Hardback. White board with red title and illuminated manusccipt on the front board.

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Prior to the invention of the printing press, all books had to be written by hand. Manuscripts are the beautiful manifestation of this craft, and the most precious and expensive of such manuscripts were ‘illuminated’ through the use of brightly coloured pigments and gold embellishments. Beginning with a fresh and thoughtful introduction to illuminated manuscripts, Illuminated Manuscripts Masterpieces of Art goes on to showcase key works in this stunning artistic genre.

Review: A word of caution: this is an attractive little book suitable as an introduction to the subject for an interested beginner, but it is far from scholarly, and in one respect at least is rather seriously misleading. Quite early on, as the second full-page plate, it reproduces what it calls a ‘Manuscript from the Book of Kells, Ireland, c. 800’ from ‘A Private Collection’. This is puzzling, since you don’t have to be particularly learned about illuminated manuscripts to know that The Book of Kells is one of the treasures of Trinity College Library, Dublin, and certainly doesn’t belong to any private individual. This wouldn’t really matter if the reproduction was indeed from the Book of Kells, but it isn’t. It has a superficial resemblance to one of the illuminations in the Book of Kells – Christ Enthroned, Folio 32v – but there are many differences of colour, detail and general quality, and it is captioned as being a portrait of St. Matthew. There IS a portrait of St Matthew in the Book of Kells (Folio 28v) but it is completely different from this illustration, which – in the absence of any other evidence – I can only presume to be a modern pastiche.

This is all very strange, since the Book of Kells is hardly an obscure work, and if the author – or more likely the publishers and/or the picture editor – is mistaken on this point, it is difficult to trust them on other matters, though I hasten to add that to the best of my (very partial) knowledge the other attributions in the book are correct.

Michael Kerrigan has written widely on both the history of art and literature. Recent books on the English tradition include Paul Nash: Masterpieces of Art. A longstanding interest in the mythic and mystic traditions has given rise to books including Celtic Legends and The Bible: A Dark History, and a chapter on ‘Inklings of Other Worlds, 1946–59’ in The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy & Horror. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, he lives with his family in Edinburgh.