Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts,from one of the world’s leading experts. Winner of The Wolfson History Prize and The Duff Cooper Prize. A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Book Gift Guide Pick! 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 worldtoo. In so doingde Hamel introduces us to kingsqueenssaintsscribesartistslibrariansthievesdealersand collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys that these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time and shows us how they have been copiedhow they have been embroiled in politicshow they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identityand 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 Talesthese 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 Americathe Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Part travel bookpart detective storypart conversation with the readerMeetings 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.