March 17 - June 12, 2011

During Winter Quarter 2011 the students enrolled in History of Art and Visual Culture 135f organized, prepared and installed an exhibit on the history of the medieval book. This project took the place of a final exam. The class was held in McHenry Library and taught by Elisabeth Remak-Honnef. The items selected from the University Library’s main stacks and Special Collections provide a glimpse of what the course attempted to cover in a quarter: a survey of about a thousand years of the evolution of book production and use in Europe. Concentrating primarily on medieval illuminated manuscripts, the class looked at different types of books to examine how they were made, for whom they were made, how they were used and how and why they were decorated, and also how they have survived.

This exhibit, entitled “Artists Authors and Aristocrats”, focuses on the role of artists in the production of medieval books. The cases contain facsimiles of about twenty illuminated manuscripts, grouped primarily by subject matter and function. Two of the cases also contain original artwork made by students in the class, including several handmade books and lithographs. Some of the facsimiles are recent acquisitions including illuminated copies of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Legend of Alexander from the fourteenth century, and a ninth century picture poem in praise of the holy cross. 

--Elisabeth Remak-Honnef