Renaissance Painting at the Morgan: Miniatures in Context?

Abstract

The exhibition Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the British Library, held recently at the Pierpont Morgan Library, afforded an opportunity to study some of the most splendid illuminated manuscripts produced in Flanders, Italy, and France during the century after the invention of printing, from roughly 1450 to 1560. The core of the exhibition consisted of twenty-five books, of which twenty-four are manuscripts and one a printed book, all generously lent by the British Library in London. These include magnificent works attributed to the painters Simon Marmion, Gerard David, and Simon Bening, in Flanders; Pietro Perugino, Attavante degli Attavanti, and Giulio Clovio, in Italy; and Jean Fouquet, Jean Bourdichon, and Jean Perréal, in France.