Who were the medieval illuminators? How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. He discusses the social and historical context of the illuminators' lives, considers their methods of work, and presents a series of case studies to show the range and nature of the visual sources and the ways in which they were adapted, copied, or created anew. Alexander explains that in the early period, Christian monasteries and churches were the main centers for the copying of manuscripts, and so the majority of illuminators were monks working in and for their own monasteries. From the eleventh century, lay scribes and illuminators became increasingly numerous, and by the thirteenth century, professional illuminators dominated the field. During this later period, illuminators were able to travel in search of work and to acquire new ideas, they joined guilds with scribes or with artists in the cities, and their ranks included nuns and secular women. Work was regularly collaborative, and the craft was learned through an apprenticeship system. Alexander carefully analyzes surviving manuscripts and medieval treatises in order to explain the complex and time-consuming technical processes of illumination - its materials, methods, tools, choice of illustration, and execution. From rare surviving contracts, he deduces the preoccupation of patrons with materials and schedules. Illustrating his discussion with examples chosen from religious and secular manuscripts made all over Europe, Alexander recreates the astonishing variety and creativity ofmedieval illumination. His book will be a standard reference for years to come.
How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century.
The present volume presents a comprehensive selection of Professor Alexander's papers on Italian manuscript illumination, from the medieval period through the Renaissance.
In Painted Prayers, the two key elements of Books of Hours are explored: the glorious illuminations and the texts. 107 color plates reproduce stellar pages from Books of Hours that...
The History of the University of Oxford, II, Late Medieval Oxford, ed. by J. I. Catto and R. Evans. Oxford, 407-483. Pollard, H. G. Notes for a Directory of Cat Street, Bodleian Library Archive, Catalogue of the Papers of Graham Pollard ...
The majority of the exhibits are from the Museum's collection and the main focus is on Western European illumination, but examples of Byzantine, Armenian, Persian and Sanskrit manuscripts are also included.
Medieval manuscript expert Christopher de Hamel selects and discusses a range of illuminated manuscripts from the British Library's unparalleled collection, some of them unfinished and so revealing the processes involved...
For Italy, see Jeryldene M. Woods, Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Anabel Thomas, Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy: ...
131–65 A. Quiney: Town Houses ofMedieval Britain (New Haven and London, 2004) V. Furniture. The quantity of medieval English furniture that sur- vives is small and unrepresentative. The only item available in sufficient quantity to be ...
... Medieval Industries : Craftsmen , Techni- ques , Products . London : Hambledon and London , 2001 . Cennini , Cennino ... Illuminators and Their Methods of Work . New Haven , CT : Yale University Press , 1994 . Binski , Paul , and Stella ...
See Lewis , Art of Matthew Paris , 51 . 37. See , for instance , the crude and sporadic imitations of Matthew's drawings in the Huntington Library's copy of Matthew's Chronica majora , MS HM 30319 ; here the scribe is certainly the ...