Romanesque art was largely a product of the monasteries, which had emerged after the collapse of the Roman Empire as centres of learning and culture. Equally important were the applied arts of the Germanic and Celtic tribes who inhabited Europe before and after Roman rule, and the legacy of the Byzantine East, political and cultural successor to the Empire.Ī page from the Liber Floridus, written and illustrated in 1121 by Lambert of St-Omer. The art and architecture of twelfth-century Europe is generally known as “Romanesque.” However, the artistic legacy of classical Rome, disseminated throughout the territories of the late Roman Empire, is just one important influence on this style. We focus on the period of the later Middle Ages (twelfth-sixteenth centuries) because earlier illuminated manuscripts are quite rare in the MMFC database, which is why many of them have already been studied and dated by scholars.Ģ From Romanesque to Gothic 2.1 Romanesque: the twelfth to thirteenth centuries
#MEDIEVAL ILLUMINATIONS MANUAL#
In this part of the manual we will give a chronological overview of general art-historical features that may assist in aproximatively dating illuminated manuscripts. Even more problematic is the attempt to assign miniatures or decorations to specific artists or workshops, which requires a great deal of expertise and experience to do successfully. On the other hand, due to the idiosyncrasies of stylistic transmission, medieval copying practices and the unpredictability of manuscripts’ movements and survival, the process of dating and localising a manuscript based on its illuminations is also a tricky one. Like other art forms, manuscript illumination followed both local tradition and broader cultural trends, and reflected the prevailing aesthetic, the concerns of patrons and producers, the availability of materials and the skill of individual craftsmen and women.īy carefully examining the painted decorations of medieval manuscripts and comparing them with the details of other manuscripts, many of which can be precisely dated and localised through inscriptions, colophons and inventories, it is often possible to assign a date and place of origin even when this information is not found in the manuscript itself. The beautification of the written word and the embellishment of the page were practiced continuously throughout the medieval period.
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