Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms by Michelle P. Brown (review)

If alphabetical glossary books of medieval art can be treasures on their own, this beautifully conceived and amply illustrated text certainly fills that desideratum. Michelle Brown’s excellent original 1994 Getty volume has been updated to include scientific processes and terms have been expanded with many added color images. This revised edition of legendary Michelle Brown, previous curator of the inestimable British Library manuscript collections, is now sumptuously updated by Elizabeth Teviotdale, author of The Stammheim Missal for Getty Publications, and Nancy K. Turner, conservator of manuscripts in the Getty Museum, each bringing requisite expertise and a lifetime of scholarship to this task. Teviotdale is also a Medieval musicologist, relevant here for antiphonals and related musical entries, while Turner is also scientifically trained in XRF manuscript scanning, vital for analytical approaches to manuscripts.

Thus reflecting recent scientific archaeometric and conservation applications, forensic analyses have added new scientific terms to this 2018 revision. New entry terms include Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging (p. 73) of manuscripts using, for example, IR (infrared) or UV (ultraviolet) imaging for chemical provenance of pigments as well as Proteomics (p. 87) for understanding protein profiles of parchments verifying the exact animal species, among other new terms.

In addition as mentioned, there are more color images in the revised edition than in the original. In fact, in the revised edition nearly every image is in full color, including front matter, and in this revised edition there are only two opposite page-sets without any image (pp. 78–79 & 83–84). The images have also been updated: for example, in the newer version the dramatic entry for Apocalypse is the Beatus of Liébana’s commentary detached leaf of The Lamb Defeating the Ten Kings from Spain, ca. 1220, in the Getty Museum Collection. The 1994 edition has the much smaller and less compelling image of Berengaudus’ Seven-Headed Dragon and The Woman’s Child Taken Up to Heaven, ca. 1255, also in the Getty Museum Collection. Many pages even have three color images and in the main the images have higher resolution than in the earlier edition and are often larger.

Several of my favorite and somewhat arcane entry terms in this Getty revision (although also in the 1994 original) and here with perfectly illustrated amplification are Gauffering and Volvelle, pp. 45 & 113 respectively. Gauffering was rare then and even more so now, as it decorated the gilded page edges at top or bottom with patterns generally using a heated binder, resulting in a dramatic effect when a book is closed and flat, thus emphasizing side details rather than solely the typical elaborate covers. A Volvelle was an attached, often inserted, handmade sliding or revolving chart on a manuscript on a disc or foldout with pointers, mainly used for calculations or calendrical, astronomical and astrological calibrations. Another useful but more common term is Grisaille for monochrome painting in “shades of gray” (later employed by Mantegna in his Cybele and Samson and Delilah paintings but in different colors). Here its stated French synonym is Camaïeul, once exchangeable with cameo but using two or three tints of the same hue. For such a volume, alphabetic organization is immensely sensible for glossary format.

Anyone lucky enough to teach medieval art will find this little book one of the most satisfying and necessary additions to a library and arguably a required text for students given its affordability and textual clarity of glossary definitions as well as lavish images worth poring over for well-spent hours of aesthetic pleasure.