"Illuminated manuscripts are perhaps the most beautiful treasures to survive from the middle ages. This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the medieval world of books, their production and their consumption. The text divides this world into different groups of readers and writers: missionaries, emperors, monks, students, aristocrats, priests, collectors and the general public. De Hamel is both informative and immensely readable, and the sumptuous illustrations render this book too good to be missed."--From Amazon.com

The Junius Manuscript

The British Library's collection of manuscripts is mined for a wealth of examples, illustrated in color, to this guide to illumination for the general reader. De Hamel (now librarian, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, UK, he's a leading scholar in the field) discusses first why then how manuscripts were illuminated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Illuminated manuscripts are among the most beautiful, precious and mysterious works of Western art. Before the printing press was invented, books were produced by hand and their illustration using brightly coloured pigments and gold embellishments was a labour of love and an act of piety in itself. The results are stunning. The works emanating from the scriptoria of monasteries were mainly religious texts, including illuminated bibles, psalters, and works for private devotion known as books of hours. Illuminated Manuscripts describes the origin and history of illumination in the Middle Ages, covering the artists and their techniques, and the patrons who commissioned them. It explains the subject matter found in medieval works, such as saints and Bible stories and the use of ornamental flourishes, and is illustrated with many fine examples of the genre including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

Examines the artistic style of the illuminated manuscripts produced in Russia from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries

This volume consists of sixteen important studies, all dealing with manuscripts produced in medieval England. The first group reflects the meticulous analysis of liturgical manuscripts that characterize the honorand's career. These treat both early and late medieval liturgical concerns and include liturgy for Gilbertine lay brothers, a lost treatise by Amalarius, the re-working of an Anglo-Saxon Gospel book; the music for the Vigil of St. Thomas Becket; and the continuity of Processions from Old Sarum to Salisbury Cathedral. Two studies examine the liturgies having to do with saints in Sarum missals and breviaries. The second, historical, section of this volume includes three studies on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Six other analyses concern the high and later Middle Ages.

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