Everything concerning the original manuscript, including essays on the language, the style, the artists, the miniatures.
The Venetian explorer Marco Polo didn’t write his Travels alone: in 1298, he found himself imprisoned with a romance writer, Rustichello da Pisa. Their conversations gave birth to one of the most celebrated travel books in history.
In many of the 41 illustrations, John the Divine is peeking at the apocalyptic scene from an opening in the frame. We like to imagine that the artist had a lot of fun while depicting the apostle’s awe.
Once upon a time, there was a… snake with two heads? A Yale on a golden background? This week, I discovered that a masterpiece of the English Gothic can entertain my kids better than any videogame.
The jokes played by the young Limbourg Brothers, the Duke’s exotic animals… In this imaginary interview, the Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry told us what it means to be one of the most cherished manuscripts in the whole world.
Around the year 1000, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and his mother Teophanu had a lasting influence on European politics and culture. A marriage certificate, a devotional codex, and a gospel book still witness their grandeur.
An art scholar recently called it the rock star of medieval manuscript illumination. The story of this manuscript is so thrilling we couldn’t resist asking ourselves some questions — we also imagined the manuscript’s answers.
When is the best time to plant seeds? What day of the month is it? When is Easter this year? With an upcoming facsimile by Quaternio Verlag, 21st-century readers can find answers to all these questions — the medieval way.
If you are curious to know how books were decorated in the high Middle Ages, take a look at the various stages of completion of the miniatures in this English Apocalypse.
Six centuries ago in the Netherlands, innovative manuscript art merged with Gothic style to create a lavish, gold-decorated codex comparing scenes from the Old and New testaments. It is called “Bible for the Poor”, but was it really destined for the common people?
Did you ever wonder what Medieval painters used as models? Most of them had never seen exotic animals, and Gothic letters were hard to sketch by memory. One of Milan cathedral’s first architects, Giovannino de’ Grassi, provided them with a model book so splendid it became a work of art in its own right. Scroll down to see the video!