Seeking information on illuminated manuscripts online

October 6, 2013 9:52 AM

I am interested in learning more about illuminated manuscripts--from ancient times to today, both sacred and secular. I also want to look at some of them in their entirety. What are the coolest illuminated manuscripts that have been digitized and made available online? What makes them so great? Also, are there any great videos about illuminated manuscripts? Any leads would be most appreciated.
posted by mortaddams to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

It won't give you much background on the history of illuminated manuscripts, but the The Digital Scriptorium is a nice site. It's a searchable image database of medieval manuscripts in US Special Collections libraries.
posted by bibliowench at 10:04 AM on October 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

http://xkcd.com/593/
posted by Jacen at 10:08 AM on October 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

There's a novel called People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It's about an art restorer who is called in to work on an illuminated manuscript -- the Sarajevo Haggadah. The novel takes you through the history of the haggadah, from its creation through the various purges it survived. Brooks is big on research and ensuring her novels are as historically accurate as possible, so not only is the book a great read, but it's probably got a bunch of resources at the back suggesting further reading. Definitely worth checking out.
posted by brina at 10:12 AM on October 6, 2013

More on the haggadah: Wikipedia, images from the museum.
posted by brina at 10:15 AM on October 6, 2013

The British Library site has lots of digitized manuscripts online.
posted by zeri at 10:16 AM on October 6, 2013

The Book of Kells is online. It made me weep, a little bit.
posted by Mizu at 10:16 AM on October 6, 2013

Can't link right now, but look for the Saint John Bible and the Pepper Bible - both modern illuminated bibles.
posted by SyraCarol at 10:34 AM on October 6, 2013

You may want to check out Chicago's Newberry Library. Especially their Digital Resources site. They have a great collection; you may want to poke around for stuff like this, this, or this.
posted by Tchad at 10:56 AM on October 6, 2013

The Morgan Library has a number of great digitized manuscripts and articles about their collection. UCLA hosts a slightly outdated roundup here but many institutions have some manuscripts online like here, here, or here.
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

For a video, try the Getty's Making Manuscripts. This exhibition is a good starting point for understanding imagery, and try this one for understanding how a book of hours was used. Two of my absolute favorites are both at the Morgan: The Black Hours and the Hours of Catharine of Cleves.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:19 PM on October 6, 2013

There's also a pretty lush Book of Kells app, if you have an iPad. Could've sworn it was free, but they seem to be charging now. Might be worth keeping an eye on it.
posted by mumkin at 1:58 PM on October 6, 2013

I am also a big fan of the Discarding Images tumblr, which collects humorous and scandalous images from various manuscripts.
posted by jetlagaddict at 2:39 PM on October 6, 2013

BibliOdyssey has many gorgeous posts on illuminated manuscripts and it's run by MeFi's own peacay.
posted by islander at 4:28 PM on October 6, 2013

Check out this website. https://www2.atla.com/digitalresources/ There is a section on manuscripts that may just what you are looking for in it. All of these will be from Theological Libraries as this is a site maintained by the American Theological Librarian Association.
posted by Jewel98 at 7:47 PM on October 6, 2013

Here's Syracuse University's library collection:

Medieval Manuscripts

You can look at most of these online if you click on the manuscript links, and there are some other helpful links there.
posted by pepper bird at 8:23 PM on October 6, 2013

The Walters Museum has a nice set of images online from their manuscript collection.
posted by forkisbetter at 10:00 AM on October 7, 2013

http://sexycodicology.net/ has a good roundup of digitised illuminated manuscripts.
posted by poissonrouge at 10:46 AM on October 7, 2013

There's also the new blog Manuscript Road Trip, which has a lot of links to digitized collections and information about the collections they've visited! If you're in the US, you should see if there are manuscripts by you-- you may even be able to visit the holding library to see them in person, and ask any questions that you may have about them.

Full disclosure, I know some of the students who worked on this, but Bryn Mawr College has an online student/curator exhibit on the use of Books of Hours that's easy to read.
posted by jetlagaddict at 10:52 AM on October 7, 2013

Here is some info on the St. John's Bible, a modern illuminated bible.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:20 AM on October 7, 2013