The Future is More

 't Zand, pre-demolition
 

I had to go to the Oogkliniek, the Eye Clinic, last Monday for an annual check-up and was desolated to see heavy equipment and workmen busy dismantling 't Zand. All the trees have gone, work is beginning on dismantling the majestic fountain and, with the looks of it, the bus shelters too. The Stadhuis has decided a make-over is needed and it causes one to wonder that they don't see the irony of imposing unnecessary destruction and renovation on a beautifully-preserved mediaeval town which, in late mediaeval times, became too poor to have unnecessary municipal demolition and renewal foisted upon it and so kept its original beauty. From discussions and overheard remarks, I doubt the sweeping changes are by popular request. It is not the first time that I have remarked to myself that the Civic Authority here simply has too much money available so spends some of it on these vanity projects. Why, the Burgemeester was asking for suggestions during the summer as to where

 Suggested 'Makeover'

to re-site the huge fountain group of bronze figures. Since beginning this blog and the above complaint, I have discovered that the planned cost of the new 't Zand is 9 million euros. Words almost fail me. 
 

Rant over and back to Art! Yesterday, for the first time I went to Leuven to visit M-Museum to catch the exhibition The Future is More. Sub-headed In Search of Utopia, it celebrates my historical hero, Sir Thomas More, and specifically, the publication of his amazingly influential masterpiece, Utopia, printed in Leuven in 1516. There were several volumes on view, a first edition from Leuven and third editions from Paris [1517]. Utopia is contained in an unexpectedly small volume but its mediaeval beauty shines out. The main room was devoted entirely to More through books, pamphlets, portraits, but there were several other rooms with tapestries, artefacts, astrolabes and globes, charts and a few sculptures which set the context of his known world for he was a much-travelled diplomat and regal representative.

 Frontispiece of Utopia with its map of the island
and the Utopian alphabet, designed by More's good
friend, Pieter Gillis.

 

More chose Leuven for the printing probably through his great friend, Erasmus of Rotterdam [1466-1536] who lived in Leuven at that time when he was Counsellor to Emperor Charles V. More and Erasmus had met in England in 1499 during their law studies and remained great friends until More's premature death in 1535. Leuven itself was an important centre of learning with its university founded in 1425 while Erasmus was working to found the Trilingual College, which opened in 1517 in Leuven, offering Hebrew, Latin and Greek. A prestigious place for More's Utopia to begin life. The printer, Dirk Maertens, had his business opposite the University Halls, and he and Erasmus enjoyed good relations. Undoubtedly Erasmus was also instrumental in the choice of printer for More's masterpiece. The exhibition describes it as a 'best seller'. The Leuven first edition in Latin was re-printed five times in the three years subsequent to its publication; by 1750 there had been over fifty re-prints and translations.

Famous portrait of Thomas More by
Hans Holbein the Younger
Copy in the Leuven exhibition is
borrowed from the collection of
Queen Elizabeth of Britain.

In the main exhibition room hung the famous Holbein portrait of Thomas; in fact, it is one of many copies as the original hangs in the Frick Museum in New York. The English Convent in Carmersstraat in Brugge, also has a copy brought there by Mary More, Thomas's eighth blood descendant, when she joined the Convent as a novice in the early 1750s. She was elected Prioress in 1766. Her family Holbein copy is considered one of the treasures of the English Convent.

Utopia heralded a new era in 15^th and 16^th century thought. More wrote the book in despair at the corruption and monarchical misrule in England during his life; he conjured up an imaginary island, Utopia, where joy and justice reigned. More's dream of an ideal world, outlined in the portrayal of his perfect island, included free education, democracy, euthanasia, married priests,
care for the elderly and equal opportunities for men and women. Five hundred years ago this remarkable philosopher and humanist imagined aspects of life which are highly relevant today.

FOOTNOTE

The name of More's good friend, Pieter Gillis, spelled originally in this blog as Peter Giles, was copied by me from the exhibition programme in the Anglicised way. An indignant Belgian friend originating from Antwerp, Gillis' birthplace too, sent me the correct version of Pieter's name. The historical novel, 'De verloren droom van Pieter Gillis' by Joris Tulkens, describes Gillis's friendship not only with More but also with Desiderius Erasmus, William Tyndale, Quinten Metsys, Albrecht Durer and Cornelius Grapheus, all great early 16th century humanists. Apologies for the gross error, Willy! Do hope the honour of Antwerp and its famous sons, is now restored.

Breakfast at Blackbird

 

 Inspiring example of photography near the Minnewater.
Enlarged, this image has splendid views of airborne birds,
alas, almost invisible on this scale.
The dramatic clouds would not disgrace Constable!



Happy New Year
 The Rozenhoedkaai Canal, beloved of tourists, and with the wonderful festive 'fruit' of
lighted globes in the tree leaning over the canal.

 Breakfast at Blackbird

A lovely first week of the year with Alain visiting from Cologne for a few days and life in my flat as charmed as ever. Alain is a musician, teacher, composer, choirmaster and also by chance, an admirer of both Brugge and my apartment. He is only 41 but it already planning, when the time comes, to retire to Brugge which he loves! We had a memorable breakfast at Blackbird this morning, [Thursday] and yesterday visited the Groeninghe Museum to see the exhibition on Justice, de Kunst van het Rechts. Luc accompanied us to act as guide and though the exhibition was interesting and informative, there was little great art to stir the blood. Immediately we finished the Justice exhibition, we found ourselves in the middle of some of the Groeninghe's great treasures, the Flemish Primitives, where the art DID appeal so the Memlings and Jan Van Eycks were seized, almost subliminally, with both eyes and hands and the one heart. Masterpieces to touch the soul for sure.
 

 The reference to Churchill below, triggered
the memory that in the late forties
he indulged his hobby of painting,
in Brugge.

I was impressed with Alain's photographs of which he took many; they were so creative and special and I privately resolved to Try Harder with my own photographs. I have taken virtually none for weeks, even over Christmas; a certain lethargy seems to have seized me over marshalling the camera's focus and my own. Even when several of my English-speaking group drove to Blankenberge to visit a sick friend and member, I didn't get out my camera, leaving it to someone else to take some delightful shots and send them on to the rest of us. Seasonal Affective Laziness [S.A.L.] perhaps or Temporary Photographic Block [T.P.B. to the cognoscenti].

 

And now it is January 8, and overnight have arrived several little tranches of Alain's photographs which are magical. He has threatened to send ALL that he took, well over 1000 which might be too much of a good thing for my time and energy to deal with. [Every time I finish a sentence with a preposition, I flash back to Churchill's admonition re prepositions: 'This is something up with which I will not put.' referring, of course, to the sin of  placing prepositions last in the sentence.] I absolutely must include some of Alain's photographs in this blog; after all, I write about Brugge and its delights and his images are exceptional. There are, in fact, two images of his, heading this blog with more to come!

Here is one black and white of the view taken from the grassy mound below one of the windmills on Kruisvest ; it is mysterious, reminiscent of Bruges la Morte, and giving the photographic impression of an earlier period.


 The Belfort to the right photographed from a distance away.
Cannot decide definitively which are the other two spires!

A curvilinear view of one of the windmills,
strangely denuded of tourists.















All photographs this week taken by
Alain Gehring
except the one from the Churchill archive.


 

Before I finish, must mention a delightful concert last evening under the series heading of Podium voor Passie. A young Ukrainian pianist, Inna Shyshkovska, played music by Ravel, Beethoven, Chopin; I am no judge but she was fluid and passionate and so involved that her total disconnect when she stood up to acknowledge the audience applause, was unexpected. She gave a little nod, almost a smile and moved away; it was as if she had never before performed in public and was unsure of what to do. Unexpected but her music was lyrical. She is a Master in Music from Gent Conservatorium and has taught for the last five and a half years in various Flemish towns, including Brugge. A gifted musician.

And so back to Alain's photographs:


 A favourite, canal-side, mediaeval house with wooden façade
near the St Bonifacius Bridge.

New Year Blog

 Dishoom, Covent Garden

Where to begin? Perhaps with a Gelukkig Nieuwjaar to all. I returned two days ago from two festive weeks in England. I slept in five beds, travelled quite a few miles, had such fun and warmth with family in various locations, finishing with the Annual Theatre Trip following The Annual Lunch, normally in Italian restaurants in Soho. Perhaps it is every year that we say 'That was the best ever,' but it was definitely true this year. Grandson Tom, as befits the oldest and wisest of his generation in the family, took over responsibility for finding a restaurant and reserving, this year, 19 places. Dishoom proved to be amazing; an Indian restaurant offering what can only be described as truly and deliciously authentic food. The restaurant seemed enormous but the waiter told us that it is the smallest of the three Dishooms in London. I was bemused and impressed that as we arrived there was a queue outside soon after noon. This was reduced and augmented at intervals and numbered around twenty when we left after 2.00 pm. The weather was Cold and Dishoom served hot drinks to the patient queue!

Kinky Boots in action

 Five year old Genevieve, noticed by the Leading Man
in Kinky Boots!

The musical, [it is Always a musical] was Kinky Boots by popular request. I could not believe how incredibly vital, silly, over-the-top, extravagant and gorgeous it all was. One of my nieces met a woman in the Ladies who was on her sixth visit and I can understand that enthusiasm and devotion. The show imbued the spectators with the most splendid and spontaneous, hard-to-contain and involved joie de vivre. As usual, we had drinks together afterwards in a nearby bar before we all split for home, or hotel in my case. Gathering outside the theatre to marshal the troops, as it were, a little group of us bumped into the leading man, off for a break before the evening repeat performance. After our excited compliments he mentioned that several of them had noticed the pretty little girl in the third row of the stalls and said,  'Aahh' as children feature rarely in the audience. It was Genevieve [5 but nearly 6 as she would have it] over from California on her first family theatre outing to what was deemed probably not quite ideal-for-that-initial purpose but nonetheless desired by the majority's [i.e. everyone else] theatrical choice. She too had loved the noise and the excitement, the dancing, the singing and the glitter without necessarily appreciating the story line or the transgender aspects of the narrative! It is only now that I notice that the publicity advises the show's suitability for the ages of 12+ for viewing.


Bruxelles Midi, scene of my non-Celia Johnson moment.



Next day I caught an early Eurostar and as we approached Brussels, I struggled to take my large heavy bag down from its high perch to which someone had moved it. A youngish rather shabby man, also waiting to arrive, offered to pull it down after which we chatted in pigeon French until arriving in the Bruxelles Midi where he kindly offloaded the luggage. I thought it rather odd that after this brief encounter, he didn't immediately dash off for his train and so instinctively refused his offer to pull my case along saying untruthfully, how easy it was for me. Around ten minutes after arrival, he was still around, despite voluble thanks and hand shakes of farewell and I felt more uneasy. This situation is normal for young and middle-aged women but odd for someone of 82 so antennae were in position. As we ascended on the escalator for my train he said something quickly and in response to my Pardon?, informed me that he was a gigolo. I laughed in disbelief but he repeated himself and I quickly told him I had no need of his services and we parted on Platform 7 with yet another handshake and my thanks! After which, I savoured the moment and wondered if this was my lowest point in ageing, yet or perhaps my highest. Probably the lowest I decided.

 A minutely-observed portrayal of Ostende beach full of
uninhibited people enjoying Life.

While in England I spent a day with a girl friend in London for lunch and a visit to the James Ensor exhibition, curated by the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans at the R.A. Despite being well recognised in Europe, Ensor is almost unknown in Britain; I was introduced to his often strange images by an artist friend about five or six years ago when we visited the James Ensor Museum in Ostende, the seaside town where he was born and lived all his life. I bought a handsome sketch of him [from a flea market] by David Laing, with the inscription in Laing's handwriting, inscribing the portrait to 'Madame la Marquise Massoni avec mon plus grand respect et toute ma reconnaissance.' It is marked 'Bruxelles le 20 Okt 1951.


 The R.A. exhibition, entitled Intrigue, takes its title from the major painting by the same name which depicts a carnival of eerie, somewhat menacing, figures jostling for a place in the foreground and emitting a sense of unease and theatricality. It is strangely disturbing as are many of the paintings and drawings on view. Ensor remained an odd, eccentric outsider all his life, ignored in his self-chosen isolation during WW1 but enjoying a burgeoning of his reputation during the Twenties. He became feted as Belgium's national artist and famous people courted him in his unfashionable seaside citadel with the King ennobling him as a Baron in 1929. Before he developed his penchant for the macabre and grotesque, Ensor painted conventional, if dull, interiors and still lifes but during the 1880s and 1890s, he freed himself of the bourgeois shackles and embraced the strange, the political satire and blasphemy, the menacing and unsettling, the naughty and irreligious studies of what became his typical oeuvre.

There were several canvasses in the exhibition of crowded scenes and one in particular caught our eye. It was of Ostende beach full of joyful uninhibited people enjoying their moments in the sun [see above] though the Ensor self-portrait in his gorgeous hat remains No 1 in my wish list!

 Possibly my favourite Ensor painting.
Self portrait with Flowered Hat 1883

Pompelut and Flax

 

Pompelut Restaurant

Time has seemed a little short so a corresponding diminutive post. SO enjoying my post-fall conviviality; coffee with friend yesterday; long, long lunch with friends today AND at a restaurant new to me. Pompelut on Schaarstraat is stylish and interesting in the interior and with delicious food and wine. Inside high up there is a row of mushroom-shaped lights to underline the
meaning of the name which is old Flemish for mushroom. Both yesterday in the twilight and again this late afternoon, walking around the centre and admiring the sights and lights, I was especially struck with the huge volume of tourists this year, no doubt for the Christmas Market, but many, many more than in December last year. Earlier this year tourists numbers dropped precipitously after the Brussels airport atrocity and the terrorism in Paris. Today I heard the rumour that tourists are choosing Brugge now as another attack in Paris is expected. Whatever, it is good to

 Part of the Markt

see so many visitors here; I remark that wryly as, during  my first year here, I frequently silently cursed the crowds as they sauntered, dithered, stopped to gaze, not heeding pedestrians behind them trying to pass, waved ice creams recklessly around, threw cigarette butts carelessly around. This year smiles and warm looks are conferred on these contributors to Brugge's prosperity!

Yesterday, Dec 13^th, to the Texture Museum in Kortrijk, commonly referred to as the Flax Museum. I had no idea of the huge importance of flax in West Flanders till yesterday; astonishingly it was the principal economic activity in the area around Kortrijk centred on the River Leie from the Middle Ages until it collapsed in the late 1950s, and the full story was told in this splendid modern museum. Much of it was interactive [always a switch-off for me] and the whole endeavour is more a teaching classroom except for the third floor which contains beautiful examples of fine linen bonnets and shawls and christening gowns from the past three centuries. One member of the group of seven had visited around five years ago and had seen the original museum which

 All parts of the flax process involved back-breaking work. In
the fields well into the twentieth century, horses were vital at
different stages.

h she had preferred with its small tableaux of parts of the flax process, set in small rooms with original furniture and equipment. It had obviously been more of a folk museum than the very modern, spare information centre it now is. There were some marvellous photographs however and an excellent film. Unexpectedly, the adjoining restaurant was very good indeed, pretty full of appreciative locals who used it as a great place to eat rather than as an adjunct to the museum.

A heavy load of flax bundles.

 

The Golden Age of Flanders



The Golden Age of  Flanders 1277-1585

Today to AZ Sint Jan, six weeks exactly since I sprawled over an upstanding cobblestone and fell on my chin. Hoping for the best but geared up for the worst, I discovered that the jaw is healing well and the doctor said I can eat and speak immediately. I questioned the speed of re-entry but she said Oh no; eat nuts, meat, anything you like immediately. I was so elated that the threatened operation was not needed that I went immediately from the bus to Sint Paulus, my favourite bakery nearby, to buy bread and cheese. Felt good to ignore the yoghurt which I have been adding to smoothies in industrial quantities and to accept the congratulations of several of the staff who behaved as if I had done something clever! Then to Cafune, possibly the best coffee in town and near my place, to have a celebratory espresso and more good wishes before home. Fell upon the bread and cheese just purchased and about which I have dreamed for weeks, and ate lots, gingerly, as the left broken hinge hurts a lot when I try to eat. I ploughed on, as advised, and sealed the deal with a Leffe Blonde to make me possibly the happiest person in Brugge!! Eventually I made the first three physio appointments for next week, needing up to 18 sessions as my jaw has lost quite a lot of mobility. This news, strangely, adds to the gaiety of my family and indeed, it is not something I ever expected to write! However imperfect the jaw at the moment, it is nevertheless regenerating and with it, renewing my day to day life! For which many thanks.

 Oud Huis Amsterdam, Woensdagmarkt

Was able to go on Thursday evening to my favourite activity of the normal week; to spend time with the English-speaking group of Bruggelingen. Such fun for me to be welcomed warmly with celebratory Cava and lots of kisses. I met a member, new during my absence, who was refreshingly silly and with her Inner Child on prominent display while the usual members were on their usual form. How the jaw hinge hurt when I left, hours later, but it was worth every twinge!

Awoke with a smile and out in the centre have noticed that, unlike last year, when entire cafe terraces disappeared, this year, One Single Line of tables against the wall, is now allowed. So sensible. In the Markt, all the chalets are in place, with some already filled. The skating rink and the ghostly, gorgeous, spiky, silver 'trees' around it, are in position and ready for the Off. The Christmas Market is edging nearer to the last November weekend and hopefully, lots of festive visitors anxious to sample its pleasures. Brugge does love and need its tourists.

Christmas Market, skating rink

[The paragraphs above were written on or around November 23.
Following is written on December 5th.]

Oh dear, a gap forsooth. The above was written perhaps nearly two weeks ago, and not published because it was unfinished. The first week after The Reprieve, seemed in retrospect, to have been spent doing lots of activities I had missed so much since October 12. Then I have just had a lovely grandson and his gorgeous girl friend to stay for the opening weekend of the Christmas Market, been to a Saturday concert of guitar music by Alexander Makay in the Orgelzaal in the Munt followed by a washing and ironing Sunday when a friend called and packed away all my terrace furniture for me. Friendship indeed! The highlight of my first freedom week [after the speaking/eating ban was lifted], I went with four 'girl' friends on a day trip to Ghent which was marvellous. After my long withdrawal from society, it seemed particularly good to be able to go to an art exhibition and was quite the high-spot of the week, crowned as the outing was, with a super lunch in a canal-side bistro where I chose fish waterzooi with which I am becoming fixated!

 

And the concept behind the exhibition, entitled Voor God en Geld, or the Birth of Capitalism, was intriguing. The power behind the idea and the exhibition was Fernand Huts, Antwerp entrepreneur and art lover whose bold claim is that in essence, Flanders invented capitalism. He boasts, 'Our region was the Silicon Valley of the Middle Ages. For five centuries, we were the epicentre of the world. Later on, that position went to Genoa until it went bankrupt, then Amsterdam,, next London and now New York. But it remains an impressive story; we built capitalism, the rest merely copied it

 Fernand Huts & curator Katharina Van Cauteren

and refined it.' He draws the example of sky high prices for art in contemporary New York because the art scene is bolstered by a strong economy.

Thus the important mediaeval art scene in Flanders was a direct product of the economic success of the region's entrepreneurs. As cities developed, citizens too developed from the hierarchical nobility, clergy and commoners, previously farmers and peasants. Many became entrepreneurs and their accumulated wealth enabled them to show their status in acquiring art. He mentions an impressive list of mediaeval master artists like Breugel, Jan Van Eyck who invented oil paint, Memling and the Flemish Primitives, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers. The Flemish artists were the first to produce for what became the free market; before that time, everything was produced on client's commission, usually the Church or the aristocracy.
 

The exhibition itself is marvellously curated and arranged.  Its art exhibits trace the growth from the early Middle Ages and mediaeval man's strictly limited horizons

Albrecht Durer's terrifying Rhinoceros

to the opening up provided by exploration, shipping, arms technology, textiles, pilgrims, printing, trade and entrepreneurship, the search for luxury. Voor God en Geld provides some wonderful art from artists like Breughel and Memling but for me the greatest surprise and delight came from a totally unexpected appearance by Durer's Rhinoceros which I have always admired but never met in the armour, so to speak.

 Albrecht Durer self portrait 1500

Bruges la Morte

From my sitting room, today.
An antidote to the following first two paragraphs,
which are melancholy and grey.

David Brooks
New York Times journalist

After last week's delightful wander in the garden of illuminated manuscripts while assiduously ignoring American Trumpery, this week after the xenophobic and shoddy election, one just has to wonder aloud at what has happened to cause this tectonic shift in the culture of the U.S. echoing, as it does, the ugliness of the far Right parties in France, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe. I have fairly recently discovered the marvel that is the New York International Times and I read it two or three times a week. It has become my political bible on American politics, with its incisive comment pieces in particular. I discover, from a super piece by David Brooks at the weekend that populism [against which I have been ranting since the Brexit campaign] is always a warning sign that there is some deeper dysfunction in a country's economic, social and cultural systems. Globalisation, unfettered capitalism, and weak governments which do not seek to mitigate the worst effects of the first two, contribute. The arrogance of the rich, the bankers, capitalists, in accepting the relatively recent huge increases in their wealth and their apparent disregard of the very real adversity faced by the majority, have become insupportable.  And the disconnected, the powerless, have struck back and to electrifying effect.

So welcome to the prospect of terrible people as Supreme Court judges; States implicitly encouraged to indulge in even more 'voter suppression'; Jim Crow barely concealed. Oh dear, Europe might add, N.A.T.O. David Brooks hopefully suggests that Trump's main problems will be his own attention span, ignorance and incompetence while blithely and cheerfully guessing that the man will probably resign or be impeached within a year. A cheerful, possibly over-optimistic, note on which to end this depressing little soliloquy.

One example of Nov 15th activity in putting away terraces till
next year. Hotel Craenenburg in the Markt, a more
traditional café than most in that area.

And now back to Brugge and the thankfulness of acknowledging that I do not want to know too much about the labyrinthine politics of Belgium. Today, November 15, important things are happening here. Christmas decorations are up in Genthof; the wooden chalets for the Christmas Market were in the Markt this afternoon and everywhere, cafe terraces had disappeared or were disappearing. November 15 is obviously deemed Disappear Day and I remember last year being shocked when I noticed that all the terraces had vanished, virtually overnight. Now I realise it is timed to coincide with the Christmas Market celebrations even if not all the aforementioned terraces are anywhere near the Christmas Market locations. Certainly pavements are roomier and the November weather today, very Bruges La Morte, with misty, moisty, dim greyness, doesn't invite anyone to sit over a coffee at a little table on the cobblestones. I was surprised though this afternoon to see that the spanking new, expensive glass-sided terrace outside Tom Pouce in the Burg came under the heading of temporary [though it did look expensively permanent] because it, too, had disappeared since yesterday almost entirely.

En route through Astrid Park earlier this week.

We have had an abundance of glorious sunny early Autumn weather but this morning's foggy vapour, through which the Belfort was barely visible though it normally almost knocks on my windows, was strangely welcome. As I said, it is very Bruges la Morte; very reminiscent of the Georges Rodenbach 1892 mournful elegy to his dead love and so poetically evocative. I almost love the dim wetness, the slimy, russet leaves dying beneath one's feet, the emerging skeletons of the many trees, dripping moisture,
guarding squares and corners beside grey, silent canals, more than the bright and shining summer days. These late, quiet, hazy days encourage a blessed anonymity; give a melancholy space for recollection and memory and alone-ness in the often crowded streets. This face of Autumn encourages introspection and a public privacy that is as mysterious as it is compelling.

They also serve ....... 

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