University of South Carolina English professor Scott Gwara had sorted through 32 lots of medieval books and manuscripts in a London auction house when he pulled out box 33 and discovered a pristine prayer book that he hoped would round out USC’s collection of 15th-century religious texts. “I pulled this off the shelf and I…
On the reams of choral chants in this Welsh medieval treasure I spotted a scribble of a man with a big nose. Satire hasn’t changed – and neither have we. It looks like something Jake and Dinos Chapman might do if they turned their hand to the creative defacement of illuminated manuscripts: the Viz-style gargoyle…
History played such an integral role in defining national identity in France throughout the high Middle Ages that some of the finest illumination of the period is located within the covers of history manuscripts. On view in the Exhibitions Pavilion at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, November 16, 2010 through February…
