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"Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is a captivating examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history--and about the modern world, too. In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys that these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time and shows us how they have been copied, how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity, and who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell). From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium. Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge"--… (more)
Media reviews
Christopher de Hamel has spent most of his life researching and thinking about his subject, for years as the chief specialist in medieval
Some of the manuscripts are perfectly exquisite, some ungainly, some inexplicable, but, as De Hamel says himself, "intrinsic beauty is a difficult conception in art history". Although pages from all 12 are beautifully reproduced in his book, and although he describes them, their histories and their meanings in minute detail, still the power of this volume lies not so much in its scholarship as in its love.
User reviews
Probably great for rare book collectors
Job done.
Twelve chapters. Twelve manuscripts. Each chapter follows the same formula. De Hamel gives you the history of how the book came to be in its current library and describes his visit.
An incredibly interesting and readable book. The first night I looked up from it and realised it was four in the morning. The second night I knew what was going to happen so I napped before starting to read. The sun was up by the time I went to bed. This book has charm. I should think de Hamel does too. He managed to talk his way into examining each and every one of these books. The Codex Amiatinus. The Book of Kells. Obviously he has the credentials and knows the right people, but still... do you think they’d ever let me in to see the Hengwrt Chaucer? They’d take one look at me and think of that scene in Red Dragon where he eats the Blake. And quite right too. There’s a church near me with priceless medieval wall paintings. I went to see them and talked to the vicar for a while about the cost of insuring thatch (the church is thatched). I don’t know if I charmed her or bored her, but after a while she went off to do something, iron her cassock or something, and as soon as I was left alone with the paintings I climbed up on the pews and poked them all over.
One of the most interesting chapters for me was the Carmina Burana. I’m a fan of Orff’s musical number but mad never really thought about the source of the lyrics. It is of course a unique manuscript. All other copies are later printings edited from it. De Hamel’s analysis of its format as a kind of secular Breviary was particularly enlightening.
This is to say nothing of the illustrations in Remarkable Manuscripts. On its edge the book looks like geological strata. And those are just the illustrations that run to the edge of the page. The list of illustrations runs to seven pages of close type. Shame about the type face, but the paper is beautiful. Has a glow to it in the right light. Physically a well made book and all for thirty quid. That’s only three packets of fags. I borrowed my copy from the library.