Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The term “Romanesque” conjures images of rounded arches and contorted figural sculpture, and a glance at any modern survey text underscores the primary place of architecture and relief in the presentation of Romanesque art. Manuscripts, on the other hand, seem to be included almost as an afterthought. As this chapter documents, this has long been the case. A historiographic examination of manuscript illumination of the eleventh and twelfth centuries reveals that considerations of style only slowly gave way to other concerns. In the process, Romanesque illuminations have gone from being disparaged medieval curiosities in the nineteenth century to valued historical artifacts in the present. I offer as a case-study one well-known illuminated manuscript, the Life of St Edmund in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (MS M. 736), whose reception and treatment in the modern period is emblematic of the history of Romanesque manuscript illustration as a whole. This focus will be supplemented by broader analyses that highlight additional issues and important literature in the field. The St Edmund manuscript (hereafter called the VSE – Vita Sancti Eadmundi ) is a collection of texts and 32 full-page miniatures that tell the story of England's ninth-century martyr king. The earliest modern mention of the manuscript was in the 1814 sales catalogue of the John Towneley Collection, in which ... log in or subscribe to read full text