A new book joins meticulous historical analysis with more than 150 lush, full-color illustrations of these magnificent books and their elaborate bindings.
illuminated manuscripts
Posted inNews
A Look at a Formerly Lost, Glimmering Manuscript by Persian Poet Hafez
The Divan’s whereabouts remained a mystery until last year, when Dutch art crime investigator Arthur Brand — sometimes referred to as “the Indiana Jones of the art world” — tracked it down.
Posted inArt
Illuminated Manuscripts Demonstrate that Medieval Borders Were Regularly Crossed
A new digitization project brings together 800 medieval manuscripts and offers a different image of the early middle ages: one of connection and exchange.
Posted inPerformance
The Somber Fate of a Manuscript Illuminator
In Written on Skin, currently playing at Opera Philadelphia, an illuminated manuscript artist gets involved with his patron’s wife.
Posted inArt
Tracing the Lives of Women in Medieval Manuscript Illustrations
Illuminating Women in the Medieval World at the Getty Center in Los Angeles explores the lives of women in the Middle Ages through their representation in illuminated manuscripts.
Posted inNews
Peruse 1,000-Year-Old Medical Remedies, from Ox Bile to Mandrake Root
The British Library owns the only extant illustrated Old English herbal, and it recently digitized the entire manuscript.
Posted inNews
A Lavishly Illuminated Medieval Bestiary Goes Online
The Aberdeen Bestiary is filled with paintings of animals that illustrate tales of moral behavior. You can now page through it online.
Posted inArt
Beyond Gorgeous: Illuminated Manuscripts from Boston Collections
For viewers accustomed to looking at paintings on canvas and panel, manuscripts are a different beast.
Posted inArt
Revisiting an 18th-Century Illuminated Islamic Manuscript
One benefit of digitization is the return to the public, if only virtually, of religious and cultural artifacts often long hidden in the collections of institutions far from their regions of origin.