by The current exhibit of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the reading room of the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library explores how texts were arranged and laid out on the pages of medieval books. A variety of the most common manuscript texts commissioned and circulated in the Middle Ages is on display. The different dimensions and layouts of the manuscripts in the exhibit reflect their function, the manner of their use, and the places of their production — France, Italy, and Ethiopia. The types of books represented are bibles, music, devotional works, law texts, legal documents, and a leaf from a manual of veterinary medicine. They are written in one or two columns in a variety of scripts, and even the handwriting utilized for a particular genre of text reflects the conventions of a traditional or regional custom.
The single bound manuscript and individual leaves on exhibit provide a survey of different systems of visual organization of the written and decorated page. Scribes and illuminators used different types of graphic and ornamental devices to identify the different parts of a given text. Colored paint and precious gold, often with figured images, introduce the most important text divisions, such as an opening prologue or the beginnings of books or chapters. In a leaf from a Book of Hours produced in northern France or Flanders ca. 1460 (VFL MS 4e), the Madonna of the Apocalypse — represented here by a figure of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child and outlined against the sun and within a crescent moon — introduces a devotional prayer called Obsecro te (I beseech you). It was a popular prayer to the Virgin found in most Books of Hours, begging her intercession with God for the benefit of the reader/sinner.
Another leaf, from a Roman law text (Justinian’s Authenticum) produced in Bologna ca. 1280–90 (VFL MS 7), opens with a little tonsured head inside an initial D against a blue background. The passage discusses the affairs of bishops, clerics, and monks. Colored ink and pen work flourishing distinguish smaller sections, such as paragraphs, lines, or verses. Note also the manicule, or pointing finger, in the lower inside margin drawing the reader’s attention to an item in the text.
Students, faculty, and the general public are welcome to visit the Vatican Film Library during the hours of 9am–5pm, Monday through Friday, to view the exhibit, which runs through December 2012 and is curated by Susan L’Engle, Assistant Director of the Vatican Film Library.
