The Splendor of the Word
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the New York Public Library
by Jonathan J.J.G. Alexander, James Marrow and Lucy Freeman-Sandler
Paperback (Out of print)
(December 2005)
ISBN: 9781905375004
Price: $70.00
Out of stock
The New York Public Library’s collection of nearly three hundred Western European illuminated manuscripts is one of the largest in America but also one that is very little known. Dating from the turn of the tenth century unto well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who discovered ever-new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. To introduce this magnificent collection and many of its most important works to scholars and the wider audience, The Splendor of the Word presents one hundred manuscripts of particular cultural, historical, and artistic significance,selected from the Library’s collection by three of the most distinguished scholars in the field–Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, a specialist in early medieval, Romanesque, and Italian illuminated manuscripts;James H. Marrow, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University, a specialist in late medieval illuminated manuscripts; and Lucy Freeman Sandler, Professor of Art History Emerita at New York University, a specialist in Gothic illuminated manuscripts. The makers of medieval illuminated manuscripts invested their books with sparkle and visual energy. They did so to stimulate delight, imagination, and memory-to make of them objects that fascinate and charm as well as instruct. One need have no knowledge of medieval languages or habits of thought to appreciate the high quality and the aesthetic ebullience of the finely crafted manuscripts shown here, for the very first time, to anyone interested in the ways that books help to define the social, intellectual, and imaginative horizons of their users. Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, a specialist in early medieval, Romanesque, and Italian illuminated manuscripts. James H. Marrow, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University, a specialist in late medieval illuminated manuscripts Lucy Freeman Sandler, Professor of Art History Emerita at New York University, a specialist in Gothic illuminated manuscripts.
- By (author) Jonathan JJG Alexander
- By (author) Lucy Freeman-Sandler
- By (author) James Marrow
Other Titles in this Series
Manuscript Painting in Thirteenth-Century Flanders
Bruges, Ghent and the Circle of the Counts
Volume 63
Bringing the Holy Land Home
The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece
Volume 3
A Renaissance Wedding
The Celebrations at Pesaro for the Marriage of Costanzo Sforza & Camilla Marzano d'Aragona (26 - 30 May 1475)
Volume 71
Late Gothic Sculpture in Northern Italy
Andrea da Giona and I Maestri Caronesi: An Addition to the Pantheon of Venetian Sculptors
North-European Panel Paintings
A Catalogue of Netherlandish and German Paintings before 1600 in English Churches and Colleges
Volume 6
The Architectural Drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and His Circle
Vol. III: Antiquity and Theory
The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela
A Critical Edition: Volume I, The Manuscripts and Volume II, The Text
Volume 14
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Portraying the Individual in the Roman East
Local–Imperial Entanglements in Sculpture, Mosaics, and Paintings (First–Fourth Centuries AD)
Volume 18
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Technical Studies of Asian Art
Proceedings of the Seventh Forbes Symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz
