Pages from the Past: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston-Area Collections

FAIN: GI-228479-15

President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA 02138-3800)
Jeffrey Hamburger (Project Director: August 2014 to August 2015)
William Stoneman (Project Director: September 2015 to November 2017)

Implementation of a multi-venue exhibition, a catalog, and public programs on illuminated manuscripts in Western Europe from late antiquity to the rise of printing prior to the Reformation.

"Pages from the Past: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston-Area Collections" explores the history of humanistic culture from Late Antiquity to the Reformation through books that made possible its transmission and transformation. Complemented by extensive public programming, a website, scholarly catalogue, and conference, this unprecedented exhibition, scheduled for September through December 2016, includes 200 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts of exceptional importance. Focusing on the relationship of making to meaning, the project puts the present media revolution in a deep historical perspective. Reflecting the project's consortial character, the manuscripts will be displayed at three venues: the McMullen Museum, Boston College; Houghton Library, Harvard University; and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Fourteen Boston-area institutions are participating as lenders. A permanent Boston-area special collections consortium is also proposed.