![]() The document analysis is often already partially or completely done within library catalogues, with precise references to the images located in the manuscripts’ textual description: the position (folio number), techniques used, and subjects treated in each illumination are often already mentioned through associated metadata. §2 For medievalists, art historians, and all scientists searching for these iconographic sources, one of the main problems lies in finding the right illuminations within the manuscripts’ pages. Illumination of a character “B.” Folio 7r, “St Omer” or “Rede” Psalter, MS 98, Christ Church, University of Oxford, 1201–1300. ![]() These images therefore also give us essential information about, for example, the role and place of sound in medieval society. Moreover, the medieval image is not always, as is sometimes thought, a “Bible for the illiterate, but rather a creation in which form and content are intrinsically linked, with a strong plastic thought and a visual language in which analogies, metaphors, and associations of meaning are numerous” ( Baschet 2008). ![]() For example, in musicology, medieval iconography analysis brings useful information on the instruments’ nature, instruments’ organological characteristics, physical characteristics, or playing methods (the research team proposing this article focuses mainly on music in the Middle Ages therefore, we have developed the first multi-object database in medieval musical iconography: Musiconis - ), as shown in Figure 1: We observe a figure holding a key used to tune a string on a harp. Illuminations thus became iconographic elements essential in medieval studies and sources of complementary historical knowledge in other fields of study (archaeology, art history, architecture, musicology, or literature). ![]() During the Merovingian period, symbolic ornaments appear in the manuscripts’ pages and, in the 11 th and 12 th centuries, with the development of artistic centres in France (Benedictine monasteries, including the remarkable Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy), manuscripts sometimes reflect a local style. During the Carolingian period, artistic centres with particular styles develop in different cities around workshops (Court School of Charlemagne, Rheimsian style, Touronian style, Drogo style, Court School of Charles the Bald). Some documents have survived showing obvious decorative elements: for example, ancient Homeric poems (e.g., the Papyrus 114, Bankes Homer, created during the 2nd century and written in Greek ) or biblical codices (e.g., the Codex Alexandrinus, a fifth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament: ). The history of illumination probably goes back to antiquity. Illuminations are handmade decorations that adorn a manuscript, such as initials, borders, and illustrations. 12v–13r.§1 In the Middle Ages, drawings and paintings in manuscripts often adorned the pages to illustrate or comment on the text. Gallois, so-called Naives Hours, 1839 – 42, Paris. Heures françoises et latines pour Madame L. The Naives book of hours, on the other hand, was commissioned by Jules Gallois, Count of Naives, for his wife, as a devotional work, though also supporting his claim to descend from noble medieval ancestors. The Missal was presented in 1844 to the Count of Chambord, then head of the House of Bourbon, by the Legitimist Ladies of France, who were in favour of a return to monarchy. Two high-end French manuscripts stand out as relatively recent acquisitions: the Naives Hours and the politically-charged Chambord Missal. Pugin and Phoebe Traquair are present in the library, but also some manuscripts reflecting the popular taste for illumination in Victorian England, such as illuminated addresses commissioned for ceremonial occasions, and instances of amateur illumination. Owing to the time and circumstances of its foundation, the museum holds examples of manuscript illumination exemplifying the revival of interest for anything medieval in the 19th century.
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