Marginalia

Thanks in part to the holdings of the Huntington Library in San Marino, Los Angeles has long been an important destination for those engaged in the study of manuscripts. But on the other side of downtown LA, another institution has established itself as an important Southern Californian destination for students of medieval manuscript illumination. Atop a hill overlooking both the Pacific Ocean and the lights of Los Angeles sits the Getty Center, a gleaming marble monument to art and architecture. The largest building at the Center houses the J. Paul Getty Museum, and within the Museum is a growing collection of some of the world's most dazzling medieval manuscripts.

Although the Getty Museum has been collecting art since the middle of the twentieth century, it did not turn its attention to manuscripts until 1983, when it had the opportunity to acquire more than a hundred illuminated manuscripts from Peter and Irene Ludwig. With the purchase of the Ludwig collection, the Getty's Manuscripts Department was born. Since then, the Getty has embarked on one of the most ambitious programmes of manuscript exhibitions in the world. This programme is maintained thanks to the efforts of its four manuscripts curators: Thomas Kren (Senior Curator), Elizabeth Morrison (Curator), Kristen Collins (Associate Curator), and Christine Sciacca (Assistant Curator). With the exception of four two-week installation and deinstallation periods a year, the Manuscripts galleries never stand empty: there are regular rotating exhibitions from the Getty's permanent collection (such as the popular exhibitions on 'Images of Violence in the Medieval World' and 'Music for the Masses: Illuminated Choir Books', as well as the current exhibition on 'Imagining Christ', which features both illuminated manuscripts and other medieval treasures from the Getty's collection).

In addition to these rotating exhibitions, the Manuscripts Department plans larger exhibitions which go on display in the 'Special Exhibitions' hall and which frequently require the coordination of loans from dozens of lending institutions and collectors. One of the most spectacular of these was the 2003 exhibition entitled 'Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Illumination', which was produced in partnership with both the British Library and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The exhibition featured more than 130 magnificent works of art produced in Flanders between 1470 and 1560, and was on display at both the Getty Center and, later, the Royal Academy. More recently, the Getty's curators ventured even further afield to Sinai for their exhibition on 'Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai', which included fifty-three objects that had travelled from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine in Egypt, 'the world's largest repository of Byzantine icons'.

Since its acquisition of the Ludwig manuscripts, the Getty has continued to build a collection that not only includes some of the most spectacular examples of medieval manuscript illumination, but also covers the chronological and geographical history of the art. Through a combination of careful research and unexpected opportunities, the Museum has worked to develop its collection with the purchase of such works as the Stammheim Missal (a spectacular example of twelfth-century book illumination that had only been publicly displayed twice before its acquisition by the Getty) and the Northumberland Bestiary (a thirteenth-century work in the English Gothic tradition that was only made known publicly by the tenth duke of Northumberland, Hugh Percy, in 1950), as well as a number of significant Italian works, including the leaf by the Master of the Osservanza depicting the baptism of St Augustine, which may be seen on the Contents page of this issue. In February of this year, the Getty managed to acquire 'the finest example of English Romanesque illumination remaining in private hands': the Vita Christi, a highly decorated manuscript recounting the life of Christ and containing more than 100 illuminations from the 12th and 15th centuries. For the first time, the Vita Christi is now on public display in the Getty's 'Imagining Christ' exhibition.

In addition to developing its manuscripts collection and making it accessible to scholars and the general public, the Getty's Manuscripts Department has become an important and active member of the scholarly community, both in Southern California and abroad. Every year the department receives applications from around the world for its graduate internship (which I was fortunate enough to be granted during the 2007-2008 academic year) and applications from Southern California undergraduates for its multicultural undergraduate summer internship. Through these internships (which are awarded through the Getty Foundation), the department gives young scholars the opportunity to work closely with its collection, and to gain curatorial experience in a world-class museum. The department's resources are complemented by those of the Getty Research Institute (GRI), which contains a spectacular medieval art history library, as well as hundreds of facsimiles and hundreds of thousands of photographs of manuscripts in its photo study collection. Recipients of Getty Scholar and Visiting Scholar Grants are able to be in residence at the GRI in order to make use of the GRI's resources and the Museum's collections. The Manuscripts Department also has close ties with other Los Angeles institutions outside of the Getty, particularly the Huntington Library and the Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies at UCLA. In 2007, the three institutions jointly hosted a three-day conference in honour of Richard and Mary Rouse on 'Medieval Manuscripts - Their Makers and Uses', which was attended by presenters, scholars, and students from around the world.

Through its collaboration with other renowned institutions, its efforts to make medieval manuscripts accessible to the Getty's visitors, and above all through its ever-growing collection, the Getty's Manuscripts Department has rapidly established itself as an important contributor to arts and culture in Los Angeles and as a key repository of artwork of monumental interest to students of medieval art history. As a result, since its relocation to the marble halls of the Getty Center ten years ago, it has attracted, and continues to attract, not only ever larger streams of visitors, but also some of the world's greatest medieval art. The Getty's manuscript holdings may be explored online through Getty Guide. Descriptions of future exhibitions (including the upcoming show entitled 'Faces of Power and Piety: Medieval Portraiture', opening in August 2008, and the display of the unbound Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry, opening in November 2008) may be found here.

Mary Flannery, Queen Mary, University of London

Š2004 The authors and the Medieval Reading Group at the University of Cambridge
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