Binski and Panayotova Review

With its solid, glossy paper presenting the illustrations in their best light, the catalogue accompanying the Cambridge Illuminations exhibition could be yet another pretty coffeetable book. However, this publication successfully emulates the exhibition’s scale (it is probably the second largest exhibition of its kind, with 215 illuminated manuscripts covering a time period of ten centuries) and focus (on materials in Cambridge college and other library holdings). It introduces its readers to those gems in Cambridge library holdings which are usually seen by few although originally collected, often with difficulty and determination, to benefit many. ‘It is this quintessentially Cambridge tradition of equal tenacity in terms of acquisition and erudition that [...] [the] exhibition celebrates’,¹and the catalogue salutes. The resulting, intriguing mixture of comprehensiveness and eclecticism will appeal to both medievalists and non-medievalists, those who wish to take away impressions from their visit to the showrooms in the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge University Library, and those who, in lieu of seeing the manuscripts in person, wish to be enlightened all the same.

On opening the covers, readers will be guided through the Illuminations in an educated, orderly and yet delightful fashion: the catalogue proper is prefaced by an excellent account of the cultural and historical context of the relevant volumes, a discussion of their collectors, and an illustrated introduction to the manufacture of manuscripts. Taken together, the introductory material transforms the general audience’s experience of the exhibition and catalogue from a casual glance at charming pictures into a deeper appreciation of the manuscripts’ significance. An appendix comprising a glossary, an extensive bibliography and indexes provides interested readers with further orientation in the wider field of medievalia and the art of manuscript illustration.

The catalogue itself presents 184 manuscripts in thematical organisation. Each of its sections is concisely introduced by scholars who will need no further introduction, nor indeed any phrase of mine to recommend them, including Rosamond McKitterick, Teresa Webber and Peter Jones. The individual chapter themes mirror sections of the exhibition: Pagans and Missionaries, the Bible, Liturgy, private Devotion, sacred and secular history and literature, encyclopaedias, the humanistic manuscript, and documents which relate to Cambridge University. To select one of these for illustration (excuse the pun), the part on the medieval encyclopaedia, subtitled ‘science and practice’, introduces one of the smaller and yet most diverse sections of the exhibition. Here we find books dating from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries as diverse as bestiaries, handbooks on anatomy, astrology and alchemy, and herbals. An introductory essay binds them together by discussing their historical context, chronological development and significance. The individual catalogue entries interspersed throughout the piece inform about the provenance and uses of the manuscript in question and the amount and nature of illuminations in it. Their fourteen expert authors of the entries also include information on secondary literature and previous exhibitions featuring the manuscript beside reproductions of selected illuminations.

The success of the Illuminations catalogue becomes apparent in the fact that the manuscript descriptions, although part of a notoriously dry and tweedy tradition, prove to be stylistically elegant and attractive. Consider for example Christoper de Hamel’s musings about Master Hugo, the artist who, due to scarcity of historical evidence, almost vanishes behind his Bury Bible (s. xii):

He was doubtless one of those fascinating, shadowy, Romanesque professional artists who moved from place to place seeking work. The magnificent colour patterns of his paintings and the startlingly new Byzantine draperies and deep staring eyes all suggest that he had travelled at least to southern Italy.²

There are also hidden gems like the picture of a boating party in a fifteenth-century book of hours (No 95), intriguingly reminiscent of present-day punting on the Cam. In short, the catalogue is a joy to the peruser as well as the meticulous reader. Further noteworthy is the zeal of the catalogue’s contributors: when the description of exhibit No 3 explicates that the manuscript ‘has no illumination’, one might ask why it was included in the first place; but a cursory look at the accompanying reproduction of a sample page from the manuscript proves its ‘very striking and accomplished Insular minuscule’ from the eighth century to be reason enough for its reproduction. In light of this it seems puzzling, however, that (apart from the mentioned exception) illuminations are the only non-textual element highlighted in the catalogue entries – for example, musical notation is not mentioned in some instances where the accompanying illustration indicates the context to be essentially musical. Further, the Macclesfield Psalter, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s latest and possibly most significant acquisition which occupied a special room in the exhibition and could there be viewed in toto, was assigned a mere double page and three illustrations. Admittedly the Psalter has been reproduced in a facsimile edition elsewhere, and any attempt at an appropriate discussion would have been beyond the scope of the exhibition catalogue. Currently in preparation, the parallel project of the cataloguing of all illuminated manuscripts in Cambridge, of which the exhibited materials represent a mere five percent, further promises to fill any pragmatic gaps of the present publication.

In conclusion, the abovementioned medieval encyclopaedias, combining knowledge and diversity, may be regarded as emblematic of the Cambridge Illuminations project. Therefore, it may not be a coincidence that its publication exhibits not only a fine selection of manuscripts, but also mirrors Cambridge’s own defining characteristics: it is scholarly yet charming, communicative in a fairly understated way, and marked by diversity and a certain quirkiness which fades away with our familiarity with it. Like the collections it draws upon, the Cambridge Illuminations catalogue shows originality and altruism, and, above all, productive ambition.

Anke Timmermann, U. of Cambridge