Manuscript Facsimiles
The unique manuscripts featured in this exhibition offer students and scholars an exceptional opportunity to learn from authentic medieval artifacts. But, while nothing can replace the experience of working with originals, quality facsimile editions of manuscript books are equally important to research and teaching. Since process color printing became possible in the mid-19th century, publishers have produced thousands of medieval manuscript facsimiles. These "imitation" manuscripts broaden access to some of the chief works of the medieval period, without requiring scholars to travel long distances to view originals in the world’s great libraries and museums. Today, high quality facsimile editions are photo-mechanically produced with close attention to accuracy and detail, and are quite costly.
Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
This luxurious facsimile edition of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry was published in 1984. The original manuscript is at the Condé Museum in Chantilly, France.
The Très Riches Heures is one of the world’s best-known examples of a medieval book of hours. Painted sometime between 1412 and 1416 by the brothers Paul, Hermann and Jean Limbourg for the wealthy collector and art connoisseur Jean de Berry, the illuminations are celebrated for their exceptional beauty.
The Peterborough Bestiary
This prospectus announces the forthcoming publication of the Peterborough Bestiary. The painstaking photographic process used to reproduce the manuscript has captured not only the text and rich decorations, but also the color variations and stains in the original parchment.
Produced in England in about 1300, the Peterborough Bestiary features 104 vivid miniatures representing local, exotic, and mythological animals in the high Gothic style. The bestiary is so named because it is thought to have belonged to the monks of Peterborough Abbey, once one of the richest monasteries in England. The medieval library was scattered when the abbey was forced to close in the 1540s. The Bestiary was rescued by the archbishop Matthew Parker, who intrusted it in 1574 to his famous library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where it still remains.