Why were illuminations made

Illustration in the margin of Petrus Peregrinus' Tractatus de Magnete England, 14th century "Unpredictable, topical, and often irreverent, like the New Yorker cartoons of today, marginalia must have been a source of great delight for medieval readers," says Margot McIlwain Nishimura in her book Images in the Margins. Sometimes relevant to the content, marginalia are just as often playful and whimsical manifestations of imagination with no connection to the subject matter of the serious works they accompany.

Created using the same materials and techniques as other illuminations, they were clearly original to the manuscripts but themed less similar to the particular works they inhabit than to marginalia themes found throughout manuscripts, primarily those of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Marginalia from Rhazes' Al' Mansuri Portugal, Animals and humans falling off the page and strange hybrid creatures are common. The Rhazes manuscript at the Reynolds-Finley Library is decorated with a number of interesting marginalia, such as hybrid figures and a dog suspended from rubricated letters.

Click to begin search. My Library Account Hours. Current Covid Health and Safety Guidelines. Reynolds-Finley Historical Library. Materials This illustration of three people seated at dinner comes from Arnold of Villanova's treatise on winemaking Italy, 14th century , which is on vellum. A few exceptions to this rule include the Camaldolese Gradual Florence, about ; bought , the St Denis Missal , made for the Abbey of St Denis Paris, about ; bought , and a lavish copy of Pliny's Natural History Rome, s; bought , which were purchased for the beauty of their initials and borders.

In the early 20th century, the library's holdings of bound medieval and Renaissance manuscripts were transformed thanks to the generosity of two main donors: George Reid and George Salting. George Reid about — , from Dunfermline in Scotland, gave 83 manuscripts to the museum in and Most of these were of a religious nature and dated to the 14th and 15th centuries.

The gift included 50 books of hours, mainly from 15th-century France and Italy. Books of hours were the most widespread type of prayer book in western Europe in the late middle ages. They were and still are particularly attractive to collectors, because of their rich decoration and illustrations, shimmering with gold. Among these manuscripts was a stunning book of hours made for Margaret de Foix and her husband Francis II, duke of Brittany, in the late 15th century.

Further donations and bequests continued to enrich the collection into the 20th century. The expertise and perseverance of curator James Wardrop — 57 and the support of the Friends of the National Libraries led to important acquisitions, such as four manuscripts by Italian scribe Bartolomeo Sanvito — , and a miniature prayer book — only 9 cm by 6 cm — signed and dated by Nicolas Jarry, the great 17th-century French scribe.

Owing to the time and circumstances of its foundation, the museum holds examples of manuscript illumination exemplifying the revival of interest for anything medieval in the 19th century. In fine and expensive books, borders would appear on every page, but in less splendid books they may appear only on the first page of the volume or to introduce each new text.

In luxury books miniatures are works of art which can be enjoyed for their aesthetic beauty. They could reflect the power of the patron who had commissioned the volume, for instance by using elements from a coat of arms. In devotional manuscripts they might act as an aid to contemplation or meditation.

It is certainly likely that a great deal of thought went into the placing as well as the execution of the miniature. In this example the miniature replaces the first letter of the line, '[A]nchois quil fusoent ariue'. The miniature shows two jongleurs with the child Silence, one of whom holds her hand, and is placed at the beginning of the section of the story in which Silence learns to become a jongleur. There was a conventional iconography which is evident in the decoration of medieval religious or liturgical books, and in wider religious art.

Figures such as Biblical characters and saints could be recognised by the way in which they are depicted, or the object they are depicted with their 'attribute'. For example, the Virgin Mary is conventionally depicted wearing blue; St Peter carries the keys of Heaven and Hell; St Catherine is shown with the wheel on which she was martyred; and the four Evangelists are represented by a winged man or angel St Matthew , a winged lion St Mark , a winged ox St Luke , and an eagle St John.

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Manuscripts and Special Collections. Medieval Books. Decoration and illumination. Print Email this Page. Decoration and illumination Most manuscripts either show simple decorative schemes or are plain and unadorned.