Meetings with remarkable manuscripts : twelve journeys into the medieval world
(Book)

"Winner of THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE and THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS is a remarkable examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and sometimes about the modern world too. In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys which these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time, shows us how they have been copied, who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell), how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity. From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium. Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge"--

"An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts Winner of the 2017 Duff Cooper Prize Christopher de Hamel is the world's leading expert on medieval manuscripts. The Parker Librarian at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and the former head of manuscripts at Sotheby's, de Hamel has handled more of these extraordinary hand-made books than any other person alive. MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS is an examination of twelve key manuscripts from the medieval period. These texts are not just objects of scholarly curiosity. In the world before Guttenberg, the hand-written manuscript was the sole means of the written transmission of knowledge. All we knew of culture, religion, history, art, and science from the fall of the Roman Empire to the high Renaissance was contained in these volumes. Christopher De Hamel travels the globe to visit these hand-made treasures and expertly unlocks their mysteries for us. In so doing, he introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys which these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time, shows us how they have been copied, who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell), how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity. From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to an early edition of the Canterbury Tales, these texts tell a story of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millenium. In many ways, de Hamel's book is a history of the medieval world in twelve manuscripts"--