Remarkable Manuscripts

 The Annunciation; Archangel Gabriel greeting Mary.
From the opulent 12th century Copenhagen Psalter in the
Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen.

 Christopher de Hamel

 As a displacement activity in view of the appalling news re the Presidency in America, I think it is an opportune time to flag up a marvellous book I have just read. 'Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts' by Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge before which he had a long and distinguished career at Sotheby's handling and cataloguing illuminated manuscripts. His scholarship is extraordinary but so is his delightfully modest ability to make his intellectual exploration of twelve mediaeval manuscripts, exciting and accessible to the lay person. It is one of the most thrilling books I have ever read. Neil MacGregor calls it 'the intellectual expedition of a lifetime' as de Hamel explores twelve incomparable mediaeval manuscript codices from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, all carefully guarded in university and other prestigious libraries in Europe and America, most after amazing journeys of ownership and sanctuary over centuries.



His book is part conversation with the manuscript under study, and part with the reader In fact, I like his preferred title of Interviews with Remarkable Manuscripts; it neatly fits his style. He describes in detail the often gorgeous illustrations, often with a background story of the illuminator, but he

 St Luke, from St Augustine's Gospel kept at
Corpus Christi. A.D. 597
This venerable volume is now used for the swearing of
the oaths of office at the enthronement of each new
Archbishop of Canterbury.

also examines the structure of the book, any erasures, the sewing holes, the over-paintings and the bindings. There is more detective work too as he strives to decide, for example, whether the 1400 year old vellum-paged book of the four Gospels, kept at Corpus Christi, is really the very one which belonged to St Augustine of Canterbury, given to him by Pope Gregory when he came to convert the Anglo-Saxons in 597. He considers various aspects of history and evidence and concludes that it is a 'virtual certainty.'



The modest and talented Hugo Pictor,
Hugh the Painter, 11th century

  



My favourite person [apart from Dear Christopher himself, who is not just in the book, but of it] in this splendid narrative is Hugo Pictor, Hugh the Painter. De Hamel discovers where  Hugo lived, who he worked for and what he did. The normal practice in making mediaeval manuscripts involved a division of labour between the scribe who wrote out the text and the illuminator who painted the pictures and the ornamentation. But this manuscript, de Hamel proves, was written and illustrated in the latter part, by the same man, Hugo Pictor. The manuscript is tenth century, the commentary in Latin, on the Book of Isaiah by Saint Jerome, an honourable commission indeed, but Hugo couldn't resist adding a small and delicate self-portrait on the last page with his name written around his head. Endearing and achingly personal. Can that really have been over a millennium ago?
 

But the most exciting discovery for me was in the twelfth codex, the Spinola Hours, c 1515-20 and now kept in the J. Paul Getty Museum near Los Angeles. De Hamel talks of opening the Spinola and plunging straight into the late Middle Ages and of the 'exceptionally rich' and innovative decoration. The many illustrations in the book are breath-taking miniature masterpieces and, de Hamel marvels,  in exceptional condition. What particularly thrilled me, living as I now do in Brugge, was the discovery that this book is Flemish; the beautifully decorated, incredibly wide margins of the text pages, we learn, are in the Ghent-Bruges' style of Renaissance Flanders.

 A typical wide border in The Spinola Hours,
illustrative of the Ghent/Brugge style
of naturalistic illumination.

 'The 'extraordinary layers of illusion in Ghent-Bruges manuscripts' is praised and De Hamel refers to panels of text being turned into three-dimensional illusions with scrolls fallen on to the page, and text pinned to the page.  He describes the naturalistic flowers and berries scattered across the golden grounds of the wide borders, apparently attracting life-like  snails and insects to settle there.

De Hamel does extensive and amazing detective work on the artists behind the luxurious decoration of the Spinola Hours and also on its relationship to two other first class mediaeval manuscripts but readers of my modest tribute must buy or borrow this book to discover his conclusions. Or put it on your Christmas list if you have someone who really wants to please you!

Another glorious Spinola page 1515-20