sumptuous to act as royal gifts. Thanks to his meticulous records, we know that some of the most prized gifts, both given and received, included jewels, gold vessels, and illuminated manuscripts. Trés Riches heures de Jean de Berry, Musée Condé ms 65, fol. LV, detail. Sentiment may have played some role in such gift-giving, but, more crucially, these gifts were essential to defining political, familial, and spiritual relationships. And, of course, the holiday season wasn’t the only occasion for gift-giving in the medieval world. They were also given at coronations, marriages, and consecrations just to name a few.  Husbands gave Books of Hours to their new wives. (In fact, the aforementioned duke’s library included the Book of Hours given to Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France, by her new husband King Charles IV of France.) And it is easy to imagine a manuscript like this precious Book of Hours that we call the Champagne Hours in the hands of a young bride. The illustration of Pentecost shows Mary and several of the disciples holding small books. It is easy to imagine a young bride similarly holding a Book of Hours as she recited her prayers, BOH 131 ff. 21v-22. It is little wonder then that many of these books became heirlooms in which families would record notable events. One example is the extensive livre de raison in the Villeneuve Hours.  From 1575 to 1953 the Villeneuve Hours remained in the hands of the same family, who recorded birthdates, deaths, and weddings throughout the calendar, in the text of the Seven Penitential Psalms and at the end of the Office of the Dead, BOH 126 ff. 13v-14. Almost two hundred years later, these manuscripts were still seen as worthy gifts valued for their rich artistic content as well as their spiritual significance. The sumptuous Monypenny Hours bears witness to this trend with an inscription found on its upper inside cover: “Dedit Leonardus Renardi filio suo Annae anno 1683 19 Augusti” (Given by Leonard Renard to his son Anne on August 19, 1683). Detail of the inscription from Leonard Renard to his son Anne in the Monypenny Hours, BOH 102 interior binding. As is often the case today, medieval gifts often had “strings attached.” Reciprocity was an important aspect of gift-giving. An object like the sapphire portrait ring of Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania may have been given as a means of granting diplomatic favors or inviting loyalty. Sapphire Ring with Portrait of Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, Transylvania, 1619. We believe that this sixteenth century volume of courtly love poetry was made with an aristocratic patron in mind. Its handsome script and painted initials suggest it was intended for a member of the French court. Was it given by a poet who was currying an aristocratic patron's favor or was it a thank-you gesture to an already reliable patron? The care taken when transcribing and decorating this manuscript suggests it may have been intended for an aristocratic patron, TM 860, ff. 57v-58. Reciprocity even found its way into medieval religious life. The giving of alms or supporting religious institutions was a means of seeking God’s compassion following such iconic models as the gifts of the Magi to the Christ child. Likewise, the commissioning and donation of a manuscript such as a Choir Book was a means for a member of the clergy or a lay person to ingratiate themselves with the Church.   In this miniature, Abbess Hitda presents the Gospel Book she commissioned to Saint Walpurga, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, Hs. 1640, c. 1020. Whether religious, romantic, festive, or “just because,” gifts permeated medieval life. They came in many shapes and sizes for an even wider variety of recipients. Over the next few weeks, we will be featuring such gift-worthy objects at our Chicago, New York, and Paris locations: delicately illuminated manuscripts, glittering miniatures, and skillfully-crafted rings. These objects offer us a glimpse into diverse artistic practices and the taste of those who commissioned them. The works that have endured to the present day are the truest gifts of the past. To read more about gift giving in the Middle ages, two helpful introductions are The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages, edited by Drs. Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre, and Dr. Natalie Davis’s The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France, just to name two. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/women-and-the-book,/blog/categories/readers,/blog/categories/gift,/blog/categories/illumination";"1";92062;"12_16_gifts_of_the_past";"/blog/entries/12_16_gifts_of_the_past";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/1_17_rapscallions_resolutions/7deadly_sins_icon_2.jpg";"/blog/1_17_rapscallions_resolutions/tm-874-f.-1v-2_facebook.png";"Rapscallions and Resolutions";;"2017-01-04";"Happy New Year to all of our readers!  The year 2017 is full of possibilities – and, we’re guessing, full of resolutions as well...";" Happy New Year to all of our readers!  The year 2017 is full of possibilities – and, we’re guessing, full of resolutions as well. Perhaps you already anticipate scrapping all of these commitments after a few weeks of enthusiastic effort or maybe you have devised some strategies for long-term resolution-keeping (in which case, we say, how do you do it?!).  Either way, you’re part of a much larger tradition of self-scrutiny, self-improvement, and – because we’re all human – some inevitable frailties along the way. A delicate painting of King David graces the opening of this Ferial Psalter, TM 874 , ff. 1v-2, Northern Italy (Liguria or Lombardy), c. 1487 This manuscript is a perfect case in point.  A luxurious Psalter, it presents its devotional contents – Psalms, hymns, prayers, and so on – amid brilliant illumination and graceful adornments, adding considerable aesthetic appeal to the practice of daily prayer.  One final text at the back of the book, a confessional manual, maintains the book’s general orientation towards spiritual well-being, while also offering a more specific roadmap towards inner reform.  And yet a little investigation of the origins of this unique work reveals two fascinatingly flawed figures connected to its creation, prompting us to ask what motives lay behind this particular instrument for self-improvement. The Seven Deadly Sins – pride, wrath, lust, sloth, greed, envy, and gluttony – are embodied in these figures, illustrating a copy of the Testament of Jean de Meun, London, British Library, Yates Thompson MS 21, f. 65 (detail) Confessional manuals abounded in the late Middle Ages.  Many of these were written as guides for a confessor – that is, a priest or friar administering confession – to help him be as thorough as possible.  These were painstakingly structured texts, typically organized around the Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments, and even the social rank or occupation of the person confessing.  Each of these divisions prompted confessors with useful questions they might ask to aid people in their confessions.  For example, Raymond of Peñafort’s influential manual Summa de poenitentia suggests that the confessor ask princes if they had ever withheld justice and that he ask knights if they had ever used their power and position to pillage. A confessor hears a penitent’s confession in James Le Palmer’s Omne Bonum, London, British Library, Royal MS 6.E.vi, f. 354v (detail) Other confessional manuals directly address the person preparing to confess his or her sins – and our manual is one of these. Like confessors’ manuals, it uses the structure of the Seven Deadly Sins and Ten Commandments to help the penitent discern, repent, and confess his or her sins.  For a reader looking to turn over a new leaf, this would have offered a very thorough path forward. The opening of the Confessionale of Annius of Viterbo, TM 874, f. 209 And, in fact, we know who read this text – or at least who was meant to read it.  Its opening rubric, enlarged below, identifies both an author, one Johannes Viterbiensis, and a dedicatee, a “magnificent captain” Fregoso.  Some quick research reveals that Johannes Viterbiensis was a Dominican scholar and historian better known as Giovanni Nanni or Annius of Viterbo (1432-1502).  The Fregoso, or Campofregoso, family was a powerful and prominent Genoese family during this time, but which Fregoso could Annius have had in mind?  As it turns out, one Paolo Fregoso (1427-1498) offered Annius his patronage while the friar was teaching and preaching in Genoa (between 1471 and 1489).  Furthermore, in addition to holding ecclesiastical and political office as Archbishop of Genoa (1453-1495) and three-time doge of Genoa (May 1462, 1463-1464, 1483-1488), Paolo Fregoso served as an admiral of the papal fleet in the siege of Otranto (1481), thus meriting Annius’s flattering epithet, “magnificent captain” (and allowing us to hazard that this text was written around or after 1481!). This Latin inscription identifies the text that follows as the “Confessionale of Master Johannes Viterbiensis ... to the magnificent Captain Fregoso, de Campofregoso,” TM 874, f. 209 (detail) As the outline of his career suggests, Paolo Fregoso led a very interesting life, to say the least.  Appointed to the archbishopric at a young age, he then squabbled over the dogeship of Genoa with his cousin and, having secured it, he allowed corruption and confusion to flourish in the city-state.  After being expelled from that position in 1464, Fregoso set to sea as a pirate, a career for which he demonstrated considerable flair.  And even his fall from grace seems to have left him unchastened; upon his return to Genoa in the 1480s, he was again forced out of the city in 1488, this time by popular rebellion. A nineteenth-century Genoese artist’s depiction of Paolo Fregoso, Genoa, Gallery of Palazzo Bianco Annius might have hoped his confessional manual would help Fregoso atone for his checkered past – or perhaps his motives were more self-interested.  This is the only copy of the text that survives and it is a deluxe volume designed for personal use, judging from its small size.  Furthermore, the inclusion of several local Genoese saints in the calendar strongly indicates that the book was made to be used in Genoa.  Produced around 1487, during the relatively small window of time in which Annius could have written his confessional manual for Fregoso, this manuscript may well have been Annius’s presentation copy, a gift for his generous patron and a means of securing his continued favor. The front and back of a ducat of Paolo Fregoso, coined between 1483 and 1488 If the dedication had its desired effect, Annius did not have long to enjoy it.  The year after Fregoso was expelled from Genoa, he left as well after falling afoul of the Dominican hierarchy.  Taking some inspiration from his Genoese patron, perhaps, he embarked on a personal reinvention of his own, becoming a very successful forger of antiquities. After leaving Genoa, he returned to Viterbo, which he attempted to establish as a political and cultural center of the ancient world with the help of staged excavations, seeded with false artifacts, and histories forged in the names of ancient authors. It is for this later career that he is now best remembered. So give yourself a reassuring pat on the back.  By these standards, none of us is doing all that badly with our New Year’s resolutions! You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/patronage";"1";92074;"1_17_rapscallions_and_resolutions";"/blog/entries/1_17_rapscallions_and_resolutions";1;"object"
"";"Adrienne Albright";"/blog/2_17_old_masters_drawings/11.-adoration-of-the-shepherds_first_pix.png";"/blog/2_17_old_masters_drawings/50042-adoration-of-magi-drawing_facebook.png";"Old Master Drawings: 1465 to 1670";"";"2017-01-31";"Since 1991, Les Enluminures has sold important examples of early drawings both to major public institutions and to private collectors. Today, opportunities to purchase drawings before 1500 are extremely limited...";" Since 1991, Les Enluminures has sold important examples of early drawings both to major public institutions and to private collectors. Today, opportunities to purchase drawings before 1500 are extremely limited, and even drawings before 1600 have become scarce on the art market, making the drawings assembled here particularly remarkable. This early German drawing depicting the Adoration of the Magi preserves a copy of a lost painting from the Pleydenwurff-Herlin circle in the latter 1460s.  Collected over the past fifteen years, the thirteen Old Master drawings included in this exhibition date from about 1465 to 1670. Chalk only became an important drawing technique in the last half of the Quattrocento as seen the modeling of this delicately rendered Head of a Friar from Northern Italy. The drawings are geographically wide-ranging, originating in Italy, France, Germany, and the North and South Netherlands.  Described as a “reception” of Bosch, this Study of Monsters and Grotesques depicts all manner of marvelous creatures illustrating the influence of the Dutch master into the seventeenth century.  Several manuscripts containing substantial numbers of drawings are included, for this is a medium that helps to round out the history of drawings in the Renaissance and is often ignored. The Schembart Carnival Book displays the extravagant costume worn during the Schembartlauf, a carnival parade held in Nuremberg, from 1449 to 1539 with controlled penwork and bold watercolor washes. The smaller drawings depict floats that accompanied the pageants from 1479 onward.  This depiction of Narcissus admiring his reflection in a fountain is one of twenty rare sixteenth century French drawings that illustrate this manuscript copy of Guillaume Alexis verse translation of On the Misery of the Human Condition.  A complete book is concealed within the astonishing and very rare micrographic drawing by Pierre Mignard made entirely from microscopic letters, illuminating the intersection of art and optics at the end of the seventeenth century. Title page for Ignacio Muligin's long poem in honor of Marie Anne Christine of Bavaria and accompanying micrographic drawing by Pierre Mignard (?), TM 16, France, c. 1683-84 Through the variety of their techniques and the multiplicity of their functions, these drawings offer a brief account of the history of drawings in the Renaissance and beyond.  This delicate drawing of St. John the Evangelist, accented with washes of grey, ochre, and red, is likely a copy-drawing of a lost engraving of the Crucifixion by the copper engraver known as the Master of E.S. Old Master Drawings 1465 to 1670 is on view in New York until Saturday, February 25. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/history";"1";96294;"1_17_old_master_drawings";"/blog/entries/1_17_old_master_drawings";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/3_17_vaticinia_hidden_in_plain_soght/50097_vaticinia_blog_icon.png";"/blog/3_17_vaticinia_hidden_in_plain_soght/50097---ff7v-8_facebook.png";"Hidden in Plain Sight:";"Portents and Propaganda in Medieval Papal Prophecies";"2017-03-10";"Monsters and mythical creatures, birds and beasts, warriors and angels are far from unexpected in the margins of medieval manuscripts, where they supply endlessly variable subjects for marginalia...";"Monsters and mythical creatures, birds and beasts, warriors and angels are far from unexpected in the margins of medieval manuscripts, where they supply endlessly variable subjects for marginalia. These creatures inhabit the margins of three Books of Hours, BOH 136, ff. 45, 47 (details), Northern France (Rouen), c. 1490-1510; BOH 102, ff. 16, 31, 87 (details), France (Paris), c. 1490; and BOH 94, ff. 1v, 44 (details), Eastern Netherlands (probably Zwolle), c. 1470-1480 But they are far from marginal in this fascinating and phantasmagorical manuscript, which features a set of illustrated prophecies known as The Prophecies of the Popes.  Here they occupy the center of the page and they hold far more meaning than meets the eye.  Cryptic prophecies and mottos occupy a small space beneath each of these enigmatic images in this copy of Vaticinia de summis pontificibus of Pseudo-Joachim of Fiore, ff. 2v-3; and 3v-4, Northern Italy and southeastern France (perhaps Savoy?), c. 1447-1455 Take the man on the left below, mounted on a white horse.  Between his papal tiara and the inscription that names him as Pope Clement V, his intended identification is not in question.  But what are we to make of the woman who stands behind him, framed in the doorway of a Gothic building?  As hinted in the enigmatic text below the image, the prevailing contemporary interpretation of this prophecy held that it had foretold the Avignon Papacy  (also known, more colorfully, as the “Babylonian Captivity”), the period from 1309 to 1377 in which seven successive popes took Avignon as their seat, not Rome.  The woman (identified in the text as a widow) represents Rome.  In effect, the mounted pope turns his back on the widow and leaves her, just as Clement V, the first of the seven Avignon popes, chose to leave Rome. Clement V's abandonment of Rome for Avignon finds allegorical expression in this copy of Vaticinia, f. 4v Made over a century after the events foretold by this "prophecy," however, this manuscript was not forecasting the future here but recalling the past.  How can we explain the enduring appeal of this collection of prophecies?  As an allegorical narrative, the pairing of word and image packs quite a punch, conveying the disruption and alienation people no doubt felt, say, when Clement left Rome for Avignon.  These prophesies would by then also have provided a kind of history of the popes, different from but, perhaps, complementary to the more straightforward Short Catalogue of the Roman Popes (written by Dominican writer and inquisitor, Bernard Gui) which follows Prophecies in this manuscript.  And from their origins in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, these papal prophecies served another decidedly non-prophetic purpose: they were written as a form of propaganda.  As in so many medieval books of prophecies, these riddling predictions furnished a code, a means of concealing harsh political critiques so that not all could access them, and so that they could be denied. John XXII is shown here wielding a scourge in one hand and the keys of St. Peter, symbol of his papal office, in the other, with a demon wearing a bishop's mitre off to one side, Vaticinia, f. 5 Drawing on a tradition that goes back to twelfth-century Byzantium, these prophecies took their present shape in the hands of the Spiritual Franciscans, vociferous advocates for poverty in the Church who were declared heretical for their attacks on the wealth of pope and clergy. Clement V’s successor Pope John XXII, shown above, was a particular thorn in the side of the Spirituals, excommunicating one of their leaders for heresy and condemning a group of Spirituals known as the Fraticelli.  The Spirituals fought back against the pope and won a prominent ally in the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis IV, who then accused the pope of heresy.  In the earliest versions of these prophecies, John is shown in a particularly negative light, wielding a scourge against a harmless, white dove, consistently used to represent the Franciscans throughout the prophecies.  By the fifteenth century when our manuscript was produced, however, the significance of this image must have been lost or deliberately abandoned.  Though John still wields a scourge here, he does not use it on anyone, dove or otherwise Bernard Gui is a villain in Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose, as dramatically conveyed by F. Murray Abraham in the upper left corner of this theatrical poster for the film adaptation, Drew Struzan, 1986 If the names of Bernard Gui and the Fraticelli and the conflict between John and Louis sound familiar to you, we're guessing you may have some familiarity with the late Umberto Eco's celebrated novel, The Name of the Rose.  The world Eco so richly evokes in that tale of mysterious manuscripts and murders – fraught with ecclesiastical conflict, heretical anxieties, and apocalyptic fears – is powerfully evoked in this intriguingly strange manuscript.  And just as Eco's novel imagines a conflict of wits and worldviews between Gui, a well-known prosecutor of heretics, and several Franciscans (some historic, some fictional), so does this manuscript juxtapose Gui's vision of the papacy with that of the Spirituals.  The Beast of the Apocalypse is depicted here as a monstrous, winged, beast with the head of a man at one end and the head of a serpent at the other, Vaticinia, f. 8, detail The novel's fascination with the apocalypse and its strange and powerful portents also resonate powerfully with this book of prophecies.  One of the most enduringly popular images in the prophecies (and one of our favorites at Les Enluminures) is this monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, whose handsome human face is rendered horrifying by his bewinged, bestial body, vulpine ears, and serpent-headed tail.  Originally conceived as an apocalyptic endpoint for the prophecies, the beast was linked by the fifteenth century to another historic figure, Pope Urban VI, who presided over a period of violent schism in the Church.  A century later, Protestants offered a new interpretation of this image, saying that it represented no pope in particular but the papacy in general. This woodcut of the Beast of the Apocalypse appeared in a 1527 papal tract by Andreas Osiander and Hans Sachs, Eyn wunderliche Weyssagung von dem Babstumb, Nuremberg, Hans Guldenmundt From their origins with the Spiritual Franciscans through their appropriation during the Protestant Reformation, the startling predictions and disturbing images that make up these prophecies allowed readers to see what they wanted or needed to see.  With their shifting meanings and enduring mysteries, this text has remained an abiding source of fascination.  Come see it for yourself this week at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair!  We will be displaying it at our booth from 9 to 12 March, along with a selection of other strange and beautiful manuscripts.  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/history";"1";96363;"3_17_hidden_in_plain_sight";"/blog/entries/3_17_hidden_in_plain_sight";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/3_17_spring_update/first_icon.png";"/blog/3_17_spring_update/faceboo_pictures.png";"Happy Spring! ";"New Text Manuscripts Now Online";"2017-03-22";"News flash! Eighteen “new” manuscripts were added to our text manuscripts site last Thursday...";" News flash! Eighteen “new” manuscripts were added to our text manuscripts site last Thursday, (March 16.)  We shared this news as widely as we could, but we wanted to announce it here as well, just in case. For the bi-annual update of www.textmanuscripts.com, we offer many rare and interesting items at prices from $5,500 to over $200,000. These include manuscripts from across Europe (England, France, Italy, Spain, Serbia), dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, including texts related to many topics: liturgy, canon law, spirituality, history, genealogy, and othersCLICK HERE TO DISCOVER MORE We update the Text Manuscripts site twice a year; our largest update is in September, followed by a second update, which has traditionally been in January – this year we moved it to March to coincide with the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. A few highlights: Raymond of Penafort by Tommaso da Modena A thirteenth-century copy of a penitential manual by Raymond of Penafort, the patron saint of lawyers; Marginal notes (carefully tied to the text with reference letters) on ff. 2v of TM 736,  Raymond of Penafort’s bestselling penitential manual.  It is possible that this manuscript was once owned by Guillaume Briçonnet (1445-1514), who was secretary of the treasury under Charles VIII and later Cardinal of Saint-Malo, or one of his family. The effigy of Cardinal Briçonnet at Narbonne A member of the Briçonnet family signed the last page of TM 736, “monseyeur bryconnet” And a thirteenth-century “pocket” Bible from Paris (we really should do a blog just on our Bibles – until then, peek at our “Spotlight” on the subject). The creation story at the beginning of Genesis in TM 913, f. 4v, Paris, c. 1250-1260 Gregory the Great’s life of St. Benedict in the Dialogues is a text many (some?) of you may have read if you took an intro course on European history in college (and if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it – you can find many English versions in print and online, including here on the website of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota). Chapter 33 tells the story of Benedict visiting his sister Scholastica.  St. Scholastica did not want him to leave, and her prayers are miraculously answered by a rain storm that forces him to stay the night.  Gregory wisely concludes, “Therefore, as is right, she who loved more, did more.” Our fourteenth-century copy is quite small and includes an initial depicting Gregory, and a scribe, and an alphabetical subject index. TM 873, Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Central Italy, c. 1320-1330 It would be easy for me to mention each of our new manuscripts and find something to say about them (which would of course defeat the idea of “highlights”).  Here is one more, which will leave some of you breathless with amazement, and the rest of you, I would think, intrigued. TM 922, Book of Hours (use of Angers), c. 1450-1475, f. 10, Pilgrims’ badges and devotional image, and f.19 Stay tuned; it will be the subject of our next blog post. Did you know that you can search just for “NEW” inventory on the text manuscripts site?  There are two easy ways to do this.  On the “manuscript” page, select “more options”; on the far right you will see “inventory” – select “new” and a page will open with the manuscripts we just added to the website.   Alternatively, go to “Advanced Search,” and at the very bottom of the page you will see “Select inventory,” – select “New” from the drop down menu.  And while you are there, I hope you notice two things.  One, there are lots of ways to search our site (by country, language, date, category, subject, and price). And secondly, we keep descriptions and images of our manuscripts online in our archives even after they are sold – to date, 831 manuscripts! – with detailed descriptions and images, a veritable treasure trove of information. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/archives,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/medievalism";"1";96393;"3_17_textmanuscripts_spring_update";"/blog/entries/3_17_textmanuscripts_spring_update";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/4_17_badges_of_devotion/blog_icon.png";"/blog/4_17_badges_of_devotion/hans_memling_facebook.png";"Badges of Devotion";;"2017-04-05";"One of the questions we are asked most frequently about medieval prayer books, especially Books of Hours, is how they were actually used...";" One of the questions we are asked most frequently about medieval prayer books, especially Books of Hours, is how they were actually used.  Sure, they contain the prayers a devout lay person might have chanted throughout the day at the canonical hours long observed by medieval monks and nuns, but how many lay people actually made the time to do this? The Virgin Mary and the apostles surprised at prayer (with their prayer books in hand) by the Holy Spirit in this Pentecost miniature, BOH 131, f. 22, France (Troyes), 1460-1470 This is a question we’ve addressed before both here on our blog and in our Traces exhibition last year.  Historical records grant us insights into how books were used and treasured.  So do readers’ annotations in the margins of their books.  Even rubbed and soiled parchment can tell us which parts of a book were handled most frequently or reverently touched or kissed.  (This is a popular field of study right now, as scholars like Kathryn Rudy probe smudged initials and dirty margins for what they can tell us about medieval people and their books.) The dark triangular stain in the lower border may be a trace left from a pilgrim’s badge once placed in this profusely illuminated, idiosyncratic prayer book, BOH 110, f. 147, Belgium (Brussels), c. 1460 and France (Lille), c. 1475 If those manuscript traces can be said to whisper about their past, discernible only if we listen closely, the book shown below speaks far more loudly of its earliest users. Flowers bedeck the opening of Vespers in this Book of Hours, TM 922, ff. 18v-19, France (Angers?), c. 1450-1475  One of the books in our Text Manuscripts Spring Update, this fifteenth-century Book of Hours in a worn sixteenth-century binding appears initially to be a typical example of a late medieval prayer book.  Made for use in northwestern France, specifically in the diocese of Angers, it introduces the central texts of a Book of Hours with charming illuminated initials and frames them within flower-strewn borders.  But turn the pages of this this unassuming little volume and you will eventually stumble upon a hoard of treasures glittering up from the page.  One devotional image, painted on parchment, and six of the seven badges sewn into this manuscript were attached to this page, with the green thread of the stitching quite evident on the reverse, TM 922, f. 10 These shining metal discs are pilgrims’ badges.  And their presence here is no accident.  Along with a diminutive parchment painting of the Holy Face (the impression of Jesus’s face left on the veil of Saint Veronica), they were stitched onto this page by an early owner of the book. Paint has flaked away from this painting of the Holy Face where it was kissed or touched by a devout early owner, TM 922, f. 10 (detail) Veronica displays the impression of the Holy Face on her veil in this painting by Hans Memling, c. 1470, Washington D. C., National Gallery of Art (detail) This practice was far from uncommon in Northern France at the time.  Traces of sewing holes and impressions left by badges testify that many Books of Hours once held these thin metal badges.  Sold as souvenirs at popular pilgrimage destinations, these badges could be worn by travelers as markers of their devout trajectories across Europe or even as protective talismans. Pilgrim badges and a devotional painting adorn the hat of Saint Sebald, frequently depicted as a pilgrim, in this detail from the Saint Veits Altarpiece, painted by the Meister des Augustineraltars, 1487, Nuremberg, Nationalmuseum When these pilgrims came home, some kept their badges safe within the pages of their prayer books. (Remember, a Books of Hour was far and away the book most late medieval people were most likely to own!)  But these books were not merely protective repositories.  Badges were typically sewn with some deliberation into different sections of Books of Hours.  Here, for example, the six badges shown above were sewn into the Hours of the Virgin, on a leaf left blank (for the badges, perhaps?) between the canonical hours of Lauds and Terce, where they would have prompted the pilgrim-reader to recall his or her spiritual experiences of pilgrimage.  Even a later reader would likely have felt a sense of sanctity when touching these badges, physical remnants – extensions, even – of voyages to visit sacred sites and relics.  In the rare books in which they can still be found, badges sometimes also appear in margins beside particular prayers, to be folded into the devotions of a reader to particular saints.  In fact, artists emulated this practice, adorning the margins late medieval Books of Hours with painted renditions of pilgrims’ badges. Painted badges and devotional images fill the borders around text and miniatures in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Douce 219, f. 16v, Flanders, c. 1470-1490 and Douce 311, f. 21v, Flanders, after 1488 With a total of seven intact badges, our Book of Hours is second only to one other in the number of pilgrims’ badges it preserves, fully intact and still sewn onto its parchment leaves, and is one of only ten books in which any pilgrims’ badges remain at all (most of these with only a single badge).  And they are not only an incredible (and incredibly rare!) survival, but also a trove of information.  The assortment here give us a pretty good idea of where the book’s pilgrim-owner traveled and what his or her practices and preoccupations might have been while paging through this prayer book. These badges depict Saint Eustace and the Virgin Mary, respectively, TM 922, front pastedown and f. 10 (details) For example, a large badge depicting the Virgin and Child (above, on the right) bears the name of the pilgrimage church at which it must have originated: “notre dame de cleri,” that is, the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Cléry-Saint-André. A 1699 rendering by Louis Boudan of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Cléry-Saint-André, a pilgrimage site particularly loved by King Louis XI (reigned 1461-1483) This map of modern-day France shows the distance on foot between Angers and Cléry-Saint-André Two badges feature Saint Maurice, patron saint of the Angers Cathedral, a destination that was likely much closer to home for the book’s owner.  Maurice, an Egyptian, was leader of a legendary third-century Roman legion, the Theban legion, who were martyred for refusing to attack fellow Christians. The tinting of the arms on one of these two Maurice badges aided in their identification, TM 922, f. 10 (details) Because he hailed from Egypt, Saint Maurice was depicted from the twelfth century onward as a black African, and so he is here in this painting by Matthias Grünewald, c. 1517-c.1523, Munich, Alte Pinakothek Saint Mathurin, shown in the two badges below exorcising an evil spirit from a Roman princess, Theodora, was venerated by pilgrims at the church of Saint-Mathurin, in Larchant.  Because the saint was frequently invoked against infertility during the Middle Ages, it is tempting to speculate that the pilgrim-owner might have visited his shrine in Larchant and treasured these two badges as she prayed for a child. Look closely at these Mathurin badges and you can see the exorcised evil spirit leaping over the head of Princess Theodora, TM 922, f. 10 (details) This map of modern-day France shows the distance on foot between Angers and Larchant A picture begins to emerge from these sewn-in objects of an early owner, very likely a woman, who filled this volume with traces of her travels and preoccupations and devotions.  What we know of this book’s later history could fill another blog post all by itself (several family genealogies spanning the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries are recorded in its pages), but these earlier additions provide us a rare opportunity to make the acquaintance of an earlier user of this book and have a glimpse of how she used it.  Want to learn more about this manuscript?  You can!  Check out this and other new additions to our inventory on our Text Manuscripts website.  If you want to spend some time exploring it, a previous blog post offers a handy guide to navigating our site. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/traces,/blog/categories/decoration";"1";96418;"4_17_badges_of_devotion";"/blog/entries/4_17_badges_of_devotion";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/6_17_meet_me_at_the_fair/first_icon.png";"/blog/6_17_meet_me_at_the_fair/facebook.jpg";"Meet me at the Fair";;"2017-06-13";"The telephone, the Ferris Wheel, the first public toilet, the television, the Eiffel Tower, the incubator, the X-ray machine, even the dishwasher – these are just a few of the “firsts” exhibited at world’s fairs...";" The telephone, the Ferris Wheel, the first public toilet, the television, the Eiffel Tower, the incubator, the X-ray machine, even the dishwasher – these are just a few of the “firsts” exhibited at world’s fairs. But, a book?  What kind of book could compete with a scientific novelty like Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone or an architectural wonder like Gustav Eiffel’s tower?  How could a book hold its own next to these remarkable achievements?  Well, there is one such book. The first (and only) woven book ever produced was displayed at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris.   Let’s set the stage.  Mounted to celebrate the storming of the Bastille and the centennial of the French Republic, the Paris World’s Fair of 1889 was a showcase intended to attract visitors.  Its symbol, the Eiffel Tower created quite a fuss, as viewers scorned it as “giddy and ridiculous… like a big black smokestack.”  Attract visitors it did.  This world’s fair was one of the most successful of all time, setting a record of 397,000 visitors in a single day.  It has gone down in history for its exotic encounters, complete with colonial villages and Southeast Asian music.  Claude Debussy is said to have heard Javanese gamelan music there for the first time. The Mexican Pavilion featured an Aztec Palace.   Representing the Americans, Buffalo Bill recruited the colorful sharpshooter Annie Oakley for his Wild West show, which performed before packed audiences.  Displayed in the French section, but from India, the Imperial Diamond or “Great White Diamond,” then the largest diamond in the world, was a central attraction.  Political and cultural identity vied with science and modernity to create a show-stopping event.  The fair lasted nearly six months and before it was over tallied over a total of about thirty-two million visitors.  Famous for its textiles, the city of Lyons came up with the idea of creating a woven book for the fair. Local artisans programmed Jacquard looms with hundreds of thousands of punch cards (just one punch card was necessary for a single row of thread) to produce a 58-page Prayer Book known as “Livre de Prières tissé d’apres les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle” (Book of Prayers woven after illuminations in manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth century).  BOH 86, Livre de Prières Tissé, France, Lyon, 1886-1887, p. vi, Title-page. It took nearly two years and close to fifty trials before even one copy could be successfully made.  Fabric was intricately woven of fine grey and black silk threads. The fragile pieces of silk were then carefully folded in half and glued over a sheet of cardboard to give the necessary stiffening to the delicate material.  Bindings were custom-made by the latest Art Nouveau craftsmen in Paris. BOH 86, Livre de Prières Tissé, France, Lyon, 1886-1887, p. ix, Nativity and p. 16, Virgin and Child surrounded by Music-Playing Angels Richly illustrated with borders on every page and four large pictures, the “Livre tissé” is remarkable not only for its technology, but for its artistic design.  The donor portraits in the “Livre tissé” copy those in a Book of Hours made in Ghent c. 1425 and now in the Walters Art Museum (W. 166).  Its title page is inspired by an illumination in a manuscript known as the Grandes Heures (Paris, BnF, MS lat. 919, f. 86) commissioned by the famous Duke of Berry.  Other images come from Italian Renaissance paintings – the Linaioli Triptych attributed to Fra Angelico and Raphael’s Disputa in the Stanza della Segnatura. The "Disputa del Sacramento" by Raphael (detail) and the "Christ with the Virgin and St. John the Baptist", BOH 86, Livre de Prières Tissé, France, Lyon, 1886-1887, p. 33 (detail) Every border is different.  The designer clearly poured over medieval and Renaissance sources – widely available in chromo-lithographic facsimiles.  For today’s techies, the woven book occupies a privileged position that has little to do with its art.  Computer science enthusiasts have seized on the book’s special relationship to the computer.  The perforated cards (or the punch-card system) used for the Jacquard looms inspired the famous “Analytical Engine” conceived by Charles Babbage (1791-1871), considered the “father of the computer.”   Manufacturers of the “Livre tissé” employed Babbage’s technology.  It was not until 1964 that IBM unveiled the first desktop computer at the New York World’s Fair.   Little did IBM know (I imagine) that seventy-five years earlier a prototype for the computer, the Livre tissé, held a place of honor in the Paris World’s Fair where, incidentally, it took the Grand Prize. TURN THE PAGES OF THE PRIZE-WINNING WOVEN BOOK FEATURED AT THE 1889 PARIS WORLD’S FAIR You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/science,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/decoration";"1";105201;"6_17_meet_me_at_the_fair";"/blog/entries/6_17_meet_me_at_the_fair";1;"object"
"";"Emily Runde";"/blog/7_17_history_unrolled/first_icon.png";"/blog/7_17_history_unrolled/history_unrolled_facebook_twitter_picture.png";"History Unrolled";;"2017-07-11";"It wasn’t easy being king in the Middle Ages.  This was a common conclusion drawn in the literature and historical writing of the period...";" It wasn’t easy being king in the Middle Ages.  This was a common conclusion drawn in the literature and historical writing of the period.  Writers like Boccaccio chronicled great men and women’s losses of power and privilege.  And the concept of the Wheel of Fortune, of fate’s unpredictability, permeated medieval culture.  With all a king’s power came vulnerability. Having ascended to the heights of social and political prominence, kings had the furthest to fall. Lady Fortune dictates the fates of king and commoner alike, and depictions of her wheel emphasize the transience of good and bad fortune, as in this manuscript, John Lydgate’s Troy Book and Siege of Thebes, London, British Library, Royal MS 18 D.ii, f. 30v (detail). This was particularly true in times of turmoil, like the War of the Roses, an English civil war fought over a period of thirty years.  Two branches of the royal family, the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, fought for the throne, their red and white rose badges giving the war its name. Members of the Lancastrian and Yorkist factions pick roses to indicate their allegiances in Henry Payne’s 1908 painting of a scene from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, The Plucking of the Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden, London, Palace of Westminster Whether your associations with the War of the Roses stem from history classes, Shakespeare’s history plays (Richard III does make a pretty lasting impression), or even Game of Thrones (did you know the War of the Roses was a major inspiration for George R. R. Martin’s immensely popular novels?), it undeniably endures in the popular imagination. Subtract the dragons and the white walkers and Westeros’s politics have rather a lot in common with those of fifteenth-century England! It all began with questions over who ought to succeed the popular and long-lived Edward III.  He was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, but Richard’s first cousin deposed him and became the land’s first Lancastrian monarch, Henry IV.  The Lancastrians held onto the throne for several generations, but the Lancastrian Henry VI was regarded as a weak, ineffectual king, afflicted with bouts of insanity.  Facing mounting losses in England’s wars with France, unstable rule at home, and an uncertain succession, Henry VI’s wife, the indomitable Margaret of Anjou, and his powerful, popular, and wealthy cousin, Richard, Duke of York, led rival factions jockeying for power. Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou surrounded by their court as depicted by the Talbot Master in the Talbot Shrewsbury book, a book of poems and romances given to Margaret as a wedding gift, London, British Library, Royal MS 15 E.vi, f. 2v (detail). Richard, Duke of York, helps support a French genealogy on the facing page of the Talbot Shrewsbury book, f. 3 (detail) Cersei Lannister (clearly inspired by the fierce and beautiful Margaret of Anjou) and Ned Stark (very much a Richard, Duke of York figure) face off for the last time in You Win or You Die, Season 1, Episode 7 of HBO’s Game of Thrones In the battles that ensued over the next thirty years, Henry was captured and then restored to the throne before dying in captivity.  Margaret led Lancastrian forces in battle, where she saw her only son killed.  Richard was eventually beheaded and his head was displayed on a pike at York, wearing a paper crown.  His son took the throne as the first Yorkist king, Edward IV, but Edward’s sons quickly lost throne and freedom at the hands of their infamous uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who effectively imprisoned them in the Tower of London.  Their uncle’s reign as Richard III was brief, however; exiled Lancastrian, Henry Tudor, led a rebellion that ended in Richard’s death and burial under what would eventually become a city council car park. The earliest surviving portrait of Richard III, painted c. 1520, London, Society of Antiquaries. Alongside: Shakespeare’s Richard III shaped the king’s modern reputation as an unapologetic villain. Kevin Spacey offered a modern interpretation of Richard III’s despotic villainy in the 2011/2012 Bridge Project production of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes at the Old Vic, London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York So, again, not an easy time to be king.  To put it mildly. Shown partially unfurled here, this roll features a history of the kings of England, TM 840, England, possibly London or Westminster?, c. 1505-1525 That’s where rolls like this one come in.  A genealogical roll of prodigious length – at over twenty feet, it would be about two stories tall! – our roll traces the history of the kings of England back into distant days of legend.  The earliest membranes feature royal predecessors like Lud, legendary namesake of London, and, of course, King Arthur.  The history of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, and their gradual consolidation appear in slightly later membranes before the Norman Conquest brings yet another line to the throne.  The legendary Lud is one of the first English rulers featured in this roll, TM 840, membrane 1 (detail). The consolidation of the Heptarchy under the Anglo-Saxon King Egbert, TM 840, membrane 6 (detail) Though rolls like this one owe much of their content to earlier English chronicles, they were produced in far greater numbers during the fifteenth century, particularly during the War of the Roses.  (Our roll, more unusually, dates to the sixteenth century, a point of interest to which I will return below.)  But why might people have taken such an interest in Lud or Egbert centuries after their deaths amid a period of shifting allegiances and bitter warfare? Our royal genealogical roll would have drawn on examples like our beautifully illustrated copy of a genealogy of Christ by Peter of Poitiers, Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi, England, Oxford?, c. 1230-1250 Swooping in from the green Norman line on the left and occupying a central, crowned roundel, William the Conqueror was a real red-letter monarch, TM 840, membrane 8 (detail) Quite simply, rolls like this one were tools of propaganda.  Look at the presentation of the Norman Conquest (see above) and the Anarchy (see below).  Even before the Lancastrians and Yorkists were at each other’s throats, these were two notable periods of rupture and conflict in the island’s history: first an invasion and then a brutal civil war.  Neither the conquering William nor Stephen, king during the civil war, was a clear successor to the previous monarch.  Though William claimed that the previous king had promised him the throne, there were two other claimants.  And Stephen snatched the throne after Henry I died with no male heir, even though he had sworn to support the claim of Henry’s daughter, the Empress Matilda. The red line snaking around Stephen links the prior king, Henry I, to his grandson, Stephen’s successor, Henry II, TM 840, membranes 8 and 9 (details) The bends and twists of the colored branches – representing lines of descent – underscore the movements of different families in and out of power.  But the format of the roll, with membrane after membrane of large crowned roundels proceeding down the center of the page, creates the impression of continuity where there was none necessarily to be found.  The man whose crowned roundel appeared at the foot of this roll would appear as the rightful, even inevitable, king and the latest in a series of great names that include Arthur, Alfred the Great, and, more recently, Edward III. As this roll makes abundantly clear, Edward III had numerous noble offspring, the ancestors of the main combatants in the War of the Roses, TM 840, membrane 12 (detail) This would have been all the more valuable when a king’s hold on power was tenuous and his people looked for leadership elsewhere.  It is perhaps not surprising, then, that this roll follows the text of a chronicle originally written for Henry VI and appears to favor the Lancastrians in its account of England’s recent history.  For example, even though it was made well after the War of the Roses, it neglects to identify the Yorkist rulers as part of the long line of English monarchs. It took a later reader to identify Richard III as “Rex Anglie” – as for Edward IV, not only is he not identified as a king, but, in what may have been an epic sixteenth-century troll, his name is given as “EDMVNDVS,” TM 840, membrane 12 (detail) Produced during the reign of the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, this roll and its chronicle may have been embraced as a piece of enduringly useful propaganda.  Henry’s claim to the throne was by no means secure, since he was a bastard descendant of the Lancastrian house and the latest in a string of kings by conquest.  He made canny use of propaganda to shore up his power and legitimize his reign; for example, he highlighted his union with Elizabeth of York by blending the red and white roses into the Tudor rose.  One can only imagine that this roll’s chronicle might have appealed to a similar impulse, since it could be used to defend the legitimacy and prestige of his Lancastrian forebears. The red and white Tudor rose fills the border surrounding this depiction of an earlier royal wedding between the Lancastrian Henry V and Catherine of Valois, part of a continuation of the Grande chroniques de France presented to Henry VII as a gift, London, British Library, Royal MS 20 E.vi, f. 9 (detail) You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/legends,/blog/categories/rolls,/blog/categories/kings,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/readers";"1";105245;"7_17_history_unrolled";"/blog/entries/7_17_history_unrolled";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/8_17_modern_love-/firts_picture_icon.png";"/blog/8_17_modern_love-/furia_facebook.png";"Modern Love";"Advice for the Brokenhearted in the Sixteenth Century";"2017-08-16";"Heartbroken lovers today don’t need to deal with their grief alone.  There are plenty of advice columns and podcasts to go to for help after a breakup ends a relationship...";" Heartbroken lovers today don’t need to deal with their grief alone.  There are plenty of advice columns and podcasts to go to for help after a breakup ends a relationship, or a divorce or death ends a marriage – Modern Love, Dear Sugars, Captain Awkward, Ask Amy (to name just a few).   This isn’t new.  Way back in the fourth century, the great church father St. Jerome (347-420) spent a lot of time writing letters and giving advice.  Which brings us to our subject today, a French translation of one of St. Jerome’s letters, found in a very elegant illuminated manuscript copied in France, probably in Bourges, c. 1500-1510. The translator’s preface (f. 3), TM 935, Jerome, Letter LIV to Furia, French translation by Charles Bonin Jerome’s letter is addressed to a woman named Furia, who wrote to Jerome for advice after she was widowed.  Today we would probably encourage Furia to get back out there and find a new husband when she was ready.  Jerome in contrast tells her in no uncertain terms that there is not much good one can say about marriage (indeed he says some pretty horrible things about it).  She should therefore rejoice in her single state, and live a life of devotion, denial, and good works.  Detail of a miniature of Jerome as a scribe with the lion at his feet at the beginning of the prologue to Eusebius's Chronicle, London, British Library,Royal MS 14 C.iii, f. 2 (detail) We know a lot about this manuscript, although as you shall see, there are still some unanswered questions (as is so often the case).  Its prologue says that the text is a translation by the priest, Charles Bonin, and that it was corrected by Jehan Fernaud, described as “a well-dressed blind man and devout religious at the monastery of Saint Sulpice in Bourges.” Nothing further is known about Bonin (or his corrector), and this is the only known copy of his translation. The Cathedral of St Etienne of Bourges today We know it was painted by an artist that scholars have dubbed the Master of Spencer 6 (after a manuscript in the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library), who worked in Bourges, confirmation that it was almost certainly made in Bourges.  The style of the art also helps date the manuscript to the beginning of the sixteenth century, c. 1500-1510. The artist or our manuscript owes his name to this manuscript; New York, New York Public Library, Spencer Collection, MS 6, ff. 32v-33 (detail) It begins with a grand full-page frontispiece showing St. Jerome, on the right, giving his letter to a messenger.  On the left we see the messenger handing the letter (which has turned into a book) to Furia.  The opening illumination in TM 935, Jerome, Letter LIV to Furia, French translation by Charles Bonin In his prologue, Charles Bonin addresses a “tres honorée damoiselle,” so we know the translation was made for a woman, a very interesting point, but he unfortunately doesn’t mention her name.  (And note that the coat of arms in the frontispiece, which would have been a good clue to her identity, were left blank.  You can read more about coats of arms in our earlier posts here and here).  Scholars in recent decades have been eager to learn more about medieval and Renaissance women – especially lay women – and their libraries. This volume, with its serious contents in the vernacular, decorated with a beautiful painting, and copied in a beautiful script, was dedicated to a woman, and likely commissioned by her.  It is one piece of the evidence that shows that wealthy women in Renaissance France were not only well-educated, but were patrons of learning, and collectors of books. TM 935, Jerome, Letter LIV to Furia, ff. 5v-6 Luckily the story doesn’t end there, since we know one more, very important fact about this manuscript – it was owned by a noble woman, Anne de Polignac (c.1495-1554), quite early in its history.   Paris, CNAM, Recueil des Arts et Métiers, Pl. 51. Madame de La Rochefoucaud (Anne de Polignac), Pt. F. Me 3 Res (II, 1(1)). By lucky chance Anne’s library, which included thirty-six books – a significant collection – was passed down for centuries through the family she married into, and some of the volumes, including this manuscript, can be identified in early inventories. TM 935, binding.  Our manuscript is still bound in a contemporary binding of purple velvet; many of the books in Anne de Polignac’s library are described as bound in velvet.  Anne owned several Latin volumes including a Bible and Books of Hours, but she obviously was especially fond of texts in French, including a volume now in the Beinecke Library at Yale University, Harangues et oraisons des anciens (Speeches and Orations from Antiquity).  New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library. MS 1042, Harangues et oraisons des anciens, front flyleaf verso Could our manuscript have been made for Anne? The blank coat of arms suggests perhaps not, and the date means Anne would have been given the book when she was very young.  It isn’t the sort of book most of us owned as children, to be sure, but young children of wealth and stature in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were known to own some pretty serious books.  It remains an open question. Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 805, Cicero, On Old Age, copied for Beatrice of Aragon when she was ten. Anne must have had a personal interest in this text eventually, as she was twice a widow.  She was married first to Charles du Bueil, Count of Sancerre, who died in battle in 1515.  In 1518 she married again, this time to François II de la Rochefoucauld, who died in 1533.  She would not marry again before her death in 1554 in her favorite castle at Verteuil-sur-Charente (near Angoulême), where her library was kept. The château of Verteuil today.  It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since the Middle Ages. The castle at Verteuil, as it happens, is also where the famous Unicorn Tapestries (now in the Cloisters Museum in New York City) once hung.  The Unicorn in Captivity (from the Unicorn Tapestries), The Met Cloisters. You can read more about this manuscript in two catalogues by Les Enluminures, Flowering of Medieval French Literature, and Women in the Book in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/gift,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/women-and-the-book,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/illumination";"1";105271;"8_17_modern-love";"/blog/entries/8_17_modern-love";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/9_17_september_update/946_icon.png";"/blog/9_17_september_update/facebook_picture.png";"Sequentiaries, Collectars, and Passionarium, Oh My!";"(sung to the tune of “Lions, and Tigers, and Bears …”)";"2017-09-26";"Nineteen “new” manuscripts were just added to our text manuscripts site.  We shared this news as widely as we could, but we wanted to announce it here as well, just in case...";" Nineteen “new” manuscripts were just added to our text manuscripts site.  We shared this news as widely as we could, but we wanted to announce it here as well, just in case. Why the title? Don’t know what “Sequentiaries, Collectars, or Passionarium” are? Don’t worry.  I suspect many of our readers, even professional medievalists, don’t know.  To find out, go to our update, which includes: The entrance to the church of San Jacopo di Ripoli, Florence with a sculpture by Giovanni della Robbia. A Collectar from the Dominican convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence, home to one of the earliest printing presses in Florence, where the nuns were the first documented women to work in the print industry; TM 858, f. 189v, Collectar from Florence, signed by the scribe Angela Rucellai. Christine de Pizan in her study, British Library, Harley MS 4431 (detail) A Sequentiary from the royal convent of Poissy (also a house for Dominican nuns), home to sisters of the kings of France, the author Christine de Pizan, and Balzac’s droll fictitious heroines; TM 901, f. 1, Sequentiary from Poissy. And a Passionarium from Spain or perhaps from Majorca. The beginning of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in a Spanish Passionarium, TM 918, f. 60 Highlights also include three manuscripts we are featuring in our current exhibition on Franciscan manuscripts (more information on the exhibition can be found here).  One of them is a Franciscan Breviary that includes a Missal for votive masses (which is quite unusual).  It is an appealingly modest volume that could have been copied by a friar for his own use. The Litany in a Franciscan Breviary, TM 886, f. 102.  St. Francis in found half-way down in the righthand column. It would be hard to find a greater contrast to this humble Franciscan Breviary than the extraordinarily charming Diurnal from the nuns of Getrudenberg, a convent in Lower Saxony, Germany.  It is graced with lots of shiny gold in numerous illuminated and historiated initials and nine miniatures.  Let’s conclude with a name everyone will be familiar with, Cicero. Marcus Tullius Cicero, sculpture by Bertel Thorvaldsen after a Roman original, Copenhagen, Denmark, Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark Cicero, like Jerome, the subject of our previous blog, Modern Love, was a prolific letter writer.  His letters are classics of Latin prose, and were studied by students of the language for centuries.  Our manuscript of Cicero’s Letters to Friends is from fifteenth-century Italy (Cicero’s letters were particularly loved by the Italian humanists), and include annotations that are evidence of its use by just such a student. Opening folio of TM 914, Cicero, Letter to Friends, with the coat of arms of its original owners. We update the Text Manuscripts site twice a year, in the Autumn and in the Spring (usually in September and March); we hope you’ll visit the site then, and indeed, throughout the year. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"";"1";105331;"9_17_september_update";"/blog/entries/9_17_september_update";1;"object"
"";"Matthew WESTERBY";"/blog/10_17_blood_spilled/04-31_thomas_beckett_icon.png";"/blog/10_17_blood_spilled/04-31-thomas-beckett_facebook.png";"Tales from the Pontifical";"(or Blood Spilled or Murder Perpetrated)";"2017-10-26";"For Halloween we pulled a “thriller” off the shelf with graveyard mysteries and bloody murder...";" For Halloween we pulled a “thriller” off the shelf with graveyard mysteries and bloody murder. To set the scene let’s begin in 1170 with arguably the most famous murder to happen inside a church. During evening prayers at Canterbury Cathedral, Thomas Becket was killed by four knights (probably acting on the orders of King Henry II). By all reports it was an awfully grim scene. The victim (Thomas) was regarded as a saint in very short time, thanks to miracles attributed to his relics – including bits of fabric that eager pilgrims had soaked with his blood. A red glass cabochon evokes the blood of the saint, set in the top of a Reliquary Casket with Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, c. 1173-80, Metropolitan Museum of Art (17.190.520) Of course violence and blood inside the church is never good, but the specter of the murder scene was the bigger problem. As a profaned sacred space the church needed to be reconsecrated through the holy words and actions of the clergy. TM 834, “Primitive” Pontifical, Central or Southern France, c. 1040-1075, ff.32v-33 But how? There’s a liturgy for that! One recorded in a special book for the use of priests and bishops: the Pontifical. TM 834, a “Primitive” Pontifical from the late 11th century (c. 1040-1075) copied in Southern or Central France, provides the aptly-named ritual for the “reconciliation of a sacred space where blood was spilled or murder perpetrated” (Reconciliacio loci sacri ubi sanguis fuerit effusus aut homicidium perpetratum). TM 834, “Primitive” Pontifical, Central or Southern France, c. 1040-1075, f.33, detail Incredibly, the rubric describing effusions of blood appears to drip down the side of the folio (although this scribal practice was not uncommon if space was limited). A spooky coincidence? We will never know. TM 834, “Primitive” Pontifical, Central or Southern France, c. 1040-1075, f.33, detail There are other mysteries, perhaps even the name itself. Why “primitive”? Following in the footsteps of the Sacramentary (a book containing prayers for mass and the sacraments, as well as rites such as the dedication of a church), more descriptive booklets emerged in the seventh and eighth centuries for the use of bishops, eventually codified into the so-called Romano-Germanic Pontifical in the tenth century. At the same time, however, local traditions continued in so-called “Primitive” Pontificals – as in this manuscript, which is comprised of small books (libelli) for specific uses. TM 834, “Primitive” Pontifical, Central or Southern France, c. 1040-1075, f.31v-32. Another mystery is the ritual added in empty space on folio 32, written in slightly darker ink, giving the text for the blessing of a cemetery – an intriguing early witness to changing attitudes about places for the dead. In the late eleventh century cemeteries were increasingly seen as be inviolable spaces, offering protection to both the living and the dead. Anyone found guilty of a crime on cemetery ground would face heavy fines or excommunication. The new importance of sacred cemeteries was popularized by Pope Urban II, who consecrated (or re-consecrated) cemeteries as he traveled through France in 1095. The practice, as described here, involved the bishop and his priests singing songs while walking in a circle around a cemetery and sprinkling holy water.  It’s hard to say when it was added, but it was no doubt a handy text for any 12th-century crypt keeper (or bishop). With eyes open – or maybe peeking through fingers during the scary parts – we have only begun to pry the secrets from the pages of this “Primitive” Pontifical. A full description of TM 834 is available here. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/neo-gothic";"1";105403;"10_17_blood_spilled_and_murder_perpetrated";"/blog/entries/10_17_blood_spilled_and_murder_perpetrated";1;"object"
"";"SANDRA HINDMAN";"/blog/11_17_damien_hirst/damien-hirst---anubis_icon.jpg";"/blog/11_17_damien_hirst/facebook_pic.png";"Damien Hirst, Renaissance Manuscripts, and Christopher de Hamel";;"2017-11-15";"At first glance, this unlikely juxtaposition seems to mean nothing.  Even Mr. Google yields no results in a search that combines this artist, subject, and scholar.  But, indeed, one of Damien Hirst’s most inventive new works is...";" At first glance, this unlikely juxtaposition seems to mean nothing.  Even Mr. Google yields no results in a search that combines this artist, subject, and scholar.  But, indeed, one of Damien Hirst’s most inventive new works is the creation of a manuscript album of Renaissance drawings for which the eminent specialist Christopher de Hamel supplied the background history.  Intrigued?  Read on … Damien Hirst’s latest show “Treasures of the Wreck of the Unbelievable” has been on exhibit in Venice at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana since April 9, 2017.  It will end on December 3, 2017.  Technically the exhibition is not part of the Venice Biennale but its opening and closing dates coincide closely with this grand event.  The pretense of Hirst’s show of 100 objects large and small is the supposed recovery in 2008 of an underwater treasure from the wreck of the vessel known as the Apistos (which is Greek for the “Unbelievable”).  From the seabed emerged a unique cargo of ancient artefacts, barnacle-encrusted and wrapped in corals, of the collection of a freed Greek slave named Amotan from the mid-first to the early-second centuries CE. A continuously looping video even shows professionally-outfitted divers salvaging the sunken objects one by one.  There is little agreement about the critical success of this show.  “Disastrous,” “a fantasy too far,” “a titanic return,” “an unbelievable journey,” “comic and monstrous, “bling” – these are just a few of the words used so far to describe Hirst’s exhibition.    Little is made of the 100 drawings that adorn the walls of one large room in the Palazzo Grassi.  They are summarily mentioned in just one review.  They are identified only with titles in the convenient hand-out given out to museum-goers.  They are reproduced in a book “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable: One Hundred Drawings.”  But, the one-page introduction to the book offers little clarification on what the drawings are doing in the show.  Nor does the book adequately explain many of the unusual features of the drawings. Perhaps that’s the point.  At the entrance of the Punta della Dogana the wall text reads “Somewhere between lies and truth lies the truth.” This is also what the second title page of the book reads. Is Hirst saying: “You figure it out,” or, “don’t bother”?  Well, I’m intrigued, so I’d like to take a stab at understanding better the drawings.  Here’s what we learn about the drawings from the book.  The drawings are presented as depictions of the 100 objects in the exhibition.  However, since they are said to be “Florentine workshop drawings” from the Renaissance, it is immediately obvious they cannot be drawings after life of the objects from antiquity, which were buried in the sea at the time the drawings were (purportedly) executed.  So, instead, the drawings form part of the tradition of depicting antiquities based on their classical descriptions; the “description from which the drawings presumably originate has not been found and their provenance is likewise difficult to ascertain,” the introduction goes on to say.  Quoting a spurious forthcoming article by Christopher de Hamel, the introduction speculates that the collection may have been the property of Cardinal Flavio Chigi (1631-1693), librarian of the Holy See, and further traces the provenance backwards and forwards in Rome and then finally to “English aristocrats on the Grand Tours of Europe” in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a circumstance meant to lend credence to the many collectors’ stamps and marks, as well as the scrawled annotations, on the drawings. Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Cardinal Flavio Chigi (detail), Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi Although the introduction does not directly say so, the English provenance of the drawings presumably also accounts for the dismemberment of the album, like many manuscripts taken apart in Italy and the leaves sold separately largely through the English art market.  Damien Hirst thus stands at the end of this illustrious, though fictitious, line of owners.  Damien Hirst as Artist/ Art Historian/ Art Collector?  Now what else can we learn about the drawings?  Hirst insinuates his art-historical mastery at every opportunity, with references to Caravaggio, William Blake, Durer, not to mention Egyptian bronzes and Greek statuary.  All the drawings bear the inscription “In this dream,” which is an anagram for the artist’s name Damien Hirst.  They are thus all signed.   The collectors’ marks, although they resemble those stenciled stamps used by collectors to signify ownership, are in fact monograms from today’s commercial world – cars predominate, Opel, Hyundai, Audi, Mitsubishi.   There is also a stenciled image of Optimus Prime, a transformer from a cartoon of the 1980s and recently seen in Michael Bay movies.  In addition to the signature-inscription, the drawings all have titles in clever imitation of humanist script.  Some (but not all) of these titles (Chinese bell, Pegasus, Golden monkey, Two daggers and golden crowns in petrified honey) correspond with a reproduced list in an inventory presumably by an English aristocrat-collector that accompanies the drawings and was allegedly part of the album. Patricia Lovett, a well-known and remarkably skilled contemporary British calligrapher, penned the titles and the inventory.   The title of the inventory is itself playful: “A History of the World in a Hundred Objects.”   This is the name of a BBC television show written and presented by Neil MacGregor former head of the British Museum and now considered something of a television classic like Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation series.   As Neil MacGregor puts it “I'm travelling back in time, and across the globe, to see how we humans over 2 million years have shaped our world and been shaped by it … from a Stone Age tool to a credit card.”  Damien Hirst as Neil MacGregor? What of the drawings themselves?  In pen and ink, graphite, or charcoal on parchment (or occasionally paper) the drawings are beautifully rendered, finely modulated studies of the objects, often skillfully enhanced with gold or silver leaf and pastel.  As is expected with animal skin, the parchment often shows flaws, missing corners, and obvious follicles—just as original manuscripts do.  This quality only enriches the effect of the finished object.  “Florentine workshop drawings” these are not.  So what are they like?  They don’t much resemble drawings Hirst has made as preliminary studies for his own art works.  They bear some similarity to his drawings copying old masters (I’m thinking of a drawing after Delacroix) in the time-honored tradition practiced by artists from Rubens to Picasso and in art schools all over the world today.  Detail of "Study after Delacroix (the Orphan Girl in the Cemetery)", 1981. 340 x 280 mm | 13.4 x 11 in Pencil on paper. Photographed by Gareth Winters © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. After all, these are also drawings meant to be copies after earlier works.  But, aren’t they meant to recall something else?  They show a remarkable range, surprising precision, deliberate playfulness, consummate skill.  They evoke intrigue and curiosity.  Like much of Hirst’s work, they are knowingly provocative.  Is it too farfetched to think of one of the most famous Renaissance manuscript albums of all time?   Like the Leicester Codex by Da Vinci?  Damien Hirst as Leonardo?  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/traces,/blog/categories/codicology";"1";105414;"11_17_damien_hirst_and_renaissance_manuscripts";"/blog/entries/11_17_damien_hirst_and_renaissance_manuscripts";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/12-17-from-venice/tm_188_f.1v_first-icon.png";"/blog/12-17-from-venice/tm_188_f.1v_facebook.png";"From Venice, Italy to Venice Beach (or almost):";"A Humanist Panegyric from Fifteenth-Century Venice and its New Life at UCLA";"2017-12-21";"Readers of this blog may wonder where the manuscripts described on our web site, www.textmanuscripts.com end up – who buys our treasures?";" Readers of this blog may wonder where the manuscripts described on our web site, www.textmanuscripts.com end up – who buys our treasures? The answer is as varied as the manuscripts themselves.  There are certainly private individuals who purchase medieval manuscripts, but most of our text manuscripts are acquired by the libraries of universities and colleges in the United States, Canada, Europe, and beyond – even in Australia.  Our previous guest blog, “From Seville to Sydney: The Re-discovery of a Manuscript’s Missing Pair”  by David Andrés-Fernández (Spain) and Jane Morlet Hardie (Australia), discussed a manuscript now at the University of Sydney’s Fisher Library­.  This is an excellent time to re-visit their blog, since a volume about four Processionals in their collection is now in press:  David Andrés Fernández. Mapping Processions: Four Sixteenth-century Spanish Music Manuscripts in Sydney, edited and with a foreword by Jane Morlet Hardie, Canada, The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2018.   As Jane says, “ … Processions/Processionals are very sexy just now, and David is a terrific scholar.  I think it’s a bit of a game changer in the area, and his work on the Seville books is just great.”  We are looking forward to the publication! A resplendent opening of RB Add. MS 406 Deane, formerly TM 769, ff. 28v-29 Today we are looking at one of our manuscripts that found its way to Los Angeles.  The Department of Special Collections of the Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California at Los Angeles acquired TM 188 from Les Enluminures in 2008; it is now UCLA Library Special Collections MS 170/726. UCLA Library Special Colelctions, MS 170/726, f.1v Readers of this blog are familiar with the descriptions of our manuscripts on textmanuscripts.com – at least we hope you are!  We take great pride in how we describe the text manuscripts we offer for sale; every manuscript is studied carefully, and described in considerable detail.  When you buy a manuscript from Les Enluminures, you have a very good idea of what you are getting, and why it is interesting.  But as any cataloguer will tell you, we can’t, and don’t, discover everything – and of course, that is what makes manuscripts so exciting. UCLA Library Special Collections MS 170/726 is an elegant humanist codex copied in the Veneto, almost certainly in Padua, c. 1474-1476.  It is not a very large manuscript, measuring about 205 x 152 mm. (that is, about 8 x 6 inches), with 12 folios, or 24 pages.  And it is without a doubt a lovely book, copied on high-quality parchment in a beautiful script by a skilled scribe,   with lovely white-vine initials in the northern Italian style.  The text is by Bartolomeo Pagello (1447/48-c. 1526), a humanist renowned for his elegant letters and Latin works in verse, including the panegyric in this volume.  (A panegyric is an extended poem of effusive praise, a literary form popular in Antiquity that was revived during the Italian Renaisssance).  Pagello’s poem praises Pietro Mocenigo, the captain-general of the Venetian fleet against the Turks from 1470-1474, and doge of Venice from 1474 until his death in 1476.  We know from its text that it was composed while Mocenigo was in office. The tomb of Pietro Mocenigo in the church of San Giovanni and Paolo in Venice UCLA knew all this when they purchased the manuscript.  And they also knew that this text was quite rare, surviving in very few manuscripts.  Its nineteenth-century editor based his edition on Pagello’s working copy of the text–an autograph–now in Vicenza (Biblioteca Bertoliana MS 487).  He didn’t know about the copy now at UCLA. And, as it turns out, there was more to discover.  The UCLA manuscript is a presentation copy, dedicated to Leonardo, the ten-year old son of Pietro Moncenigo. UCLA Library Special Colelctions, MS 170/726, f.1v (detail) The opening and closing words (apart from the dedication, which of course is unique to the UCLA copy), are identical to the Vicenza manuscript, but its text is not.  Scholars at UCLA, Richard and Mary Rouse, together with Éloïse Lemay, made the very important discovery that the text of the UCLA manuscript is a unique, hitherto unknown, recension of Pagello’s Panegyric.  It is rare indeed to have both the original working copy of a text by a sixteenth-century author and a later version of the same text with substantial authorial revisions. This manuscript is many things:  a wonderful example of a book from Renaissance Italy of interest for its humanistic script, decoration, and early binding; a text with ties to three figures important in the history of Venice, Bartolomeo Pagello, Pietro Moncenigo, and his son, Leonardo; and a very rare and exciting opportunity to uncover the literary process of a Renaissance author. Interested in learning more?  In 2016 the library published a wonderful monograph on this new acquisition: Richard Rouse, Mary Rouse, and Éloïse Lemay, Bartolomeo Pagello's Panegyric of Pietro Mocenigo: a Unique Recension (UCLA MS 170/726), UCLA Library Publications, Los Angeles, 2016, summarizing the results of their research, and presenting a complete facsimile of the manuscript, a transcription of the text, and an English translation. As a final note, people often ask me how long descriptions of our manuscripts are available after they are sold – and the answer is that sold items remain on our site in the archives with the complete description and images.  Choose “all items”  when you search, and you will find a treasure trove of information for scholars and manuscript lovers worldwide (at the time of this blog post, 825 manuscripts!)  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/archives,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/scribes,/blog/categories/codicology";"1";105473;"12-17-from-venice-to-ucla";"/blog/entries/12-17-from-venice-to-ucla";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/1_18_bibliographic-_week/ny_first_icon.jpg";"/blog/1_18_bibliographic-_week/whatsup_ny_facebook_image.png";"What’s Up NY?";" Bibliography Week 2018";"2018-01-18";"New York is a city for everyone – with events to match – “Restaurant Week,” “Fashion Week,” “Fleet Week”...";" New York is a city for everyone – with events to match – “Restaurant Week,” “Fashion Week,” “Fleet Week” (immortalized in that “Sex and the City” episode,) and coming up very soon, “Bibliography Week.”  I’m sure many of the readers of this blog – librarians, book collectors, scholars, and booksellers – are even now packing their bags.  But really, anyone interested in the history of the book writ large should know about it.  “Bibliography Week” happens each year at the end of January, this year January 22-27, when the principal national organizations devoted to the art and history of the book (the Grolier Club, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Printing History Association) have their annual meetings.  Other groups, including Booklyn, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, and the Center for Book Arts, plan events as well.  Most of the events are open to everyone, and are wonderful opportunities to learn and, yes, to socialize.  The Grolier Club acts as unofficial schedule keeper for these events (you can find a list of some of this year’s events on their website.) At Les Enluminures we are definitely looking forward to Bib Week.  On Thursday, January 25, we are participating in the Booksellers’ Showcase sponsored by the ABAA, held from 10 AM to 4 PM at the Alliance Française – directly across the street from the Grolier Club. Please stop by our table and say hello.  And we are having an exhibition in our New York gallery called simply “Manuscripts of the Middle Age,” click here for details and a list of the manuscripts.  Come and see examples of the wide variety of different types of books copied in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Books of Hours, portable Bibles, liturgical books for public worship, legal texts, histories, school books, and documents). The paintings in this beautiful liturgical manuscript were made at the peak of Gothic illumination in France; “Soissons Missal,” Diocese of Soissons, c. 1250-1275 The exhibition also showcases manuscripts showing signs of use and change, significant bindings, and recent additions to our inventory. Fifteenth-Century Chained Binding; Sermons by Conrad Holtnicker of Saxony and other authors, Austria (Vienna?) or Southern Germany, c. 1275-1300, TM 767 One of the highlights of the week this year is the seminar on Wednesday, January 24, at the Grolier Club, “Loving Books/Leaving Books: Disposition of Private Collections.” (Attendance is limited, and it may be fully subscribed, so please check with the Grolier Club if you are interested in attending).  This is a great topic, and it has us thinking about the many collectors and institutions who have owned the manuscripts in our exhibition down through the ages. Here are a few examples.  This elegant manuscript is a legal commentary composed for, and dedicated to, Giovanni II Bentivoglio, the ruler of Bologna from 1463-1506.  Legal Commentary dedicated to Giovanni II Bentivoglio, TM 409, Bartolomeus Bologninus, Commentary on the Imperial Constitution 'Authentica Habita' (1154-1155), Italy, Bologna, dated 12 January 1492. Like other princely families of Renaissance Italy, the Bentivoglios were important patrons of the arts, and played a key role in supporting scribes and illuminators. Portrait of Giovanni II Bentivoglio, c. 1480, by Ercole de' Roberti. Bronze medal of Giovanni II Bentivoglio, Francesco Francia (attributed to), National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.777.a Giovanni II Bentivoglio also owned a Book of Hours, illuminated in Bologna. Book of Hours, Italy, Bologna, 1497; New York, Morgan Library, MS M.53 fol. 18 And the Bentivoglio family owned a wonderful Bible with these fabulous images of St. Francis in the lower margin (on the right he is preaching to the birds); they were probably not this book’s original owners, but owned it by the fifteenth century.  Bible, Italy (Bologna), c. 1270; Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS W.151 The Soissons Missal, just mentioned, was owned by Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne (1734-1814), bibliophile, diplomat, field marshal of Catherine the Great of Russia, and correspondent of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Goethe. Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne More recently in its history it was owned by the American collectors Elizabeth and James Ferrell, and was on long-termed deposit at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.   J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles The beautifully illuminated copy of a ninth-century biblical commentary by Haimo of Auxerre, belonged to another famous collector (and may have been commissioned by him), Jean II Budé, the father the famous humanist-bibliophile Guillaume Budé (and of many other children; according to some accounts he had 18 children!).  He was a book collector with an eye for lavish illuminated works, but clearly a personal preference for studious and theological texts. The illuminated frontispiece was added c. 1500 to a manuscript owned by Jean II Budé; Haimo of Auxerre, Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, France (Paris), c. 1460-1480 (before 1481), TM 908 Jean II Budé’s son, Guillaume Budé was librarian to Francis I and the leading humanist of sixteenth-century France; Guillaume Budé (1467–1540) by Jean Clouet, c. 1536, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art Later in its history this manuscript was owned by one of the most remarkable collectors of the nineteenth century, Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878), who owned more than 4000 manuscripts. (An impressive collection, although not quite in the league of that other famous collector, Sir Thomas Phillipps, discussed in our earlier blog, “The Popess and the Vellomaniac”).  The Earl of Ashburnham acquired this manuscript, not without controversy, from the collection of Joseph Barrois (c. 1785-1855), the learned, but crooked bibliophile, who became fatally involved with the notorious and unpunished book thief Count Guglielmo Libri.  (The subject of a recent exhibition and catalogue at the Grolier Club, Jeremy Norman, Scientist, Scholar, and Soundrel.  A Bibliographical Investigation of the Life and Exploits of Count Guglielmo Libri, Mathematician, Journalist, Patriot, Historian of Science, Paleographer, Book Collector, Bibliographer, Antiquarian Bookseller, Forger, and Book Thief, New York, 2013.) Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja, Italian count, mathematician and notorious book thief The organizers of the Grolier club seminar ask, “At some point in their collecting careers all bibliophiles must decide how to dispose of their collections. The options are many, and complicated. Pass the collection on to spouse, children, or other family? Establish a book-focused foundation? Donate to an institution for sale, or use? Sell at auction or to a dealer?” These are questions that concern collectors, librarians, and institutions today, but they are not entirely new.  Studying the provenance of medieval manuscripts illustrate the choices collectors and institutions have made in the past, and the consequences of these decisions. If you are interested in provenance history, we recommend you check out Peter Kidd’s blog, “Medieval Manuscripts Provenance”. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/codicology";"1";105484;"1_18_bibliography-week-new-york";"/blog/entries/1_18_bibliography-week-new-york";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/2_18_vernacular/937_f.1_icon.png";"/blog/2_18_vernacular/937_f1_facebook_edit.png";"What to give a brother who (probably) has everything";;"2018-03-02";"It can be hard to find the right gift for your adult siblings, especially if they have lots of money, good jobs, and don’t really need anything...";" It can be hard to find the right gift for your adult siblings, especially if they have lots of money, good jobs, and don’t really need anything. TM 937, Collection of Medical Recipes and Health Regimens, ff. 22v-23 This very lovely manuscript was given by one brother, François II de Rohan (1480-1536), as a gift to his quite exalted elder brother, Charles de Rohan-Gié (c. 1478-1528), Lord of Gié, Verger, and Sablé, Count of Guise and Orbec and Viscount of Fronsac.  Charles was a close companion of the king, on the battlefield and at Court.  You can see his coat of arms here at the bottom of the first page.   Not surprisingly, given his family, François II de Rohan was an important figure in his own right. He was appointed bishop of Angers at the age of nineteen (in 1499) and was elevated soon after to the archbishopric of Lyon (in 1501).  He was also a writer.  His translation of Fiore di virtu (Flower of Virtue), an early fourteenth-century Italian collection of moral texts, has survived in a luxuriously illuminated manuscript (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1877, produced c. 1530), illustrated in Paris by an artist known as the Master of François de Rohan and probably made for presentation to Marguerite de Navarre. Portrait of François II de Rohan in his manuscript, now Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1877, f. 1 A book always makes an excellent present, and an elegantly written and decorated illuminated manuscript makes an even better one (we talked a little about this in our earlier blog, “Gifts of the Past”).  But what makes this an especially good gift are the texts it includes:  medical recipes, a health regimen, and a pharmacopoeia of plant-based remedies. (In the modern world we usually think of recipes as instructions for preparing food, in the Middle Ages and well into the early modern era a “recipe” was understood as a how-to instruction of any sort, including, as in this case, medical remedies.)  The recipes mention many ailments: constipation, kidney stones, stomach pain, colic, plague, pleurisy, tertian and quartan fevers, and heart failure (to name only a few). TM 937, Collection of Medical Recipes and Health Regimens, f. 1: the text begins, “Here follow recipes of expert medical physicians concerning diverse maladies  The entire text is in French (a notable point for a time when many academic medical texts were still circulated primarily in Latin), and most of the recipes are from contemporary physicians, rather than traditional sources from the past, including, among many others, François d’Allez and André Briau, doctors for the king of France.  Many are ascribed to “Master Bernard,” who was almost certainly the Archbishop’s own doctor. This is a personal gift, and it seems to me, a loving one – full of the hope that his brother will enjoy a healthy life. Motto of Francois II de Rohan, “A sound mind in a healthy body” This manuscript will be on view in our exhibition , “Talking at the Court, On the Street, In the Bedroom: Vernacular Manuscripts in the Middle Ages,” at our New York Gallery through March 16.  If you are in New York, please visit us. And it is one of the thirty-six manuscripts in the illustrated catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, Shared Language: Vernacular Manuscripts in the Middle Ages, text by Laura Light, introduction by Christopher de Hamel, with essays by Dennis Dutschke, Stephen Mossman, Emily Runde, John Van Engen, and Mary Beth Winn.   Highlights from the exhibition will also be on view at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair from March 8-11, with other manuscripts from our current inventory (including no less than three medieval scrolls).  Les Enluminures, Illustrated Genealogy of Christ by Peter of Poitiers, Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi, England, Oxford?, c. 1230-1250 And speaking of medieval scrolls, “Now and Forever: The Art of Medieval Time,”  currently on view at the Morgan Library and Museum and New York, has much to say on history and concepts of time in the Middle Ages (and includes three beautifully displayed historical scrolls).  Highly recommended! You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"";"1";114351;"2_18_vernacular_manuscripts";"/blog/entries/2_18_vernacular_manuscripts";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/05_18_kalamazoo/aberdeen-bestiary-f.9-the-panther_icon.jpg";;"We are going to the Zoo: “I do believe it’s true”";;"2018-05-09";"Well, maybe not that zoo.  Les Enluminures is going to the International Congress on Medieval Studies held in Kalamazoo...";" Well, maybe not that zoo. Les Enluminures is going to the International Congress on Medieval Studies held in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University every year early in May, often referred to as “the Zoo.”  The Congress is huge, really huge, attracting around 3,000 medievalists of all stripes – professors, graduate students, and many other lovers of the Middle Ages and medievalism.  There are sessions to attend (552 listed in this year’s program), workshops, and performances, as well as plenty of chances to relax and socialize (even a dance)..  We are excited that Les Enluminures is going to the ‘Zoo’ this year and is sponsoring a roundtable: “Manuscripts in the Curriculum:  New Perspectives on Using Medieval Manuscripts in the Undergraduate Classroom from Special Collection Librarians, Faculty, and Booksellers” (rather a mouthful I know, but descriptive) on Saturday at 1:30 in Fetzer 1010 (session no. 402). Participants are Cynthia Turner Camp, University of Georgia, Eric J. Johnson, Ohio State University, Jeffrey D. Marshall, University of Vermont, Marianne Hansen, Bryn Mawr College, Maeve Doyle, Eastern Connecticut State University, and Nicholas Herman, Schoenberg Institute of Medieval Studies, University of Pennsylvania.     Teaching medieval studies or history of the book with manuscripts is, as they say, a game changer.  (And note, I’m talking about the real thing, not digital images of manuscripts or facsimiles). We can’t wait to hear the experiences of our panelists, and the discussion that follows.  It is a roundtable by design; we hope everyone who attends will participate Professor Iain Macleod Higgins, University of Victoria, says manuscripts are like time-travel machines. “The book may be a little object, but you open it up and it takes you to a whole different world.”  Did you notice the beginning of our session title?  “Manuscripts in the Curriculum,” is a new program from Les Enluminures that allows colleges and universities to rent a group of our manuscripts for a semester to use for teaching, and if they like, for exhibitions.  We have reached the halfway point of our three-year pilot program. You can read about it here. And yes, once again, we are talking about real manuscripts, not facsimiles – how cool is that? So far it has been a great success.  At the University of Victoria, students in Medieval Studies 452: “Special Topics in Medieval Manuscript Studies: Looking at New Medieval Manuscripts,” studied the manuscripts with Professor Helène Cazes of the French Department.  Our Tudor Roll of Arms, TM 627  including a genealogy of the kings and queens of England was the focus of one of the student’s papers. The Genealogie Royall and Lineall Discent of all the Kinges and Queenes of England; followed by other Rolls of Arms, England, necessarily after 1558 but prior to 1603, c. 1590-1600 The manuscripts then travelled to Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where students in Professor Jennifer Smith’s seminar on medieval literature prepared posters presenting aspects of manuscripts from the collection, and then shared their research in a public open house.  The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, a bestseller in the Middle Ages, continued to be read into modern times; TM 602, a fifteenth-century manuscript of this text was studied by Brenna Ware and Hudson Casiple (who studied the manuscript and read the text in English translation). Thomas a Kempis, Imitatio Christi, Austria (Tirol) or Southern Germany, c. 1469-1491 They are now in Rochester New York, being used in a special joint program by the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Steven Galbraith, Curator of the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester Institute of Technology At the Robbins Library, University of Rochester  You can read more about the innovative programming the manuscripts have inspired on our website; look for the links to “The program in action”  (the information from Rochester will be added in due course).  If you are attending the Congress, we are also exhibiting, so please come see us in the Exhibit Hall, Booth 57, Goldsworth Valley III, where we will have selected manuscripts from our new list (‘Must-Haves’: A Dozen Medieval Manuscripts for Teaching), as well as our publications on text manuscripts, illuminated manuscripts, Books of Hours, and medieval jewelry. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/kings,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/manuscript-production";"1";120075;"5_18_kalamazoo";"/blog/entries/5_18_kalamazoo";1;"object"
"";"Kristen Racaniello";"/blog/7_18_celestial-spheres/first_icon.jpg";"/blog/7_18_celestial-spheres/de-universo-facebookpng.png";"Celestial Spheres, Cosmic Eggs, Heavenly Discs:";"An unusual material understanding of the universe in William of Auvergne’s De universo";"2018-07-12";"The sky has been a source of both great mystery and of great inspiration throughout human history. Our desire to understand Earth’s relationship with the heavens...";" The sky has been a source of both great mystery and of great inspiration throughout human history. TM 697, WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE, De universo Our desire to understand Earth’s relationship with the heavens has led to the invention of impressive machines from dirigibles, to airplanes, to satellite monitoring systems; it’s led to space exploration and maybe, someday, will even lead to the colonization of Mars - that is, if Elon Musk manages to succeed with SpaceX. Will our fascination with the heavens one day lead to habitation?  Elon Musk’s SpaceX program launched the Falcon Heavy rocket with a Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload in February of 2018. How has the organization of the universe been understood historically?  How have people attempted to triangulate our place within it? Interest in cosmology, that is the study of the origin, structure, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe, has been a human concern probably for as long as humans have been on this planet. Stonehenge attests to the long history of human fascination with the sky.  It is a prehistoric monument from Wiltshire, England, constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC.  The monolithic stones of the site are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice, as pictured above.  One of the earliest models of the universe, which was based on the idea of celestial spheres, was developed in Ancient Greece in the early sixth century BCE by Anaximander.  The Greek philosophers Plato (d. 348/347 BCE, Aristotle (d. 322 BCE), and Ptolemy (d. 160 CE), all developed their own cosmological models of the universe to explain its structure and fate in turn.  These cosmological models depict the planets and stars embedded in rotating spheres made of an ethereal, transparent fifth element like jewels set in orbs.  A modern interpretation of the Aristotelian Universe, with the earth in the center, the elements above, then the celestial spheres, and finally the firmament.  During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, people combined the Ancient Greek theories of cosmology with Christian teachings about creation.  People wrote about their ideas, and, often, artists attempted to illustrate them.  A very beautiful interpretation of the celestial spheres is found on the first page of a fifteenth-century copy of William of Auvergne’s De universo, Les Enluminures, TM 697. TM 697, WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE, De universo, f.1 It is a strikingly original interpretation, which at first glance doesn’t even look like a picture of the universe.  Instead of a round diagram, with the earth in the center, this image looks like a stack of coins or a totem pole, running the length of the page vertically.  It encourages the viewer to read from the top label caelum empireum (meaning “Heaven’s kingdom”) down to the earthly realm (which, significantly, is not labeled, but distinguished by the visual suggestion of a wooded forest within the bottom-most sphere). TM 697, WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE, De universo, f.1, detail William of Auvergne (c.1180/90–1249) was a theologian and philosopher, and also bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249.  William and his contemporaries were among the first thinkers in the Latin West to begin to grapple with the writings on natural philosophy and metaphysics by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other Greek, Islamic and Jewish thinkers that had recently become available in Latin translation. William’s treatise, De Universo (On the Universe), is a very long text (six hundred pages in the printed editions), and it begins with a discussion of cosmology and the structure of the universe (bringing the idea of earth and the celestial spheres into a Christian worldview). It is not at all traditional to illustrate William’s De Universo––which is a lengthy theological treatise that discusses many, many topics–– with an astronomical image of the universe.  And the artist was equally innovative in the way he chose to illustrate the celestial spheres, here showing the celestial spheres as equal, yet separated, realms, like a cross section of a celestial sphere diagram. It provides a fascinating depiction of the firmament.  The firmament is the vast solid dome referred to in the Vulgate as the “waters” (here labeled aque) above the atmosphere, shown as the vast golden space separating the first earthly celestial sphere (primum mobile) from the heavenly realm (caelum empireum). To appreciate the bold vision of our artist, let’s look at examples of more traditional images of the celestial spheres from the Middle Ages; most of these images are nested, egg-like models. The Earth within seven celestial spheres, from Bede, De natura rerum, late 11th century, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc. 560, f. 23 A simplified version of the celestial spheres can be seen in an image of biblical creation, “The Creation of the World” in the Stammheim Missal, made in Hildesheim, Germany, sometime in the 1170s. The Creation of the World in the Stammheim Missal, Hildesheim, Germany, probably 1170s; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, f. 10v One image that also departs from the “usual” is by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) (this will not surprise anyone familiar with Hildegard’s amazingly creative thought and imagery).  Her famous image “The Universe” – commonly known as the “Cosmic Egg” –combines previous creation images and the imagery of celestial spheres into a fiery vision of a post-Lapsarian cosmos (meaning the universe as it is after the fall of man). Scivias was Hildegard of Bingen’s first, and perhaps the most famous of her writings. Scivias, (“Know the Ways”) describes 26 of Hildegard’s most vivid visions.  It is renowned for its 35 astonishing and unusual images.  Today, the Vatican contains a copy of Hildegard's Scivias from the convent she founded in Rupertsberg, (Vatican Library, MS Pal. lat 311). The image in the William of Auvergne manuscript is, in fact, strikingly similar to the visual interpretation presented by the “Cosmic Egg,” but diverges in the composition of the celestial and earthly realms.  Close to the sentiment of the “Cosmic Egg,” yet still borrowing the orderly structure of the celestial sphere, the De universo image reads from top to bottom. It begins with the heavenly domain then presents a golden comet-like streaked firmament.  Following this is a series of nine deep blue spheres (labeled “mobile”), each interspersed with a variety of stars, the sun, with the last presenting a simple crescent moon. Finally, the lowest terrestrial spheres are elemental – fire, air, water, and two green and brown spheres representing earth. This display from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition Jurusalem 1000-1400 suggests another origin for the unusual disk-like shapes found in TM 697’s illumination; the astrolabe. An astrolabe is a tool used for measuring the position of heavenly objects–– the stars, planets, satellites, and other celestial items. There are many fascinating elements to the imagery used in the elemental spheres. Simple, licking flames wave red against an orange ground in the fire (ignis) circle.   Then two immaculately rendered flies grace the air (aer) sphere, allowing the latticed paper below to show through.  On a greenish ground, water (aqua) is characterized by a drawing of two leaping fish and curled, swirling forms.  The two lowest unlabeled circles clearly represent a large tree surrounded by shrubs.  The division of “earth” into two circles perhaps incites the viewer to consider the element of earth separately from the earthly realm.  This painting is strange not only for its inclusion in a theological treatise, but also for its unusual depiction of the celestial spheres. The illumination betrays a decidedly material, physical understanding of the celestial spheres which are rendered like layered coins or the disks of an astrolabe. This vertical, stacked composition cleanly breaks with the traditions of all other medieval celestial sphere depictions.  The artist who illuminated Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias is remembered and praised for the radical interpretations of her equally profound texts.  In William of Auvergne’s De universo (TM 697), we find an extraordinary, but unknown and previously uncelebrated artist whose talent and creativity rival the interpretive power of the Scivias artist.  We do not know who decided to include the unique painting of the layered spheres of the universe at the beginning of this manuscript.  We do know, however, that its first owner was  Philippus Barbarycus of Venice, a member of the Papal Curia, who was active in humanist circles in Rome.  Could it have been his decision to illustrate the celestial spheres at the beginning of our manuscript? It seems quite likely. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"";"1";127677;"7-18-celestial-spheres";"/blog/entries/7-18-celestial-spheres";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/10_18_fall_blog/historical-and-cosmological-anthology---f.120v-detail-_icon.png";"/blog/10_18_fall_blog/prophet-zacharias---british-library_facebook.png";"Breaking News… Announcing Manuscripts in the Curriculum II";;"2018-10-18";"We are happy to announce that our innovative and successful (no false modesty here) program, Manuscripts in the Curriculum, is continuing, in a slightly different form as MITC II.";"We are happy to announce that our innovative and successful (no false modesty here) program, Manuscripts in the Curriculum, is continuing, in a slightly different form as MITC II.   Historical and Cosmological Anthology, England, probably London, c. 1325, f. 120v. A School Scene, with three students seated on the floor, each with an open book, flanked by a seated figure in academic(?) garb holding a scroll. In January of 2017 we launched “Manuscripts in the Curriculum I,” which allowed colleges and universities to borrow a group of medieval manuscripts for a semester to use for teaching and exhibitions. You can read about it here and here. Our manuscripts have travelled from British Columbia, Canada (the University of Victoria), to Malibu, California (Pepperdine University), to Rochester, New York (the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology), to Albany, New York (SUNY at Albany).  They are currently at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.  At each stop, they have been greeted enthusiastically, enlivening reading rooms and class rooms.  Nothing brings the past to life as vividly as the experience of holding a medieval manuscript in your hand, turning its pages, reading and looking, and breathing it all in. Medieval manuscripts are direct, physical links to the past  This pilot program has been such a success that we have decided to continue it in a slightly revised form as “Manuscripts in the Curriculum II,” which will begin in September 2019.  A smaller group of nine manuscripts will be available for loan, including representative examples of types of medieval books (curious? keep reading, and see below). There is a nominal cost ($5,000) for North American institutions to contribute towards the out-of-pocket expenses of the program (with an additional fee for participating Canadian institutions for international shipping and customs).  The fee covers administration, insurance, shipping, condition reports, and study guides. We are asking that institutions send us an application this time.  Nothing formidable; just a way for us to get to know you, and to encourage participants to think about practicalities at the outset. So if you are interested, please submit a brief application (no more than three pages in length) outlining the course(s) planned, and other internal and public events (lectures, receptions, colloquia), as well as any special requests for “wild card” manuscripts; a plan for integrating the use of manuscripts in the curriculum after the conclusion of the program; the names of faculty and library staff responsible for overseeing and funding the program; and the preferred semester with a second choice listed (from September 2019 through September 2021).   We are currently reading the first group of applications, but if you haven’t applied, please know that we will welcome additional applications at any time until the program is fully subscribed. What manuscripts will we send you?  We will send a group of nine manuscripts; two of the nine will be “wildcards,” allowing each institution to choose manuscripts particularly suited to their own program.  The group of manuscripts sent will change each semester of the program, but will include: 1. A thirteenth-century Bible;TM 892, Vulgate Bible, England, c. 1260-1275 2. a Psalter;TM 789, Psalter, Southern Germany (diocese of Constance or Augsburg), c. 1240-60 3. a Book of Hours;BOH 159, Book of Hours (Use of Rome?), Southern Netherlands, Ghent or Bruges, c. 1480 4. a music manuscript;TM 953, Ritual with Services for Funerals and the Anniversary of Death, Western Germany or Eastern Low Countries, c. 1450-1475 with 18th-century additions 5. a manuscript for the Mass or Office;TM 517, Breviary (Use of Rome), Northern Italy (Verona?), dated 1456 6. a humanist manuscript from fifteenth-century Italy;TM 928, Gaspare Veronese, Rules of Construction; Guarino Veronese, On Diphthongs, Central Italy (Florence?), c. 1460-1470 7. a sermon manuscript;TM 857, Hendrik Herp, Sermons on the Three Parts of Penitence and Sermons for Advent, The Low Countries (Antwerp, Mechelen), c. 1470-1490 And two WILDCARDS!This is just to give you an idea of the possibilities.  The actual manuscripts chosen will depend on our current inventory when the program begins.  Just imagine what fun you will have … Studying medieval manuscripts in the classroom is an amazing experience for both students and teachers.  At Les Enluminures, we are all committed to making this happen far and wide!  For information:  lauralight@lesenluminures.comTo read news and reviews of the program to date:  http://www.textmanuscripts.com/curatorial-services/manuscripts You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/music,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";127756;"10_18_fall_blog";"/blog/entries/10_18_fall_blog";1;"object"
"";"Matt Westerby";"/blog/11_18_virgil_master/virgil-master---detail-2.png";"/blog/11_18_virgil_master/virgil-master---detail_facebook.png";"A Picture Bible for People and Princes";"(with a Bit of Provenance-Sleuthing)";"2018-11-26";"Everyone likes a good story. In a way, the history of the written word is an exercise in grabbing the attention of your audience, whoever they might be. Performers do this by “breaking the fourth wall” and talking to us directly (you hate that as much as I do, right?). Pictures also play this game in books and illuminated manuscripts.";" Everyone likes a good story. In a way, the history of the written word is an exercise in grabbing the attention of your audience, whoever they might be. Performers do this by “breaking the fourth wall” and talking to us directly (you hate that as much as I do, right?). Pictures also play this game in books and illuminated manuscripts. Some books have none.B.J. Novak’s The Book with No Pictures, 2014, a comical children’s book and New York Times best seller, called “a riotously fresh take on breaking the fourth wall.” While other books are mostly pictures, like the Bible moralisées (“Moralized Bibles”), comprised of hundreds of pictures with pithy captions explaining each scene from the Bible. Scenes from Genesis in the "Bible moralisée of Philippe le Hardi", a manuscript with around 5,000 miniatures by at least six painters working between 1402 and 1493 (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 166, f. 3v) Somewhere between these two is the Bible historiale, a potent mixture of the Bible and history written in French often copied with colorful pictures heading each section. Composed by Guyart des Moulins in the late 13th century, the Bible historiale translates sections of the Bible into French and presents them with extracts from Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, a history text that served as school book for centuries.  A miniature with Saint Paul opening the Book of Timothy in a Bible historiale, c. 1405 (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5058, f. 471) There was real demand in the 15th century for biblical texts in French––the language spoken at Court, on the street and (presumably) in the bedroom (this was the topic of our exhibition in New York early this year, featured in Laura Light’s blog post, and in our catalogue Shared Language: Vernacular Manuscripts in the Middle Ages ). The popularity of the Bible historiale can be gauged by the number of recorded copies: 143 have been catalogued by Eléonore Fournié. In October Les Enluminures exhibited three miniatures from a Bible historiale in New York. Each one grabs attention with vibrant and varied pigments set against red backgrounds with delicate gold patterns. They are attributed to the workshop of the Virgil Master, who painted at least five books owned by Jean, Duke of Berry, the most famous French bibliophile of the Middle Ages, and owner of one of the most famous of all medieval illuminated manuscripts, the Très Riches Heures. Portrait of Jean de Berry, Calendar Page of the Très Riches Heures , Musée Condé, Chantilly, France Here are our miniatures; the first miniature was once at the beginning of the First Epistle of John, the second, at the beginning of one of the Pauline epistles (perhaps Ephesians), and the third probably opened the second book of Maccabees. Les Enluminures, Three miniatures from a Bible historiale, Workshop of the Virgil Master, Paris, c. 1400-1405 Each miniature stands in for an entire book of the Bible and brought the stories to life, especially for the contemporary 15th-century reader. One shows a kneeling messenger handing a letter to a group of bearded men, seven of them with red and white roundels on their chests. This is a rare depiction of the badge, or rouelle, mandated to be worn by Jewish people through the reign of Charles VI and the expulsion of 1394––here portrayed as an anachronistic component of Jewish identity.  The Bible historiale was a true milestone in the impulse toward explaining the Bible to the “grand public,” and the enigmatic blend of text and image remains understudied. We know a good deal about these three miniatures and their parent manuscript because they belong to a group of thirty-six others. The largest part (twenty-one of them) are among the collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia. When complete the parent manuscript’s mise en page would have mirrored the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal Bible historiale pictured above (MS 5058). It’s unknown how or when the parent manuscript was dismembered but it certainly happened before 1856, when a large group was acquired by Thomas Miller Whitehead, who inscribed his initials, price code, and year on the reverse sides. The reverses of all three miniatures are lined with paper, on which T. M. Whitehead wrote the date (“1856”) and his price code (“£a.o.o”) in ink. Peter Kidd identified the notes on the reverse sides of the sister leaves at the Free Library as belonging to Whitehead in the latter half of a post to his Manuscripts Provenance blog. He has also generously shared with us his research that identifies the thirty-eight of the sister leaves, including our three, as lot 985 in the 1854 Samuel Rogers in London. The letter “T” is written before the price code, shorthand for Walter Benjamin Tiffin, who sold the miniatures to Whitehead after he had purchased them at the Rogers sale, as confirmed by the Auctioneer's Book. Title page of the 1856 catalogue of the Samuel Rogers sale (left, image courtesy of Peter Kidd), with our three miniatures part of lot 985, recorded as sold to Tiffin in the Auctioneer’s Book (right, image courtesy of Christie’s Archives) It is remarkable that we can place these miniatures in the collection of Samuel Rogers (d. 1855), the lauded poet-banker and an early collector of illuminated manuscripts in England. The illuminated Bible historiale was among the “must haves” of the 15th-century upper crust, but it and other translations of the Bible never entirely win out over copies of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate, which was reformatted and repackaged generation after generation. Among these is the 13th-century Paris “pocket” Bible, like our TM 921. Les Enluminures, 13th-century Paris “Pocket” Bible, TM 921 In the 1450s the Gutenberg Bible ushered in the new world of printing, revolutionizing the way Bibles were produced.  Its success, like the Bible historiale, relied in large part on its colorful pictures and eye-catching decorations added by illuminators in the headers and wide margins. Historiated initial with Saint Jerome, 1462 Gutenberg Bible, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, f. 1 You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"";"1";127796;"11-18-the-virgil-master";"/blog/entries/11-18-the-virgil-master";1;"object"
"";"Jenneka Janzen";"/blog/12_18-herbal/harry-potter-hermione-granger.jpg";"/blog/12_18-herbal/mandrake-harry-potter2_facebook.jpg";"When a fly in the ointment is a good thing.";"A look at an apothecary's handbook";"2018-12-13";"Today, the global herbal medicine market is growing at a remarkable rate as we look for safer and more sustainable ways to keep and improve our health...";" Today, the global herbal medicine market is growing at a remarkable rate as we look for safer and more sustainable ways to keep and improve our health. But we may forget that the plants, minerals, and animals found in our own backyards were once the only tangible remedies for the maladies – from stomach upset to cancer – that humans have undoubtedly always faced. What did pharmacology (the branch of medicine concerned with the uses, effects, and modes of action of drugs on living systems) look like in the West before the medical revolution of the seventeenth century?The history of Western pharmacy shares its story with the history of medicine: both evolved from centuries of Ancient Greek knowledge about medicinal plants, passed down through practice and word-of-mouth. In the 1st century A.D., a Greek physician named Pedanius Dioscorides compiled all the medical knowledge at his disposal, and composed a five-volume pharmacopeia, De materia medica (On medical material). Including some 600 plants, with some minerals and animals thrown in for good measure, it records about 1000 medicines made from them.   Left: Mandrake in the Greek Naples Dioscorides, Byzantine Empire, 7th century. Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, Cod. Gr. 1, f. 90 (Public Domain). Right Top: Mandrake in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (© Warner Bros., 2002). Right Bottom: Real-life Mandrake. If only Dioscorides could collect royalties! De materia medica was a true bestseller: supplemented by the natural histories of Pliny, Theophrastus, Aristotle, and others, it remained the foundation of pharmacology for 1500 years. In the later Middle Ages, De materia medica was translated into several vernacular languages and expanded by commentators as new substances reached European markets from far-off lands. A medieval apothecary shop. Roger Frugardi, Chirurgia, and other texts, Northern France, c. 1300-1325. British Library, Sloane MS 1977, f. 49v. (Public Domain, The British Library)  By the late Middle Ages, a patient – whether in need of urgent care, chronically suffering, or in the grips of a temporary malaise – had three potential sources of professional medical care: the surgeon, who might relieve them of an infected tooth or, more gravely, a limb; the doctor, who would assess critical cases and prescribe treatments; and the pharmacist, who not only doled out the prescriptions ordered by doctors, but knew remedies for a multitude of common (and uncommon) ailments.  Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, ff. 88v-89. This manuscript, TM 943, belonged to (at least) one such pharmacist, working somewhere in northern France in the mid to late sixteenth century. It includes its owner’s name in a sixteenth-century hand: “Jacqt Joanne philopharmacus” (Jacquet Joanne, doctor in pharmacy). He’s thus far unidentified, but may perhaps appear somewhere in a French town archive. The manuscript was probably handwritten by Joanne himself, or perhaps a previous owner. Moreover, it appears to be an original, one-of-a-kind work compiled by Joanne (if Joanne was indeed the first owner), as he collected new information from books, colleagues, and experience.  Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, opening flyleaf (detail) While some pharmaceutical books contained medicinal recipes, many, like this one, are made up of “simples”: pure ingredients, just as they are found in nature, to be harvested, prepared, and mixed by doctors and apothecaries to create medicines. In this manuscript, the description of each simple usually includes its primary property (hot, cold, dry, or moist, according to Galenic principles), appearance, varieties, effects, and basic medicinal preparation. It opens with two alphabetical glossary-indexes, the first giving entries in Latin with their French translation and location in the book, and the second in French-to-Latin followed by location. Surely Joanne had some competence in both, but it would be a lot to ask for him to have known the Latin and French names for all 1000 substances! Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, f.1 Occasionally, a later hand even adds a further translation in Arabic or Greek, as seen, for example, at the entry for asparagus (f. 59).  Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, f.59 Although literature and films often portray pre-modern medicine – or pre-modern anything, really – as quackery, full of hocus-pocus and potions, apothecaries did have a considerable amount of knowledge, and much of it was in fact useful. Many of the simples in this manuscript are still eaten and used medicinally today. Take camphor (f. 66), for instance: without it, there is no Vick’s VapoRub, an over-the-counter product used to relieve cough symptoms worldwide. Or poppy (f. 92), still used to make a number of powerful painkillers which feature heavily in today’s post-operative recovery. Chamomile (f. 124rv) is still known for its soothing effects, and is a staple in many cosmetic products and, of course, Chamomile tea.  Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, f.66 (detail) Despite the skills of, and need for, early modern apothecaries like our Jacquet Joanne, they did not always get it right. There are a number of unusual medicinal simples, such as hippopotamus (f. 166), electric ray (f. 206v), and scorpion (f. 199). Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, f.166 (detail) Perhaps the most peculiar to the modern reader, however, is human mummy (f. 83v): one should grind up their bones and drink the powder as a remedy against a number of infirmities (“os des corps humains pulverisez et pris en breuvage servent a beaucoup d'infirmitez”). Book of Medicinal Simples [=Pharmaceutical Ingredients], Northern France, 1567. Les Enluminures, TM 943, f.83v As odd – and nauseating – as this sounds, medical cannibalism was actually popular in Europe throughout and beyond the early modern period and is a well-researched phenomenon.  Eighteenth-century apothecary jars for “mumia,” i.e. human mummy powder. This manuscript is a remarkable (and, as yet, unstudied) testament to early modern pharmacology, a field with enormous opportunity for further research. Moreover, it speaks to one of the ways in which the world was rapidly changing in the so-called Age of Discovery, as European powers competed for dominance over colonial territories, and through them, access to trade and novel resources. One example of this is cinnamon (f. 260); although a common spice in our kitchen cupboards, cinnamon was unfamiliar and unattainable in most of Europe until the sixteenth, or even seventeenth, century. Whether a sixteenth-century northern French apothecary actually had foreign ingredients like cinnamon and mummy on his shelves, his inclusion of them in this personal book of medical simples suggests that he had hopes that, one day, he would. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/alchemy,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/notes,/blog/categories/science,/blog/categories/medievalism";"1";133300;"12-18-herbal";"/blog/entries/12-18-herbal";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman and William Voelkle";"/blog/01_19_holy-hoaxes/god-the-father---detail-icon.png";;"Jumping Jehosophat!";"Fakes at Les Enluminures";"2019-01-15";"Yes indeed. To start the New Year, Les Enluminures is exhibiting Bill Voelkle's amazing collection of fakes and forgeries. The exhibition is a provocative one, raising fascinating questions about the origin and reception of works of art - and, as you'll see, many of these fakes are quite beautiful. ";" Yes indeed.  To start the New Year, Les Enluminures is exhibiting Bill Voelkle's amazing collection of fakes and forgeries. The exhibition is a provocative one, raising fascinating questions about the origin and reception of works of art - and, as you'll see, many of these fakes are quite beautiful.  Our blog post today is an interview between Sandra Hindman, owner of Les Enluminures, and Bill himself.  If you are in New York, please stop by and see the show.  And a quick word of reassurance from Christopher de Hamel: It must be emphasized that most medieval illuminated manuscripts are completely authentic; entire forgeries are rare and usually easily detectable.  This wonderful exhibition raises ethical and aesthetic issues that tell us a great deal about the age in which we live.  This collection could really only have been assembled by a humane scholar deeply immersed throughout a lifetime among the incomparable and authentic treasures of somewhere like the Pierpont Morgan Library.  These are fantasies on very fringes of the illuminator’s craft.  Are they really forgeries, hoaxes, jokes, conjurers’s tricks and illusions, or works of art?  You decide. SH: How did you get started building this collection, which is highly unusual for a museum curator?BW: The Spanish Forger started it all for me.  When I first began working at the Morgan in 1967, someone brought in two of this artist’s paintings.  I was as green as could be, a complete novice, so I showed them to the then-curator John Plummer, and he immediately recognized them as the Spanish Forger. I was amazed.  It turned out that this was an artist who already had quite a history at the Morgan.  The first Director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, Belle de Costa Greene, was the person who both exposed the artist in about 1930 and gave this forger his name. Belle da Costa Greene, pastel portrait by Paul César Helleu, ca. 1913 (detail). And, The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. She demonstrated that a wonderful panel painting of St. Ursula, attributed to Maestro Jorge Ingles, an artist active in Spain in the mid-fifteenth century, could not be “original” and was instead painted more recently – by a Forger.  Hence the “Spanish” part of the conventional name for the Spanish Forger. During her time at the Morgan Belle de Costa Greene kept a running list of his work that by 1939 included fourteen items.  John Plummer continued the list, reaching fifty works, and my own list now includes over 400 works (117 panels and triptychs, 11 manuscripts, 283 leaves).  So, you could say that the Spanish Forger was born at the Morgan. We suspect now, however, that his style has nothing to do with Spain because he seems to have plied his trade in Paris, France.  Clearly he painted for profit and to deceive, exploiting a market for a particular vision of medieval times. SH: What date did you buy your first work by the Spanish Forger?BW: Although I bought my first work in 1972, the Triptych of a Baptism with Saints George and Barbara on the wings, from the Schweitzer Gallery in New York, it is not in what I call the “core” style of the artist. Triptych with Baptism Scene; wings with Saints George and Barbara (P21). The Spanish Forger, Paris, 1st quarter 20th century.Panels, 475 x 378 mm (with wings open) So, for me the real peak came in 1974 when I acquired the panel painting of St. Martha Taming the Tarasque.  This painting remains today one of the largest and most important in the “core” style of the artist.  St. Martha Taming the Tarasque (P20)The Spanish Forger, Paris, 1st quarter 20th century. Panel, 715 x 445 mm There is an amusing story that goes with my purchase of this painting.  It was up for auction at William Doyle Galleries in New York, where it was catalogued as “18th century German Madonna.”  I started bidding, and my opponent in the auction room kept going up and up.  Finally, I dropped out. After the sale I went up to the winning bidder and told him that I would include his painting in my Spanish Forger show.  He was taken aback that the painting was not genuine.  He then blamed the auction house for faulty cataloging, although he was buying it because he believed it to be fifteenth century, and he refused to pick it up.  I subsequently spoke with Bill Doyle, the owner of the auction house, and was able to acquire it for just $300.  I and my opponent-at-auction became friends, and I invited him to the opening of the Spanish Forger show at the Morgan (Martha was the frontispiece of the catalogue).  He even offered to buy my painting which he was still very much attracted to, and he said he regretted not having.  Of course, I kept it. SH: How did your collection evolve after your initial interest in the Spanish Forger?BW: I began to be interested in the broader question of fakes and forgeries in other cultures and in a variety of media.  This is around the period when museums started to do exhibitions, such as a well-known exhibition in Minneapolis in 1973 entitled “Fakes and Forgeries” that featured a couple of Spanish Forger works but also an extensive range of other artworks.  I own a small group of Ethiopian codices by an artist now known as the Synkessar (from Synaxary or Synaxarium) Miniature Forger, a painter thought to have worked in modern-day Ethiopia in the 1980s.  St. George Killing the Dragon and Virgin and Child with Angels Gebre Hemamat (Services for Passion Week), in Ge’ez Ethiopia, mid-nineteenth century, supplied with miniatures by the Synkessar Miniature Forger in the 1980s They started to appear in the West in the 1980s with export licenses, were illuminated with between twenty to forty miniatures, and some were sold as genuine by Sotheby’s.  In fact, under Emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975) no manuscripts of any antiquity could be exported without a license, making it virtually impossible to obtain richly illuminated royal manuscripts. Initially, it was not recognized by Sotheby’s or others that the Synaxarium, or a collection of saint’s lives, is actually a relatively common text in Ethiopia (the British Library has twenty-four such manuscripts) but was never illustrated and since they are written in Ge’ez, few people in the West could read them.  So, although these massive, extensively illuminated manuscripts might have aroused suspicion, at first they didn’t. Most of the miniatures were painted over text and do not exhibit the signs of wear found on the vellum; their condition is thus at variance with that of the vellum. Clearly the licensers were aware of the hoax. Synkessar (Synaxary), second part, in Ge’ez Ethiopia, late 17th or early 18th-century with miniatures supplied in the 1980s by the Synkessar Miniature Forger and associates; according to bogus colophon on fol. 1v it was written in 1681 (i.e. 1688-89) for Atse Yohannes I (reigned 1667- 82) and his Queen Sebl Wengel. One of my Synkessars was ostensibly made for Atse Yohannes and Queen Sebl Wengel, who are depicted on the frontispiece (fol. 1v) lovingly gazing at each other. They are protected by the royal guard, while above, in a mandorla flanked by angels, a blessing God looks on.  SH: Many of your pieces come from auction.  Can you comment on the role auction houses have played in the formation of your collection?BW: It’s true that I have benefitted from auction sales.  It works both ways.  I have also been able to acquire “real” works described as fakes.  One of the gems of my collection is an illuminated leaf from a Choir Book by a fifteenth-century Spanish painter known as the Master of the Cypresses, an artist responsible for an extensive series of Choir Books mostly in Seville Cathedral.  His miniatures often display cypress trees in the background landscapes – hence his name.  My leaf was sold at auction in New York described as painted by “Victorian ladies.”  I knew it could not be Victorian and some years later when the Getty Museum bought a leaf by the Master of the Cypresses, I realized that mine was by the same artist.  Illuminated leaf from a Choir Book by a fifteenth-century Spanish painter known as the Master of the Cypresses (detail). SH: What is your most recent acquisition?BW: My answer relates to another story.  One day, a fellow named Ovid (of all things) brought into the Morgan a shopping bag of 8th to 10th century Mayan codices.  Just glorious.  If right, they would have been the earliest illustrated manuscripts in the Americas.  What a find.  The manuscripts had even been carbon dated!  Then, the whole thing collapsed.  I sent the images to Michael Coe, the expert on Mayan glyphs at Yale University, and it was his view that the glyphs were wrong.  The carbon dating applied to the material on which the forger painted but not the paintings.  The deceit was exposed when codices that were dated centuries apart had paintings by the same artist.  The Spanish and Synkessar Forgers also painted on genuine manuscripts; the Spanish Forger’s manuscript stock, for example, varied from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century! The Killing/Sacrifice of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw (bottom Mexico?, early 20th-century). Bark covered with slaked lime, 200 x 315 mm, with paintings on both sides. SH: Do you have a favorite forgery within your vast collection?BH: Indeed a couple of them.  There is a beautiful miniature of the Nativity painted after Morgan MS M.72.  Strictly speaking this is not a forgery, but rather a copy or a facsimile, for the nuns of Maredret use medieval techniques and styles to make “modern” illuminations.   What fascinates me about collecting is learning about my pieces.  So, to explain my interest in the Nativity miniature, I need to tell another story about the Morgan. There is a manuscript of the Nuptial Mass in the Morgan by the nuns of Maredret (MS M.658).  It shows a marginal illustration of medieval archers shooting arrows at zeppelins, a sort of pictorial souvenir of the presence of German troops in Belgium during World War I.  It was purchased by J. P. Morgan (Pierpont's son) through Sir Frederick Kenyon, Director of the British Museum in 1921 and given by him to the library.  Thus, when Maggs recently offered a Nativity presumably sent as a Christmas card (inscribed “Affectueux souhais de Noel, Cecile de Hemptinne”) to Lady and Sir Frederick Kenyon about 1920, I immediately bought it, recognizing that the Nativity was a copy of fol. 8v of the Morgan’s MS M.72.  But there were other compelling connections as well, for Greene had sent the nuns a copy of M. R. James, Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Libraries of William Morris, Richard Bennett....London, 1906, which had a few actual size color plates, including M.72, fol. 8v, the source for the copy!  Kenyon did much to promote the work of the nuns, and the Nativity is probably by Sister Marie Madeleine Kerger (1876-1959). In a letter to Dyson Perrins of 6 January 1921 Kenyon praises the work of Kerger, the principal artist at Maredret. Baptism of Christ with two border roundels (Moses striking the Rock, Pharaoh’s Daughter Finding Moses on the Nile), and borders with sea creatures Flemish, 16th-century or later A second one is a leaf in a sixteenth-century Flemish style that I bought at Swann’s in which the artist ingeniously used aquatic themes in the borders surrounding the Baptism of Christ:  fish and turtles swim among the plants, while in the two roundels Moses produces life-saving water when he strikes the rock, and Pharaoh’s daughter finds Moses in the bullrushes of the Nile.  The latter, remarkably, includes the pyramids of Giza!  (The pyramids were known from Roman texts, such as Pliny and from travelers.  I have not had a chance to look into the history of their depiction). Nothing is for sale (What price can one put on a “beautiful deception”!)"Holy Hoaxes: a Beautiful Deception. Celebrating William Voelkle's collecting" will be held from January 17 through February 2, 2019 at Les Enluminures New York. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"";"1";140369;"1-19-holy-hoaxes";"/blog/entries/1-19-holy-hoaxes";1;"object"
"";"Micaela Terronez";"/blog/02_19_iowa-blog/icon.jpg";"/blog/02_19_iowa-blog/facebook.jpg";"Manuscripts in the Curriculum: News from the Field.";"A Guest Blog Post by Micaela Terronez from the University of Iowa";"2019-02-11";"Everyone at Les Enluminures really, really believes that teaching with actual medieval manuscripts is a transformative experience. This has always been an important and successful part of the mission of our text manuscripts site...";" Everyone at Les Enluminures really, really believes that teaching with actual medieval manuscripts is a transformative experience (last May we even sponsored a session at Kalamazoo on the subject – read more about that here). This has always been an important and successful part of the mission of our text manuscripts site (www.textmanuscripts.com); many of our manuscripts are now seeing active use by librarians, teachers, and students in university and college libraries across the United States and Canada (in fact we are creeping up on TM 1,000, a milestone to be sure – more on that to come soon!).    Our newest programs, Manuscripts in the Curriculum I and II, are an innovative expansion of this mission that enables participating schools to borrow a group of manuscripts for teaching (you can read more about it here and here.)  It has been very exciting for us to see the different types of programming our manuscripts have inspired.  I spent a couple of wonderful days with the team in Special Collections at the University of Iowa in November, and I can testify that the events they sponsored with the manuscripts were wonderful.  I was particularly impressed by a series of open houses with the manuscripts organized by Micaela Terronez and Elizabeth Riordan, Outreach and Engagement Library.   Micaela Terronez is the current Olson Graduate Research Assistant at The University of Iowa Special Collections and University Archives, as well as a second-year master’s student in the School of Library and Information Science. Micaela is passionate about providing a space for underrepresented voices in special collections, and she uses these opportunities as a way to combat oppression and engage with marginalized communities. Before her time at Iowa, Micaela held positions at the Augustana College Special Collections and at the East Moline Public Library. These experiences, along with her research in several community archives, drew her to combine these interests by pursuing a career in Special Collections and Archives.I’m delighted to turn over this blog post to Micaela.--Laura Light, Les Enluminures  Can I really touch it?One curious visitor asked this question in amazement as they gazed at one of the twenty-one visiting manuscripts from Les Enluminures, a gallery specializing in manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance with locations in New York, Paris, and Chicago. As a part of the program, “Manuscripts in the Curriculum,” Les Enluminures temporarily loans a select group of unique manuscripts to educational institutions.Fortunately, The University of Iowa Special Collections was able to host the manuscripts, a diverse group produced in various contexts and locations from the 13th to the 19th century. In addition to classroom integration, Special Collections planned a series of open houses for the University and broader community to allow hands-on experience engaging with these one-of-a-kind pieces. From August to November 2018 over 200 visitors viewed the visiting manuscripts—along with a couple favorites from our own collections. © University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections  Logistically speaking, each open house exhibited ten to twelve manuscripts aligned with a pre-decided theme. The themes included: Signs of Production, Decoration and Illumination, Script and Scribe, Manuscripts Outside Latin West, Medieval Society, Vernacular Texts, Music, Medieval Authors, and Bestsellers. This diverse set of themes allowed us to highlight certain texts each week without exhausting the materials or the visitors. The open houses were marketed through classroom instructions, social media, departmental networking, events, newsletters, and blogs. These efforts garnered an audience of students, scholars, and outside community members of various ages and backgrounds. At the open houses, guests were given brief guidelines to handling the manuscripts and were encouraged to turn the leaves by the margins. Like the curious visitor above, many could not believe that they could touch, let alone, move through the leaves of a codex to see all the pages of script and all the images. However, in cases when a particularly large number of visitors were present, guests were advised to admire the manuscripts without touching as to protect the longevity and structure of the manuscript. During these events, special precautions were taken to make sure the manuscripts were handled carefully, while also allowing the viewer to engage and ask questions. Non-flash photographs were highly encouraged, and many patrons took away some amazing captures to keep and share with friends and family. We also offered an interactive matching game of medieval authors, tattoos, buttons, and bookmarks for visitors to take home. © University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections  Because of an increase in public visitors, the fall semester was a whirlwind of planning, marketing, curation, learning, and teaching. For example, Elizabeth Riordan (Outreach and Engagement Librarian) and I created specially made description cards for each manuscript on display—that’s a lot of writing and research! The description cards served two purposes. First, it was the perfect way for us to learn more about the visiting manuscripts, along with the interesting details and histories. This knowledge proved highly valuable during open houses and classes. Secondly, visitors were able to easily understand the terminology, history, production, and uses of the items exhibited. These descriptions also helped to spur questions and discussions throughout the weeks. Riordan and I also enjoyed choosing manuscripts from our own collections to feature alongside the visiting manuscripts. This experience allowed us to contextualize our own manuscripts and helped us to uncover themes that can be highlighted throughout them. Just as our visitors learned from the experience, we both also walked away from the open houses more knowledgeable about medieval manuscripts, their features, and histories.  © University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections  There were several other benefits and take-aways from these open houses. Perhaps most importantly, we learned a great deal about the value of increasing access and visibility of the manuscripts through hands-on exploration. Patrons made incredible observations about the texts, while also initiating fruitful discussions amongst themselves and with staff.  They also inquired about the contexts, materiality, users, producers, and authors.  Visitors were able to actually feel the hair of the parchment, translate scripts, study the bindings, and so much more! With calm medieval chants playing in the background, many also took the events as an opportunity to relax and purely admire the artistry behind the texts. I would say friendships and interactions were created amongst these beautiful works, an effect that perhaps wouldn’t have happened without the hands-on experience with the manuscripts. © University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections  The open house series ended with one last exhibit, as well as a visit and talk titled “People and the Book: The Voices of Manuscripts from the Middle Ages” from Laura Light of Les Enluminures. These final events allowed visitors to ask intriguing questions about the visiting manuscripts from Light, an expert historian on medieval works. As November comes to a close, it is now time to say goodbye to these works. I, for one, am going to miss the manuscripts very much. Here are a couple of photographs from my favorite visiting manuscript, a “Roll of Arms” created during the Elizabethan period in England. The manuscript features stunningly detailed shields, illustrated crowns, and stylized arms shaking hands to signify marriage. Like myself, I am sure many visitors appreciated the work and talent that went into these lovely pieces. TM 627, Rolls of Arms, In English and Anglo-Norman, England, c. 1590-1600 The successful planning and implementation of the open houses was a team effort of the library staff, and we were incredibly grateful for the opportunity to engage with the community, students, and faculty during these open houses. Thank you to all that visited Special Collections, asked questions, and made us ponder the creation and use of these manuscripts. We hope you continue to visit us in the future, whether it is for research, exploration, or just admiring a cool book or leaf. Saying farewell to the manuscripts (© University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections) You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";141349;"02-19-iowa-manuscripts-in-the-curriculum";"/blog/entries/02-19-iowa-manuscripts-in-the-curriculum";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/04_19_spring-update/animals-icon.jpg";"/blog/04_19_spring-update/facebook1.png";"When April with his showers sweet with fruit” (We see the Text Manuscript update take root)";;"2019-04-15";"I know, I know, that isn’t very good… Please forgive the attempt to bring to mind some of the most famous verses there are about Spring...";"I know, I know, that isn’t very good… Please forgive the attempt to bring to mind some of the most famous verses there are about Spring:When April with his showers sweet with fruitThe drought of March has pierced unto the root …And many little birds make melodyThat sleep through all the night with open eye(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage … Pilgrims on the road to Canterbury, from John Lydgate’s Prologue of the Siege of Thebes, London, c. 1457–1460: Royal MS 18 D II, f. 148. These verses are quoted often this time of year.  I’m writing this in Boston, and they are a pretty apt description of what April is like here.  It is a very pleasant month.  I suspect many of our readers (maybe all of our readers in fact) know that these words, albeit translated into modern English, are from the General Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (you can read the whole prologue in Chaucer’s original language and in a modern translation here).  Spring … April … singing (birds) … and pilgrimage - the urge to get up and go – what do all these remind me of?  This April, Chaucer’s words seem to resonate with a number of the manuscripts in the Spring Update of our TM site.  And not because we have a Chaucer manuscript for sale; keep reading to find out why.  Our original offering of 29 manuscripts, announced April 4th, included a remarkable number of music manuscripts – nine all told.  (As I write this, quite a few of the manuscripts in the new list have already been snatched up by eager buyers, so many are already sold and now in our Archives). What do you think of when you think of medieval music? Maybe a huge Choir Book like this one? TM 954, Antiphonal, Seville, 1572, with additions dated 1662 and 1798, f. 1 Very large music manuscripts (our Antiphonal from Seville measures 484 x 318 mm. or about 19 x 12 ½ inches, and it is a massive, and very heavy volume) were copied beginning in the fifteenth century; they continued to be made for centuries after the invention of printing, certainly into the eighteenth century.  They were big enough so that the entire choir could sing from a single book, as shown in the remarkable image. Olivetan Gradual, formerly Les Enluminures, now New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 1184 Antiphonals were volumes with the text and music sung by the choir during the Divine Office; Graduals included the sung texts, with the words, for the Mass.  Many of these massive volumes now survive, sadly, only as single leaves or as cuttings.  To really understand what these books were like and how they were used, you absolutely need to see a complete manuscript (or to sing from one; there is no substitute for that experience!). "Singing the Antiphonary,” an Online Exhibition curated by Pablo Alvarez, Outreach Librarian and Curator, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan Library. Our Spanish Antiphonal, TM 954 is particularly interesting since it includes a note by the scribe, Alonso Ruiz, who states he copied it in 1572 for the abbess, Catalina de Ribera, who was almost certainly from the same family as the famous Catalina de Ribera (d. 1505), patron of the arts, whose name lives on in the streets and gardens of Seville. Tomb of Catalina de Ribera, Seville, Spain. It also includes a very long note dated 1798, describing how it was updated and re-bound.  This is fascinating evidence for how long it was in active use. It is bound in massive wooden boards covered with leather, armored, as was customary, with metal fittings.  Its beautiful bookmark, made of metal and ribbons, still survives in the volume. Bookmark in TM 954, Antiphonal, Seville, 1572, with additions dated 1662 and 1798. But famous and interesting as they are, giant Choir Book were not the only music manuscripts copied for use in churches in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  And I wasn’t thinking of these eminently non-portable books, when thoughts of April and Chaucer’s pilgrims entered my mind.  I was in fact thinking of the medieval music manuscripts we call Processionals. Processionals are likely the most important type of liturgical manuscript many of you have never heard of. (Although attentive readers of this blog may remember an earlier post on Spanish Processionals now at the University of Sydney.) As their name indicates, Processionals are liturgical books containing the music and prayers for liturgical processions.  Designed to be carried, they were usually small and portable.  Dominican nuns carrying their Processionals at the Royal Abbey of Poissy. TM 1019, Processional, France (Paris), c. 1505-1515, ff.119v-120 and ff. 139v-140 Processions were an important part of the liturgy during the Middle Ages and into the early modern era in both secular churches and within religious orders. Processions, for example, preceded the celebration of the Mass on each Sunday, were an important part of the liturgical observances on saints’s days and on other important liturgical occasions, and were assembled in times of need, to ask for rain, avert famine, or in the face of other catastrophic events.  The Palm Sunday procession reenacting Christ’s entry into Jerusalem is a notable example that is still celebrated today.  Rites of death and burial were also accompanied by processions. A Procession for the feast of the Assumption at the Royal Abbey of Poissy.  The cloister is visible in the background.  TM 1019, Processional, France (Paris), c. 1505-1515, ff. 130v-131. Processionals, in short, were books you carried with you.  Like pilgrimages, which were certainly religious activities, but which also seem to have been at times somewhat recreational, liturgical processions were both serious parts of the liturgy and entertainment for lay people, for clerics, and, perhaps especially, for monks and nuns.  Some processions went around the monastic cloister (or just from altar to altar within a church); but others went from church to church through the streets of cities and towns, and even into the surrounding fields.  I’m sure everyone involved loved the opportunity to get up and move, and to go outside (at least in the spring). Many surviving Processionals from the late Middle Ages were made for nuns. Some of the most famous examples were lovely, personal volumes, likely made for a woman entering the religious life, or perhaps to celebrate her solemn vows. Our update includes three illuminated Processionals, all made for nuns: TM 1019, made for a Dominican nun at the Royal Abbey of Poissy (shown above); TM 1031, made for the Dominican nuns of St. Matthew in Rouen, also a royal foundation Medieval processions reenacted Christ’s entry into Jerusalem every Palm Sunday, as shown in this Processional from a convent of Dominican nuns in Rouen. TM 1031, Processional, France (Rouen), c. 1520-1530, c. 1525-1550, 1674. and TM 990, a Processional from Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg, the oldest convent in the German-speaking world, which will forever live in popular culture as Maria’s convent in the “Sound of Music.” This Processional includes a portrait of its first owner­, who may have also been the scribe and illuminator, Margaret Marckdorff, who was a nun at the abbey. Named female scribes and artists are much, much less common than their male counterparts. Margaret Marckdorff, the first owner, and possibly the scribe and illuminator of this Processional, with her family arms next to her, kneeling before St. Margaret. TM 990, Processional of Nonnberg Abbey, Austria (Salzburg), c. 1505-1515. Pictures in the case of these manuscripts, although certainly better than just words, don’t tell the whole story. You can listen to students at Bryn Mawr College sing chants for Candlemas from their Possy Processional here and on YouTube. Maria and the Mother Superior in the Sound of Music; Nonnberg Abbey, Salzburg, Austria. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/music,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/new-inventory,/blog/categories/women-and-the-book,/blog/categories/readers";"1";141383;"4-19-spring-update";"/blog/entries/4-19-spring-update";1;"object"
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"";"Laura Light";"/blog/icon-writing.png";"/blog/dc-cropped-final.png";"Across the Political Divide ";"Learning to Write Through the Ages";"2019-05-17";"We usually steer clear of divisive political issues in this blog, but today, we are going to plunge right in (no pun intended)...";" We usually steer clear of divisive political issues in this blog, but today we are going to plunge right in (no pun intended).  Cursive handwriting, and how to teach it – or indeed, whether to teach it or not – is a hotly debated topic right now.  Take a look at a recent article that appeared in the New York Times on April 13, 2019 by Emily S. Rube “Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment.  Now It’s Coming Back.” Do students, who we know will spend their life using a keyboard, need to learn how to write? Teaching cursive script has even become part of the conservative agenda. Pam Roach, then a senator from Washington State, who sponsored an (unsuccessful) bill to mandate the teaching of cursive in schools, said in 2016, “Part of being an American is being able to read cursive handwriting.” Well, it is a little difficult, at least for me, to understand the link between “being American” and reading cursive script, but it does seem to be an essential skill.  Admittedly, my point of view as a medievalist, who spends my days studying hand-written manuscripts, may be a bit biased. (I would also agree with Ms. Roach that if you don’t learn how to write cursive, you will have trouble reading it.  Although, as a paleographer, I will say that I can read many medieval scripts that I cannot write). This debate got me thinking, how did people learn to write in the past?James le Palmer, Omne bonum, “Tabelliones” (notaries), London, British Library, MS Royal 6 E VII, f., London, c. 1300-1375 For most of the Middle Ages, the answer is we really don’t know. There is little direct evidence of how scribes learned how to write in the early Middle Ages. Writing a formal script used in copying books in a monastic scriptorium was a carefully acquired skill, and presumably was taught by skilled practitioners handing down the skill to novices. Much of the art of writing was doubtless transmitted orally (as the miniature possibly depicts), Is this a scribe demonstrating to his students the art of writing? Bartholomaeus Anglicus, tr. Jean Corbechon, Livre des proprietez des choses, London, British Library, MS Royal 7 E III, f. 209, Paris(?), c. 1500-1525. but model books also provided sample alphabets and decorated letters to copy. The earliest model book is from twelfth-century Italy, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 83-1972.* *(Interested in model books? Read more about the topic in Erik Kwakkel’s blog, “Medieval Super Models”). Most surviving examples, however, are later in date. The “Macclesfield alphabet book,” London, British Library, Additional MS 8887, is a famous English example, from c. 1475-1525, perhaps by Roger Baldry of the Cluniac priory of St Mary of Thetford, Norfolk (prior 1503-c. 1518). The manuscript includes a straightforward alphabet,London, British Library, Additional MS 8887, f. 1r  but it is celebrated for its fanciful decorated initials. London, British Library, Additional MS 8887, f. 5r  Here we have a single sheet with a large pink and green lattice-work design made of components that could be used for letters, surrounded by added letters and pen-work motifs.  This may be a page from an Italian model book for scribes and artists that was subsequently used as a practice sheet.Les Enluminures, Leaf from a model book, Italy, c. 1400 The Göttingen model book is an even more famous German example from the mid-fifteenth century, which explains through text and image how to mix pigments, and how to make several key decorative motifs. There are no alphabets in this book, so strictly speaking I shouldn’t mention it here, but I wanted to direct everyone to “Gutenberg digital,” edited by Elmar Mittler and Stephan Füssel, where you can page through the model book, read a translation of its text, and see the motifs used in a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.Göttingen State and University Library, Göttingen model book ff. 2v-3 The Göttingen model book, with its connection to one copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the very first printed book, is a reminder that even after the invention of printing in the mid-fifteenth century, the ability to copy and decorate books and documents in a formal script continued to be a valued skill. Göttingen State and University Library, Gutenberg Bible, vol. 1, f. 5. In the Middle Ages, handwriting (at least writing a formal script) was not part of elementary education; by the later Middle Ages we know it was taught by teachers who specialized in teaching writing. For example, by the fourteenth-century in Oxford professional “scriveners” who were not part of the University made a living by teaching formal handwriting as well as related legal skills, including how to draft charters. Writing was taught in a similar way in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Writing-masters taught both in person (often running schools in their homes) and by means of copy books and writing manuals that circulated as manuscripts and in the new medium of print. The earliest printed example is Italian, La Operina di Ludouico Vicentino, da imparare di scriuere littera cancellarescha (1522 or 1524) by Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi, who was employed in the Papal chancery.  In Germany, Johann Neudörffer (1497-1563) stands at the beginning of a long tradition of writing-masters and their manuals. His life was spent in Nuremberg teaching writing and arithmetic.  His mathematical interests are highlighted in this portrait painted near the end of his life.  Germanischen Nationalmuseums, “Portrait of the Nuremberg Writing-master Johann Neudorffer and his Student,” by Nicolas Neufchâtel, Nuremberg, c. 1561. Neudörffer was a celebrated scribe in his day; it is probably his script that appears on Albrecht Dürer’s splendid print, “The Arch of Emperor Maximilian.” And Dürer chose him as the scribe for the inscriptions on his “Four Apostles,” as well.  Metropolitan Museum of New York, Albrecht Dürer, Arch of Honor, c. 1515-1519 (from The Arch of Emperor Maximilian), with inscription likely by Johann Neudörffer. The title of his book makes it clear that it was intended to be used for teaching, Ein gute Ordnung, und kurtze unterricht, der fürnemsten grunde aus denen die Jungen, Zierlichs schreybens begirlich, mit besonderer kunst und behendigkeyt unterricht und geübt mögen werden (A good arrangement and short lesson, primary techniques by which youths, eager to learn fine writing, should undoubtedly be taught by using exceptional art).  This is an important point to remember, since modern discussions that refer to “calligraphy books” or “writing manuals” obscure their importance as textbooks which should be studied as part of the history of education.TM 1005 Johann Neudörffer, Ein gute Ordnung, title page. Look at this plate from Ein gute Ordnung. TM 1005, Johann Neudörffer, Ein gute Ordnung, f. 6. Having trouble reading it? Of course you are, since it is reversed.  One of the innovations of this book is that its plates were produced by copperplate engravings (a first in the history of writing- masters’s books). In copperplate, if a text is engraved in the direction in which we normally read or write (“right-reading”), the print will consequently be a mirrored image.  Its matching plate, reading correctly, is below (technically, it is called a counterproof, made by pressing a fresh sheet of paper onto the mirrored image while the ink was wet). Some copies of Neudörffer’s manual are printed on nearly transparent paper so that the reversed images can be read from the non-printed side. Other copies like Les Enluminures, TM 1005 are on sturdier paper and not all details show through clearly to the other side (although they could have been traced if placed over a window).  TM 1005, Johann Neudörffer, Ein gute Ordnung, f. 5. Was Johann Neudörffer a good teacher? The copy of Ein gute Ordnung now described on our text manuscripts site, TM 1005, is followed by sixteen pages of calligraphy samples and alphabets copied by Hans Jacot in 1590 when he was a young man of twenty. His handwriting skills were in part learned from his copy of Neudörffer’s book.Alphabets and writing sample copied in multiple scripts by Hans Jacot in 1590, TM 1005, f. 125. The tradition of German writing masters flourished in the centuries after Neudörffer.  A fine example, also from Nuremberg, was copied by an unnamed master (or student) in 1713, entitled, Gründliche Unterweisung zu Fraktur – Canzley – und Current Schrifften der lieben Jugend zum Anfang des Schreibens und sondern Nuzen gestellet durch A. Z. [a monogram, possibly A. A] in Nürnberg Zufinden bey Johann Christoph Weigel (A Thorough Instruction in Fraktur, Chancery, and Cursive Scripts, prepared for the especial utility of dear Youth in beginning to write by A. Z. to be acquired in Nuremberg from Johann Christoph Weigel). TM 1007, Calligraphy Samples, Nuremberg, c. 1713, f. 1.TM 1007, f. 4. Sample letter from a son to his father; the text also found in a Latin-German-Czech children’s grammar published in Prague. One final example is a delightful and fanciful alphabet sheet, also from Germany, although in this case Augsburg.  It was designed to show off the skill of the master calligrapher and schoolmaster, Hieronymus Tochtermann, who copied it in 1734. Can you find his name amidst the flowers, stars, leaves and other motifs that decorate his alphabet?TM 848, Calligraphic Alphabet by Hieronymus Tochtermann, Augsburg, 1734.  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/current-inventory";"1";141391;"may_19_across-the-political-divide-learning-to-write-through-the-ages";"/blog/entries/may_19_across-the-political-divide-learning-to-write-through-the-ages";1;"object"
"";"Sandra Hindman";"/blog/7_19_milestone/tm-homepage-icon.jpg";"/blog/7_19_milestone/1000-binding-fb.jpg";"MILESTONE: ONE THOUSAND TEXT MANUSCRIPTS...";"AND MANY MORE TO COME";"2019-07-22";"Launched in September 2002, www.textmanuscripts.com offers the largest and most wide-ranging inventory of text manuscripts currently on the market.  Numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on, manuscripts on the site have now reached the number 1000...";" Launched in September 2002, www.textmanuscripts.com offers the largest and most wide-ranging inventory of text manuscripts currently on the market.  Numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on, manuscripts on the site have now reached the number 1000, the latter a medieval music manuscript for the Mass made more precious by the extraordinary High Renaissance, silk textile binding.  TM 1000, [Choir Book] Gradual (part) or Liturgical libellus for the Mass. In Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment with musical notation, Northern Italy, c. 1400-1440. Found today in libraries and museums far and wide, text manuscripts sold over the last seventeen years by Les Enluminures live permanently in an “Archive” for future scholarly consultation.  The historic moment of the offering of TM 1000 represents a remarkable achievement that prompts a review of a few highlights from the sales of the past seventeen years.  But first, let’s consider this – is one thousand manuscripts a lot? Today’s major North American libraries advertise holdings only slightly above this quantity.  For example, the Pierpont Morgan Library claims 1,000 manuscripts, and the Beinecke Library of Yale University, which has been conspicuously acquisitive in the last half century, counts only 1,500 manuscripts that date before 1500.  Let’s look back to the Middle Ages.  Generally recognized as having “one of the largest collections of books brought together in a medieval institution” the Sorbonne University had 1,017 manuscripts in its library catalogue of 1290, a number that swelled to 1,850 in the successive catalogue of 1331 (R. H. Rouse, “The Early Library of the Sorbonne,” Scriptorium, 1967).  Catalogue of the manuscripts of the Sorbonne Library in 1338, Paris, BnF, MS NAL 99, p. 237. The Papal Library of Avignon exceeded this number by nearly double (2,059 manuscripts in 1369), but few if any libraries of that era ranked with those of the Sorbonne or Avignon.  The largest monastic collections of the Middle Ages – some of the most significant repositories of medieval codices – contained only between four hundred and five hundred volumes. So, the answer is yes – one thousand manuscripts is a lot. The medieval chained library of Hereford cathedral today. Here is a glimpse at the first manuscript we put on the site back in 2002.  Text Manuscript 1, the Prayerbook of Sister Renée Hennequin, dated c. 1550, now belongs to the University of California at Los Angeles, where it has the shelf mark Rouse MS 111.  In many ways TM 1 is representative of the 1000 manuscripts that followed it.  It is unillustrated, on paper, bound in its early mid-sixteenth century calf, and bears indications of original provenance on its flyleaf: “A soeur Renee Hennequin” (belonging to sister Renée Hennequin).  TM 1, S'ensuit plusieurs devotes oraisons… [Book for the liturgical year], In French with some Latin, manuscript on paper, Paris, Convent of the Filles-Dieu, c. 1550. Now at the University of California at Los Angeles (Rouse MS 111). Renée was a nun at the French convent of the Filles-Dieu, a dependency of the Abbey of Fontevraud, the rich library of which was mostly destroyed in a famous shipwreck, making this manuscript an important document that sheds light on the devotional practices of the Order. Like many of the manuscripts that have found homes in institutional libraries, Renée’s Prayerbook has been the subject of further study and is now published.  It contains many unusual prayers in the vernacular beginning “S’ensuit plusieurs …” (There follow many …), the short-hand title Les Enluminures gave to the manuscript.  How fortuitous a title that turned out to be. The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud. Indeed, there follow many.  For example, TM 53 is now known as The Dartmouth Brut Chronicle, Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library, Codex MS 003183, which presents a unique version of the Middle English prose history of Britain. Further study on the manuscript, including a scholarly conference devoted to it in 2011 and the publication of the proceedings in “Digital Philology” in 2014, have led to new findings on this copy. Nearly two hundred related copies of this chronicle exist today, each recounting Britain’s history from the arrival of Brutus from Troy (hence the name Brut) through the reign of King Arthur to various endpoints in the fifteenth century. However, the Dartmouth Brut’s omission of four chapters after the death of Arthur establish it as an idiosyncratic text unique in the recension and one that offers a singular perspective on the history of Britain. The manuscript includes more than two hundred and fifty annotations by three readers over several centuries, revealing a sustained interest in the text as a primary source for facts and to teach English history to one of its subsequent owners. TM 53, The Brut Chronicle, In Middle English, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [England, c. 1425-50]. Now at the Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library (Codex MS 003183) One of the most interesting consequences of the ongoing study of the Dartmouth Brut has been the creation of a digital surrogate of the manuscript and an exploration of the implications of the surrogate in a project called “Remix the Manuscript.” Remix the Manuscript is an experiment in how digital technologies affect access and understanding of material culture. As people invent new tools and interfaces, the earlier ones become obsolete, and the very nature of archives changes. The project explains that its intention is to study the “process of processing.” One document (e.g., the Brut Chronicle) becomes an expandable database, prompting greater understanding of how technology shapes historical information. Elaborating on the idea of “remix,” the project stresses that a (the) chronicle text itself is a remix of sources whose structures can be explored with data processing tools, reflecting the spirit of the research project – an ongoing narrative of events, questions, and detours.  Far from being the definitive stand-in of an object, a digital reproduction depends on the software and hardware, which themselves determine what we can see and what even counts as information.  Remix the Manuscript thus confronts head on the study of the manuscript in the Humanities in digital times. “Remix the Manuscript”, An experiment in how digital technologies affect access and understanding of material culture. https://sites.dartmouth.edu/RemixBrut/ Another good example of a manuscript that has been the focus of an in-depth study since its acquisition is TM 360, the Liber Ordinarius of Nivelles, now in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, where it is MS lat. 422. The Liber Ordinarius not only represents the earliest surviving manuscript from one of the oldest and most venerable monastic institutions in the Empire, it also offers a goldmine of information about its history, liturgy, and architecture. Fourteen contributions to The Liber Ordinarius of Nivelles: Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection, edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlotheuber (forthcoming Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), introduce the manuscript to scholars in medieval history, liturgy, musicology, and the history of art and architecture through detailed analyses of the content and context that make it a document of outstanding importance for the study of high and later medieval monasticism. In addition to the analytical essays, the volume also includes an edition of the documents included in the manuscript along with the liturgical instructions, the majority of them previously unknown, that, taken as a whole, provide insight into the politics and power struggles at the abbey in the thirteenth and early fourteenth century.  TM 360, Liber Ordinarius of the Chapter of St. Gertrude’s, Nivelles, In Latin and French, decorated manuscript on parchment, Belgium, Nivelles, c. 1293-1298. Now at the Houghton Library of Harvard University, (MS lat. 422).  It would not be an exaggeration to state that TM 686 was one of the most important manuscripts ever sold by Les Enluminures, despite its modest appearance.  This Franciscan manuscript, now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS n.a.l. 3245, brought to light a new Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano.  The discovery of the tiny (12 x 8 cm.), unassuming, even ugly manuscript (a fitting echo of the poverty and humility of St. Francis and his early followers) was greeted with astonishment by the scholarly community and beyond, attracting attention of the international press around the world.  Jacques Dalarun's edition of the Life of St. Francis appeared in 2015, and translations into French, English, Italian, German, Portuguese (and more) followed shortly after.  The importance of the entire contents of this manuscript meanwhile has continued to emerge, thanks to the work of a team of scholars, whose preliminary findings were presented at a colloquium in Paris in 2017, organized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France et l’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS).  This manuscript has now inspired more than sixty scholarly articles and books. TM 686,  now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS n.a.l. 3245 Every medieval manuscript was made and decorated by hand for a particular purpose at a certain moment in history. Nearly everything we know about the early history of language, literature, the Bible, poetry, music, art, family life, medicine, travel, science, religion, philosophy, and piety comes to us through manuscripts and cannot be studied without them.  To hold and to turn the pages of a manuscript is to touch hands directly with medieval Europe. What do the next seventeen years hold in store for www.textmanuscripts.com? It’s hard to predict. When the site was founded in 2002, there were “only” three million sites, whereas today in 2019 there are two billion sites.  The chief search engine in 2002 was not Google but Yahoo.  Only 9% of the world used the internet then, as compared to today’s 56%.  Predictably, we see more and more traffic on our site each year (including subscribers to this very Blog).  Each year more institutions seek out text manuscripts not only for advanced research but also for use in the classroom.  The extent to which facsimiles, simulacrums, digital surrogates can effectively substitute for experiencing the “original” remains a much-debated open question.  But, one thing is clear:  the number of medieval manuscripts remaining in private hands gets fewer and fewer every year, and those that remain become more valuable and more keenly sought after.   Through in-depth descriptions and its Archive, www.textmanuscripts.com celebrates each of these 1000-plus manuscripts for anyone who delights in experiencing and knowing about the European Middle Ages, at any level. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.”";"/blog/categories/archives,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/codicology";"1";141395;"7-19-one-thousand-milestone";"/blog/entries/7-19-one-thousand-milestone";1;"object"
"";"Matt Westerby";"/blog/8_19_good-green-earth/giotto---icon.png";;"Good Green Earth";"“How to Paint Faces” in Fourteenth-Century Italy";"2019-08-19";"Out on your summer vacation, perhaps looking for that ideal Instagram photo, have you ever gazed in wonder at a painting and thought “how did they do that?” Well, artists’ secrets are sometimes revealed in unexpected places – like the flyleaf of a manuscript.";" Out on your summer vacation, perhaps looking for that ideal Instagram photo, have you ever gazed in wonder at a painting and thought “how did they do that?” Well, artists’ secrets are sometimes revealed in unexpected places – like the flyleaf of a manuscript. This parchment test sheet reveals a few of those secrets, filled with pen and brush trials showing the hand(s) of an artist or workshop experimenting with colors and letterforms. It is a rare glimpse over the shoulder of an early Renaissance artist at work. Les Enluminures, Test Sheet with Patterns, Sketches, and Pen Trials (188 x 168 mm.), Northern Italy, c. 1400 The holes left by book worms and the long crease make it clear that the parchment sheet was later used as a flyleaf in a book or manuscript. Although doodles and pen trials are often added to blank space in medieval books, the sheer number and position of the trials on our leaf suggests it was first and foremost a loose sheet of parchment, probably from a workshop in Northern Italy around 1400. (For a fantastic roundup of medieval doodles and pen trials go to Erik Kwakkel’s blog post “Doodles in Medieval Manuscripts”.) Pen and brush trials and pen-work motifs in a range of colors One way to localize and date our test sheet is to look at the specific way that faces are painted, in this case using layers of green pigment called green earth or terra verde. This method is outlined step-by-step in the chapter “How to Paint Faces” in the handbook Il Libro dell’Arte, written around 1400 by Cennino Cennini (c. 1370-c. 1440), who was in a sense the artistic great-grandchild of Giotto. Cennini’s instructions reveal methods used by Giotto in the wall paintings of the celebrated Scrovegni Chapel in Padua – definitely a prime Instagram spot to judge by the number of tags. Scrovegni Chapel (or Arena Chapel), Padua, Italy, with wall paintings by Giotto completed 1305 The secrets revealed in Cennini’s instructions are so valuable that artists, conservators, and even art forgers (reportedly) have continued to use them. First Cennini says “take a little terre-verte [green earth] and a little white lead, well tempered, and lay two coats all over the face, over the hands, over the feet, and over the nudes.” This first step can be seen in the face of a bearded man on the front of our leaf with a thin coat of green earth. Cennini specifies that the faces of young people “with cool flesh color” should be tempered with pale yellow yolks from a “town hen’s egg,” as opposed to the eggs from farm hens which are more orange, like the free-range eggs from the farmers’ market. Pale yellow and orange egg yolks used to vary flesh tones After building layers of green earth with lead white, Cennini next says to create flesh colors with pinks and reds, specifying cinnabar for wall paintings and vermillion for panel paintings (vermillion also being used in manuscript illumination). After using multiple layers to “pick out the forms of the face,” noses and eyes are later outlined in brown or black. A bearded man (perhaps Moses) and a crowned woman on the reverse of our leaf show later stages of this kind of verdaccio, with vermillion mixed into lead white and painted over the foreheads and cheeks. Somewhat more developed verdaccio It’s unclear why only the faces of these figures were painted, or how they relate to some other project (to test the qualities of egg yolks? trying their hand with something new?) but the varying levels of verdaccio on either side of this test sheet bring to life the instructions written down by Cennini over 600 years ago. The many letters and pen-work motifs added to the leaf were highlighted by Laura Light in our previous blog post for May, and a full description available at the Les Enluminures website. Mark Lansburgh Our leaf was later owned by the art historian Mark Lansburgh (d. 2013), who assembled an important collection of Native American ledger drawings in addition to a collection of European drawings and manuscript leaves that charted the development of drawing as an art form. Drawn on paper from notebooks and other sources (such as ledger books, from which it gets the name), ledger drawings show captivating images created at a moment of shifting culture in the Great Plains in the middle of the nineteenth century and later. Untitled (A Crazy Dog Society Warrior), detail, unknown artist, from the "Frank Henderson" Ledger, about 1882 (p. 172), graphite and colored pencil on laid ledger paper; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Mark Lansburgh Ledger Drawing Collection, Partial gift of Mark Lansburgh, Class of 1949, and partial purchase through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund, and the Offices of the President and Provost of Dartmouth College (2007.65.51) Ledger drawings can also reveal the secrets of drawing and painting methods used by artists over time. Transitioning from animal hides to paper and pencil, artist’s drawing methods adapted alongside changes in media (not unlike Cennini’s instructions specific to wall painting, wood panels or parchment). A lecturer at Colorado College, Mark Lansburgh also taught at Stanford and New York University. The Mark Lansburgh Ledger Drawing Collection was acquired by the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College in 2007. Speaking of Instagram, make sure to follow us (@lesenluminures) and also at our Twitter (@LesEnluminures) and share your summer discoveries with us!You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.” For the quotes from Cennini’s handbook reproduced here, see The Craftsman’s Handbook: The Italian “Il Libro dell’ Arte,” Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, trans. Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., New York, 1960, pp. 93-94.";"/blog/categories/alchemy,/blog/categories/codicology,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/decoration,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/manuscript-production,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/traces";"1";141397;"8-19-good-green-earth";"/blog/entries/8-19-good-green-earth";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/10_19/941---icon.png";"/blog/10_19/parc-abbey-bible-genesis_facebook.png";"Word Associations: Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Bibles";;"2019-10-15";"Let’s play a game.  What do you think of when you hear, “Bible,” and “Thirteenth Century”? ";" Let’s play a game.  What do you think of when you hear, “Bible,” and “Thirteenth Century”? For many readers of this blog these phrases will immediately conjure up images of that amazing invention, the thirteenth-century portable or “pocket” Bible.  Here is an unusually small example of the genre which includes the complete text of the Bible from Genesis to the Apocalypse in 512 folios.  The dimensions of each page, which were trimmed severely by a modern binder, are 113 x 72 mm., with the dimensions of the written space (or justification) only 88-85 x 59-57 mm.  It is copied in astonishingly small script with 49-47 lines per page. TM 941, Pocket or Portable Bible, Northern France (Paris?), c. 1230-1250, ff.228v-229 Now what do these phrases, “Bible” and “Twelfth Century” conjure up in your mind?Perhaps you thought of Glossed Bibles, like this early example that includes the book of Job, copied in larger script in the center of each page, accompanied by commentaries on the text copied in a much smaller script in the margins and between the lines. TM 877, Glossed Job, Northern Italy, c. 1125-1140. The Bible and its Gloss gave readers – often teachers and students of the Bible – access to the biblical text and relevant commentaries in one convenient location.  The Ordinary Gloss was not a text compiled, or even thought of, by a single author, but was rather the result of a long process over the course of the twelfth century that gradually grew to include the complete Bible. (Although one should note that the idea of assembling a set of glossed books that included the entire Bible seems always to have been the exception rather than the rule; glossed books of the Bible usually circulated independently, and included only a single book of the Bible, or a few related books). Alternatively, you may have thought of one of the great Romanesque Bibles that graced the monasteries of twelfth-century Europe.  So many examples to choose from.  The Parc Abbey Bible, copied near Leuven in the diocese of Liege in 1148 is an excellent example; it is a three-volume Bible measuring 435-430 x 300 mm.  Here is the glorious painted page found at the beginning of Genesis, London, British Library, Additional MS 14788, The Parc Abbey Bible, Genesis And here is a more representative opening which includes the biblical text with the beginning of the Epistle of St. James, London, British Library, Additional MS 14790, The Parc Abbey Bible, Epistle of St. James Last question: what do you think of when I say “Bible” and “c. 1200-1230”? That is, of course, pretty specific, and thus more difficult.  But I sincerely hope the image of a thirteenth-century portable Bible did NOT flash into your mind, since true portable Bibles, copied on their distinctive tissue-thin parchment, date only after c. 1230 (the very earliest example of Bibles copied in this format may date to very late 1220s). Our subject today is one type of Bible from the first three decades of the thirteenth century––transitional Bibles with roots in the twelfth century, but which also point toward the new Bibles of c. 1230 and later. Our first example was copied in Paris very early in the thirteenth century.  It includes the complete Bible in one volume of 337 folios, measuring 380 x 255 mm.  Here is the beginning of Genesis, illustrated (for some reason not clear to me) with amusing vignettes of animals playing musical instruments instead of the customary images of the creation, Paris, BnF, MS lat 16747, Genesis initial in an early thirteenth century French Bible. French Bibles from this period (in particular a special textual group called the Proto-Paris Bible, although we are not going to talk about text today) have been discussed in the scholarly literature.  Like most Bibles from after c. 1230, they include the complete Bible in one volume.  Their size varies; many are still rather large, but they are nonetheless smaller than most twelfth-century monastic Bibles (representative examples range in size from 480 x 300 to 260 x 190 mm.) In contrast with the French examples, English Bibles from this period have scarcely been studied at all, but a preliminary survey suggests that Bibles copied in both England and France share a number of common characteristics.  Here is an English example, also in one large but fairly manageable volume, measuring 350 x 240 mm., TM 973, Latin Bible from England, c. 1220-1230; 1230-1240, f.26 One characteristic of these early thirteenth century Bibles is the reduction of the size of the script and the amount of space between the lines, which led to a marked reduction of the size of the written space on the page and a corresponding increase in the size of the margins.  Many of these Bibles, in fact, include glosses copied in the margins (not the complete Gloss, but the link to glossed Bibles is nonetheless an important one).  TM 973, Latin Bible from England, c. 1220-1230; 1230-1240, f.5v Marginal glosses were added to this Bible very early in its history (although most systematically at the beginning, suggesting perhaps that the original owner began the task of adding commentary, but tired of it quickly).  The chapters in Bibles from this time period are another feature that reveals their transitional nature. The chapters still used today in modern Bibles are found (with very few exceptions) in medieval Bibles dating after c. 1230.  Before that, Bibles were divided according to many different systems of chapter divisions.  Bibles copied in the first three decades of the thirteenth century often include two systems of chapter divisions.   TM 973, Older and modern chapter divisions in a Bible, England, c. 1220-1230; 1230-1240 Many of the biblical books in our English Bible are divided into older chapters, each beginning with one-line initials, set within the line of text, and in most cases, numbered in small red Roman numerals right before the initial (that is inserted within the line of text).  Modern chapters are marked in the margins, usually in red Roman numerals. In the detail above, the chapter numbered “xxxi” within the line of text is an older chapter division; below it you can see the chapter which was numbered “xxxii” (also an older system of chapters), and in the margin a larger “XIV,” the modern chapter. In this French Bible, dating about the same time, c.1210-1230, the older chapters begin with one-line initials, but are unnumbered; the modern chapters are numbered in the margins with bold red and blue Roman numerals. Paris, BnF, MS Lat 15475, Two systems of chapter in a Latin Bible, Paris, c. 1210-1230, f.23. TM 973 is a complicated volume. Compare these two pages, TM 973, Latin Bible from England, two contrasting folios in the same English Bible The script and decoration on these two pages are completely different.  The style of the penwork initials in fact suggests the page on the left can be dated c. 1220-1230, and that on the right c. 1230-1240 (although both scribes begin writing on the top ruled line, often, but not always, an indication of a date before c. 1230).  The text of our Bible (TM 973) includes two discrete sections; the earlier section (or Bible 1), on ff. 1-226v, includes Genesis-1 Maccabees 11:35, and ff. 280-303v, with part of the Catholic Epistles (beginning with 1 Peter), Pauline Epistles, and the Apocalypse, and the distinct, probably later section, on ff. 227- 279v, beginning with 2 Maccabees 3:1, and continuing with the New Testament, arranged Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, ending imperfectly at chapter 9:3. TM 973, Latin Bible from England, f.1 and f.227 This is extraordinarily difficult to explain.  Perhaps this Bible was damaged very early in its history and repaired? Alternatively, was this Bible assembled from two damaged Bibles, similar in size and format, at some point in its history before it was bound in the eighteenth century?  Note that there is still some text missing (one quire in Bible 1 with part of Job and the Psalms, and the end of 1 Maccabees and the beginning of 2 Maccabees, since Bible 2 does not begin exactly where Bible 1 leaves off), and part of the biblical text is found twice (namely 1 Peter-Jude, Romans, and the beginning of 1 Corinthians).  Any suggestions? Comments are welcome (contact me at lauralight@lesenluminures.com).  You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.” Make sure to follow us also on Instagram (@lesenluminures) and at our Twitter (@LesEnluminures)!";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/bibles";"1";141443;"10-19-twelfth-thirteenth-century-bibles";"/blog/entries/10-19-twelfth-thirteenth-century-bibles";1;"object"
"";"Peter Bovenmyer";"/blog/11_19_horse/horse-and-farrier---vat---icon_new.png";"/blog/11_19_horse/facebook_ast_arredondo_zodiac_horse.jpg";"Horse Horoscopes and Other Wisdom from Medieval Veterinary Science";;"2019-12-02";"Humans have always had a special relationship with horses. In practical terms, horses have provided the brawn to build human societies, the swiftness to travel, and the courage to wage wars. But there is something more...";" Humans have always had a special relationship with horses. In practical terms, horses have provided the brawn to build human societies, the swiftness to travel, and the courage to wage wars. But there is something more.  A horse and farrier, Lorenzo Rusio, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat.lat. 7228, ca. 1390 Horses are deeply intelligent creatures with complex emotional lives that often mirror our own. “No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as horses” wrote Herman Melville. We may no longer require “horsepower” in our daily lives, yet we retain an ongoing fascination with horses, be it star athletes like Triple-Crown winner Justify or movie characters like Maximus from Tangled.  Justify at the Belmont Stakes, 2018 and Maximus from Disney’s Tangled, 2010 Our longstanding relationship with horses has also created the need for veterinary medicine. This ancient art is nearly as old as human medicine and was often practiced in tandem. Veterinary treatises were created in many parts of the ancient world; some of the earliest records come from China and Greece dating to the third century BCE. In China, veterinary medicine became formalized in the early Tang Dynasty (7th century CE). Horses were prized, and myths circulated of “celestial steeds” that “sweated blood” and were actually dragons in disguise.  Han Gan, Portrait of the Charger of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56), Handscroll, ink on paper, ca. 750, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977.78 In Europe, Greek physicians composed a corpus of writings that became known as the Hippiatrica, which was translated into many languages and circulated as far east as India. A monsterous farrier binds a horse’s wound, Hippiatrica, Byzantine, 15th century, University of Leiden, VSQ 50, f. 68 Anatomy of a Horse, Hippiatrica, Egyptian, 15th century, Istanbul University Library Medieval veterinary medicine inherited the Hippiatrica and added its own flare, much of which is truly bizarre. Bloodletting, astrology, and salves made from bacon are but a few of the offerings found in the Hippiatria sive Marescalia (Book of Horse Health) written in the early fourteenth century by Lorenzo Rusio (1288-1347). Portrait of Lorenzo Rusio, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Morgan Library MS. M. 735 Rusio was a prestigious farrier who worked in the stables of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini (1260-1342), the brother of Pope Nicholas III. His treatise was a blend of old and new incorporating “cutting edge” medical theory with traditional practice and personal observation. His first-hand knowledge of veterinary medicine is made clear in his accurate descriptions of symptoms and pathologies, especially foot diseases and injuries caused by bridles and other restraint systems. He also empathically describes a devastating epidemic in Rome in 1301 that killed more than 1,000 horses.  Rusio’s treatise was extremely popular and quickly translated from Latin into Italian and other vernaculars, such as this copy that dates to 1434 and was owned by a ducal farrier at the court of Nicccolo III d’Este, the Marquis of Ferrara (1383-1441). Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f. 1 Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f. 33. Kneeling patron in prayer with date (1434) Equestrian statue of Nicccolo III d’Este, bronze, Palazzo Municipale, Ferrara, Italy, 1441 The manuscript’s hardy, wallet-style binding indicates that the owner used this book practically, carrying it with him as he attended the duke’s stables. Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, binding Practical copies of Rusio’s treatises such as this seldom survive and provide rare insight into the actual practice of medieval equine medicine. The owner added many of his own notations as well as a list of useful medicinal recipes in the back.  Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.33, notes and recipes added by ducal farrier. Seven charming drawings are also included in the margins, including grotesques, a dog drinking at a fountain, and Saint Eloy, patron of farriers and blacksmiths. While Rusio’s treatise was considered to be of the highest quality, it still didn’t hurt to invoke saintly specialists.  Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.32, drawing of scribe (?) and dog drinking at fountain. Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.62, Saint Eloy (center)  Much of Rusio’s text provides sensible advice concerning diet and general equine wellness. Considerable attention is given to how fat horses should be (very fat!), including a whole chapter on how to fatten horses “who eat well, but never seem to gain any weight.” However, Rusio does note that such measures can go overboard and devotes the next chapter to equine dieting: a strict regimen of millet flour mixed with warm water. Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.55, chapter 156, on how to fatten a horse who eats well but never gains weight A much too skinny horse, Rusio, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 7228, ca. 1390 Other aspects of the treatise are far stranger and incorporate the latest medical theories taught at medieval universities. Five chapters are devoted to bloodletting, a practice that was believed to purge the body of a “superabundance” of blood, responsible for many maladies. In horses, the signs include (among other things), bloodshot eyes, foul excrement, and obsessive rubbing against trees and fence posts. Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.15, chapter 42 on the signs of superabundant blood A number of veins were recognized for bleeding, as pictured in a copy of Rusio’s Marescalia in the Morgan Library. “Letting” removed the excess of blood and encouraged a healthier, happier horse (although descriptions of the harnesses used to restrain the horse suggest otherwise).  Veins for Bloodletting, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Morgan Library, MS M. 735 Rusio does note that bleeding could be potentially dangerous if too much blood was removed. For this reason, it was best to avoid certain astrological conditions. Because bodies were believed to be influenced by the signs of the zodiac, bleeding and surgery were dangerous in certain months. A horse’s shoulders, for instance, were governed by Taurus; therefore, bleeding of the shoulder area should be suspended for the month of May when Taurus was ascendant. The chart above from the Morgan manuscript provides an overview of each sign and its relationship to the body.    These practices were borrowed directly from the prevailing medical theories for humans, which also prescribed bloodletting coordinated with astrological calculations. Similar charts are common in medical treatises and even books of hours well into the sixteenth century. The perceived similarities between the human and the equine body were so strong that many renaissance physicians labeled the horse the “mirror of man.” Zodiac horse, Martín Arredondo, Obras de albeyteria, 1704, Bethesda, National Library of Medicine, WZ 260 A781o 1704; Zodiac Man, Johannes de Ketham, Fasiculo de medicina, 1494, Bethesda, National Library of Medicine, WZ 230 K43fI 1494 OV1 While Rusio doesn’t directly note the connection between human and equine medicine, he does consider other ways a horse might reflect its owner. Much of Rusio’s treatise deals with breeding and the selection of stallions because a noble lord required a noble steed. Breed was therefore important so that a lord would not be mistaken for a villain riding an ugly horse with a squat neck, bowed legs, and a monstrous chin.  A noble on horseback, Rusio, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Morgan Library MS M 735 Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.3v, chapter 3 and 4 on the beauty and qualities of horses. Rusio advises that stallions and mares should be selected for breeding through a strict criteria, highlighting especially long legs, full, bushy manes, and large, expressive eyes. Mares, Rusio noted (incorrectly), are nearly always ovulating whereas stallions require some level of conditioning. A stallion should be confined and rested for several days so that “his seed is strong” and then released into a pasture with the preselected mare. Horse breeding is best done in the Autumn, Rusio observes, when temperatures are mild and pastures abundant.   On the left, Les Enluminures, TM 1026, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, f.5v, chapters 12-15 on breeding. On the right, Illustration of horse breeding, Rusio, Hippiatria sive Marescalia, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 7228, ca. 1390 Rusio’s ten chapters on breeding remind us of the lineage of this activity. The famed Vienna Lipizzaner for instance all trace their ancestry to a sixteenth-century stud farm near the village of Lipica (“Lipizza” in Italian) in modern-day Slovenia.    Other elements from Rusio’s treatise also carry over to today. Horse breeds for example are often still described by “temperament.” “Hot blooded” horses are said to be nervous and energetic, “cold blooded” are calm and enduring, and “warm blooded” a mixture of each. These modern designations descend directly from Rusio and his contemporaries. He cites for instance the size and speed of the horse as indicative of its “hotblooded” temperament, while calmer, “coldblooded” horses are distinguished by their submissiveness to their master, “or to anyone who feeds them.”  So, while many of the Rusio’s theories seem completely alien to us today, others live on. Most of all, Rusio’s empathetic observations on horses and often humorous commentary on their behavior ring true to anyone caring for a horse, cheering at a race, or enjoying a ride.    You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.” Make sure to follow us also on Instagram (@lesenluminures) and at our Twitter (@LesEnluminures)!";"";"1";141460;"11-19-horse-horoscope-and-wisdom";"/blog/entries/11-19-horse-horoscope-and-wisdom";1;"object"
"";"Fabio Epifani";"/blog/01_20_knights-samurai/royal-ms-20-b-xx---f53r-alexander-unhorsing-porrus---icon.jpg";"/blog/01_20_knights-samurai/facebook-picture.png";"The Way of the Warrior: a brief story of Knights and Samurai";;"2020-01-08";"Japan and Europe, two regions whose paths crossed only in 1543. Paris and Kyoto, two cities separated by 5,970 miles. Can they have something in common? Let’s try to see how and to what degree...";" A long trip from Western Europe to Japan.Two regions whose paths crossed only in 1543 when Portuguese traders, the most skilled sailors at that time, arrived, most likely in Tanegashima one of the islands south of Kyushu. Paris and Kyoto, two cities separated by 5,970 miles. Can they have something in common? Hard to say. Culturally they are without any doubt very different. Nonetheless, human societies often tend to shape themselves following similar paths as seems to be the case in this instance. Let’s try to see how and to what degree. Here we go!  Once upon a time…Among both the Japanese and European nobles, there was a class of brave warriors that followed a code of virtue, rectitude, and loyalty: these resolute soldiers were known as Knights and Samurai. They travelled, fought and inspired the societies of Europe and Japan for centuries – and still do today as we’ll see later. At first glance they seem very much alike: both knights and samurai were usually members of the upper classes, both were trained in the military arts and both were considered the elites of their militaries: and then a moment arrived when they were simply no longer relevant, disappearing or transforming into a representative/bureaucratic class.  Exactly when the first knights appeared in Western Europe is debated by modern historians - some arguing a knightly class existed as early as the Carolingian era in the ninth century, others tracing its origins to the eleventh century.  Regardless, knights remained crucial characters on the European scene until the sixteenth century, when changes in the art of the war, the army, and the weapons used made them obsolete.  Jean de Baudreuil, Sommaire abrégé des ducs de Orléans-Longueville, France, likely Paris, c. 1525 (likely after 1524), f.1v, two knights on their horses facing each other. Samurai were members of a caste (the only one allowed to wear two swords, the daishō) created in the eleventh century that lasted officially until 1876 when, being an outdated feudal and military institution, it was abolished. A similar journey indeed, but… Original Woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), "Samurai Asahina Yoshihide" from the series "Stories of the True Loyalty of the Faithful Samurai," Japan, 1843-1844. On the right a "daishō",  the two swords, usually a "katana" (long sword) and a "wakizashi" (short sword). Once a samurai, forever a samurai.Here is one of the main differences. Being a samurai was a hereditary status proudly passed from father to son. Very much like the titles of the nobility in Western Europe.  And what about knighthood? Well, unlike samurai, knights had to gain their status, through worthy and virtuous achievements. Who doesn’t know at least the name of one legendary knight always wandering around the countryside trying to make a name for himself, looking for a damsel in distress, a dragon to kill, or perhaps even the Holy Grail! Paolo Uccello, Saint George and the Dragon, 1430-35, Musée Jacquemart-André. A holy knight, a dragon and a damsel: all the main characters are united here.  And if no dragon was available at that moment? Have no fear. Testing his jousting skills in a tournament was another chance to prove himself. The last folios of TM 627 (part of our successful program Manuscripts in the Curriculum) report the names and arms of the knights present at a tournament that took place in Dunstable, England in the month of March 1308. This specific Dunstable tournament is important since it is the oldest surviving English Tournament Roll of Arms giving details of all 289 combatants: including their names and coats of arms. TM 627, Rolls of Arms, The Genealogie Royall and Lineall Discent of all the Kinges and Queenes of England; followed by other Rolls of Arms, including the Dunstable [Stepney?] Roll of 1308 and others, England, necessarily after 1558 but prior to 1603, c. 1590-1600. Knights also featured prominently in medieval fiction, which celebrated their prowess in battle against the Saracens. The manuscript below (formerly Les Enluminures and recently acquired by the city of Metz), a copy of the medieval Chanson de Geste de Garin le Loherain, tells the story of an epic hero Garin “the Lotharingian” that takes place in the very heartland of the Franco-German Empire at the height of its power. Nobility was inherited, knighthood was earned. Philippe de Vigneulles (1471-1527/28), La Chanson de Geste de Garin Le Loherain, France, Metz, c. 1515-1527/28, p. 270, Battle of Ancerville, where Hervis de Metz is killed by a Saracen arrow. Formerly Les Enluminures, now at the Bibliothèques-Médiathèques of Metz, France. With great power comes great responsibilities. Loyalty above everything!For Samurai being loyal towards their daimyo - the Japanese equivalent of a Western feudal lord - was everything. The first and last duty. They were bound to their lord and their community, fighting and dying for them. Being (or becoming) “masterless,” a rōnin, was a veritable disgrace: an honorable death was a better outcome than a shameful life as the story “The forty-seven rōnin” teaches us. Left without their master, who was forced to commit suicide after a dispute with another noble, they decided to avenge him by killing the rival. Found guilty, the forty-seven warriors were however allowed an honorable death, thus becoming important emblems of loyalty and sacrifice. This strong sense of honor and duty deeply permeates the Japanese society even today. Ōishi Yoshio, leader of the forty-seven rōnin commits seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide. Collection of the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History. Duties and responsibilities were of course no strangers to knights but in a somewhat different way. They had to learn how to fight, swear oaths of allegiances, always conduct themselves in a virtuous and courteous way, protecting the weak and fighting for their lord in the name of God. At least that’s the ideal of knighthood and chivalry, well exemplified in the works of Chrétien de Troyes, by knights like Sir Lancelot for example. Dunois Master (possibly Jean Haincelin; active Paris, c. 1435-1450s), The Lady of Malohaut and Her Cousin Visit Lancelot in Prison, France, Paris, c. 1440-1450. Available at Les Enluminures. And let’s not forget that being a knight-errant, a rōnin, was no shame at all! In the name of God but for the glory of the King.Indeed. Christianity had a prominent role in the chivalric code during the Middle Ages. From kings to peasants, everyone had to bow to the power of God. And of course, a knight had to live and behave following the dictates of his religion. However, the same kings that formally bowed to God, tried more pragmatically to ensure that their knights would serve them and no one else.Here is one example. The Order of Saint Michel was founded by King Louis XI of France in 1469: royal chivalric orders like this one were created in Western Christendom during the 14th-15th centuries to assure the loyalty of the knights to the king by serving as an ingenious supplement to the feudo-vassalic ties. The chapters of the statutes evoke the chivalric life of its members, specifying the number of knights, the qualifications for membership, the prohibition to go to war or travel abroad without the king’s permission, what would happen if knights found themselves at war against each other, ceremonies to be performed when the knights assembled in the king’s presence, festivals celebrated, elections, oaths, and so on. TM 742, Statutes and Ordinances of the Order of St. Michel, France (probably Paris), c. 1500-1530 (perhaps c. 1523-1528), f.i and ff.i verso-1. On the other hand, a samurai followed nothing but a code of honor and integrity, better known as bushido. And God had no part in it. Influenced by numerous religions (Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism), it was a non-written code of moral principles. No need to define practices and rules when everyone knows and follows them. Everlasting glory!Something that every hero in every country and time wanted to achieve. And rightfully so! Men like Musashi Miyamoto, considered the greatest swordsman in Japan and author of The Book of Five Rings. Or Kusunoki Masashige a brilliant tactician, who consciously found death following the absurd orders of his emperor. On the left: statue of Kusunoki Masashige outside Tokyo's Imperial Palace. On the right: Miyamoto Musashi stepping on the head of a “yamazame” (crocodile-like creature), woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, The British Museum, #2008,3037.15803 (detail). Undeniably Europe too has had its champions: Bertrand du Guesclin for instance, who became famous winning tournaments like the one in Dunstable, fought bravely during the Hundred Years War, and now rests in the Basilica of Saint Denis outside Paris. Or Jean II Le Maingre, known as Boucicaut, the embodiment of chivalry. The Hours of Jean de Boucicaut, France, c. 1408, Boucicaut praying to Saint Catherine, Musée Jacquemart-André, MJAP-MS 1311 (detail). Statue of Bertrand du Guesclin, Dinan, France. The legends walk among us.We have come a long way and barely scratched the surface of a topic that would require more consideration. Alas! Time (and space!) is running out. Still, if we are here in 2020 talking about knights and samurai, chivalry and bushido, it is because they still live (and no, I’m not talking about the heirs of those noble men).From books to movies to animation and to comics, they even now influence our society. Isn’t Game of Thrones full of honorable (or not?) knights, damsels and dragons? Yes of course! People love dragons.Isn’t Akira Kurosawa one of the greatest Japanese directors? And what is he well-known for? Samurai movies. Scenes from Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa and “Game of Thrones.” The same goes for animation and comics.  With more than forty million copies sold, Berserk has been – and is – one of the most acclaimed Japanese comics all over the world: Kentaro Miura started drawing it 1989 and the end seems far away. Or Yoroiden Samurai Torupa (“Ronin Samurai” in English), a Japanese anime, which was produced at the end of the 80s and aired on American television during the summer of 1995. On the left “Yoroiden Samurai Torupa” also known as “Ronin Samurai”. On the right “Berserk.” A Knight’s Tale, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, The Last Samurai, Sanjuro, Seven Samurai; these are just a few epic movie titles, both from Hollywood and Japan, featuring our champions…  Perhaps, in a way, they did find what they were looking for: everlasting glory!Of Dames, of Knights, of armes, of loves delight,Of courtesies, of high attempts I speake,Then when the Moores transported all their mightOn Africke seas, the force of France to breake(Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto translated by Sir John Harington)Eugène Delacroix, "Confrontation of knights in the countryside," 1834, Louvre Museum (detail). You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.” Make sure to follow us also on Instagram (@lesenluminures), Facebook (Les Enluminures) and at our Twitter (@LesEnluminures)!";"/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/books-of-hours,/blog/categories/heraldry,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/knights,/blog/categories/kings,/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/miniatures,/blog/categories/archives";"1";141466;"01-20-knights-and-samurai-the-way-of-the-warrior";"/blog/entries/01-20-knights-and-samurai-the-way-of-the-warrior";1;"object"
"";"Laura Light";"/blog/02_20_women/975_f1_icon.png";"/blog/02_20_women/tm-975-f1-facebook.png";"Women and the Book in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: A Second Look";;"2020-02-10";"Bibliography Week in NY this year was January 21-25.  I’m sure some (many?) of the readers of this blog were in NY that week enjoying the various bookish events...";"Les Enluminures, Statutes of the Augustinian Canonesses of Santa Andrea della Porta in Genoa, TM 975. Bibliography Week in NY this year was January 21-25.  I’m sure some (many?) of the readers of this blog were in NY that week enjoying the various bookish events; some of you may even remember our previous blog “What’s Up NY” from 2018. We look forward to it every year at Les Enluminures’ New York Gallery. This year, bibliography week featured an amazing exhibition at the Grolier club, “Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work,” which includes selections from Lisa Unger Baskin’s collection at Duke University of more than 11,000 books and thousands of manuscripts, journals, pieces of ephemera, and artifacts.  The exhibition has received rave reviews.  Ron Charles of the Washington Post stated, “this is the most remarkable literary show I have ever seen”– high praise indeed, and well-deserved (you can find his complete review here.) Lisa Unger Baskin is a collector, bibliophile, scholar, and activist; she is now a member of the Grolier Club, although at one time, as she noted in recent remarks, invitations for events at this venerable club of book collectors would arrive at her home addressed to her husband, with the proviso, “Guests, but not including ladies, may be invited.” (Women were not welcomed as members of the club until 1976).  She began collecting materials related to women in the 1960s, seeking to recover and recognize the many ways women have supported themselves, their families, and the causes they believed in.  “The women’s movement and my compelling interest in these untold stories ultimately led me to focus on unearthing the histories of ordinary women–women who worked every day without recognition or acknowledgment,” said Baskin, who co-curated the exhibit.  Eighteenth-Century Women at Work:Elizabeth Hare: Musical Instrument Maker […], London: [1741?], Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Eleanor Ogle, Fruiterer at the Lemon Tree in Covent Garden, London: [ca. 1760], Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. And, in case some of you don’t know, 2020 is also the 100th Anniversary of the nineteenth amendment, something to celebrate - Vote Yes on the Woman Suffrage Amendment November 2, [New York?]: [Empire State Campaign Committee?], [1915?], Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. What better time to take a look at our current inventory and revisit a topic that we explored in an exhibition and catalogue in 2015, Women and the Book in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In our current text manuscript inventory, we can point to six manuscripts linked to women; you can find all six described on our site here.  Our earliest manuscript certainly used by women is a charming little Psalter (smaller than your hand, unless you have very tiny hands), made in Germany near Cologne in the later part of the thirteenth century.  We know it was copied for use by women, because it includes prayers with feminine forms.  It also, and this is interesting, includes prayers in the masculine voice.  Nonetheless this almost certainly does not mean that this Psalter was used by men.  Nuns copying books for themselves, or others copying books for them, often simply copied the masculine forms in their exemplar without customizing the book for female use.  Of course, in theory, one could argue that men sometimes used prayers copied directly out of nuns’s books with feminine forms … but no, I doubt that, don’t you? That just doesn’t seem like something men would do. TM 1020, Psalter, f. 1. Caption: King David playing his harp at the beginning of a tiny Psalter used by nuns. We also know from liturgical evidence within the volume that it was made for the use of Premonstratensian Nuns. (The Premonstratensians were founded in 1120 by Norbert of Xanten (c. 1080-1134)).  What ho, you might say, I thought there were no Premonstratensian nuns in the thirteenth century! Eastman/Granada TV series Jeeves and Wooster, screened between 1990 and 1993; Stephen Fry as Jeeves (left) and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster (right). Decades ago that was the impression one got from historians discussing enactments by the General Chapter of Prémontré that first suppressed the Order’s double monasteries, and then decreed, at some point before 1198, that women were no longer accepted in the Order.  See for example Richard Southern’s survey of church history, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, first published in 1970.  Modern historians, including Shelley Amiste Wolbrink, however, have convincingly shown that houses of Premonstratensian nuns were an important presence in Germany throughout the Middle Ages.  A Premonstratensian nun depicted in the Altenberg altarpiece of 1334; Städel Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main, as illustrated in “Clothes Make the Premonstratensian Sister,” by Yvonne Seale. A small aside, indicative of how our view of history has changed. Southern’s book is one that I have always loved (and still do), but it is a bit dated in some respects; when I went back to it just now to check his statement on this matter, I was surprised to realize that his chapter on women in religion is in the section “Fringe Orders and anti-Orders.” Women are no longer, thank goodness, discussed as “fringe” elements in the history of the Church, although “women’s history,” alas, is yet to be fully integrated into many historical discussions.  Image of Mary sheltering Premonstratensian Canons and Nuns; see “Norbertine Sisters in the World.”  Could our manuscript have been used in a “double monastery” that included both Canons and nuns (explaining the male and female forms of the prayers)?  Double monasteries were certainly part of the early history of the Premonstratensian Order, and the effectiveness of the decree abolishing double monasteries within the Order in c. 1138-1141 is far from clear. However, at least in the examples studied by Wolbrink in Northwestern Germany, in many cases foundations described as “double monasteries” by modern historians were in reality houses of nuns, with the presence of men restricted to a priest and a few male conversi to provide spiritual support and manual labor. Premonstratensian Psalter, TM 1020, f. 268, ownership note added by Margarita Geissin in the seventeenth century. By the seventeenth century the manuscript was owned by two German women, who left their names in the book, suggesting continued devotional use by women, but in this case by lay women. Prayers and musical notation for the Divine Office added in the margins of a Premonstratensian Psalter, TM 1020, f. 45. Our Psalter was certainly used by the nuns during the Divine Office, the daily liturgical prayer celebrated by nuns, monks, and other religious, including the secular clergy.  Prayers and music for the Office were added in the margins throughout the volume. Many surviving manuscripts known to have been owned and used by women surviving from the Middle Ages and later are liturgical volumes.  German prayer book copied by nuns for their own use, TM 893, f.1 and ff.46v-47 This very tiny, intimate manuscript, notably in German rather than in Latin, however, was made for private prayer, rather than for the formal corporate prayer of the liturgy.  It was made for the use of nuns (once again, there are prayers using the female voice), and almost certainly copied by the nuns themselves, in a convent in the region around Ulm and Augsburg in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. It is a very personal book, with devotions designed to accompany its owner throughout her daily life. Dirt in the lower margins of this prayer book reveals which prayers in the volume were the nuns’s favorites; TM 893, ff. 93v-94.  Attention to dirt and other signs of use in manuscripts has been brought to our attention in the work of the eminent historian of medieval manuscripts, Kathryn Rudy (we’ve talked about dirt and other signs of use before in this blog, see “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.”  Some of the prayers in this volume, including the first eight prayers, petitions to Mary to aid at the hour of one’s death, and an extended meditation on the Christ’s suffering and the crown of thorns, show signs of particularly intensive use (dirt in the outer corners, and handling to the point where the parchment is almost translucent). Manuscript detailing the daily life of the nuns at Santa Andrea della Porta in Genoa, TM 975, f. 1. One final example takes us to Genoa, and a remarkable volume copied in 1511 at the monastery of Santa Andrea della Porta by Father Gregorio da Piacenza, confessor of the nuns (he thoughtfully included a colophon at the end of the volume telling us all that). Originally a monastery (one of the oldest in Genoa) for Benedictine nuns, in 1510 Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran congregation replaced the earlier Benedictine congregation.  This manuscript, with its wonderful illuminated frontispiece that includes a picture of the nuns, marked this important moment in the history of the convent. The volume is a customary or statute book for the convent, detailing the new rules that governed the daily life of the nuns.  It is fascinating reading.  Its first thirty-three chapters discuss the liturgical life of the convent, but much more.  To name just a few examples, topics discussed include how the nuns should speak through the grate at the door and behave with men entering the convent, that the nun who distributes the mail must show discretion with regard to the content, obedience, manual work, meals, blessings and readings in the refectory, the election of the abbess, and clothes and shoes.  The second part of the text explains how the nuns who fail in their duties will be separated from the others. Punishments include eating bread and water on the ground, kissing the feet of the other nuns, washing dishes, remaining silent, and being imprisoned for a year. If you are interested in manuscripts related to women and the book, please visit our site and read about our other three books related to women: a liturgical volume with texts in Latin and German, including medical, culinary and cosmetic recipes (TM 947); TM 947, Noted Breviary for select feasts; short Mass texts in German; recipes (medicinal and cosmetic), f.1 and f.33v. an illuminated Processional made for, and customized by, Dominicans nuns in Rouen (TM 1031);  TM 1031, Processional (Dominican use), p.41, the Resurrection and p.44 the Transfiguration. and finally, an exquisite illuminated copy of Jerome’s Letter to Furia (TM 935) on being a widow, in a unique French translation  (we’ve talked about that book before in this blog, “Modern Love”, but since then in a recent publication Dr. Katja Airaksinen-Monier has suggested this volume may have been made for Louise of Savoy (1476-1531), regent of France and mother of King Francis I and Marguerite of Navarre).  TM 935, JEROME, Letter LIV To Furia (To Furia, On the Duty of Remaining a Widow), in the translation by CHARLES BONIN. ff.4v-5 At the moment I am writing this, there are 77 manuscripts on our text manuscripts site; the number of books we can link to women–six–is not a very large percentage of the total.  What can we make of that? Certainly, it is true that throughout the Middle Ages, books made, owned, and used by men were much more common than those for women.  Or so we always say.  But I wonder, how influenced are we by gender-bias?  When describing a medieval or Renaissance manuscript, I assume it was made for (or used or owned by) a man, or a male community, by default, unless there is evidence that explicitly contradicts this.  How many of these books were actually for women? Literary historians studying texts from this period are beginning to ask how many literary works long assumed to have been written by men, were actually by women, and it is time that book historians follow suit. You can now receive periodic blog post updates by submitting your email up above in “Follow Us.” Make sure to follow us also on Instagram (@lesenluminures), Facebook (Les Enluminures) and at our Twitter (@LesEnluminures)!";"/blog/categories/culinary-arts,/blog/categories/history,/blog/categories/illumination,/blog/categories/initials,/blog/categories/literature,/blog/categories/manuscripts,/blog/categories/medievalism,/blog/categories/margins,/blog/categories/music,/blog/categories/current-inventory,/blog/categories/women-and-the-book";"1";141469;"02-20-women-and-the-book";"/blog/entries/02-20-women-and-the-book";1;"object"