This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.
Painting in books was a major art form in the Middle Ages
and Renaissance. The artistic achievements of Italian manuscript
illuminators from six regions in Italy from the 12th to the
16th centuries are explored through more than forty-five exquisite
volumes, individual leaves, and miniatures from the J. Paul
Getty Museum, as well as a select number of related medals
and panel paintings from the Gallery's own collection,
a seven-minute video on the complex process of creating a manuscript,
and listening stations of recorded Gregorian chants that appear
in two of the choir books on display.
The exhibition focuses on six cities or geographic regions that were important for making manuscripts, each with its own artistic traditions and circumstances of production. The exhibition begins in southern Italy with a Breviary from Montecassino, the cradle of Benedictine monasticism, and then proceeds to Bologna, the site of the first medieval university, and on to Siena, Florence, and the Renaissance courts of northern Italy. It ends in Rome, the seat of papal power and home to some of the greatest High Renaissance works of art.