The Fitzwilliam Museum houses an incredibly fine collection of medieval manuscripts. Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam (1745-1816) bequeathed his art collection and library (including 130 manuscripts) to the University of Cambridge in 1816, together with a donation tu build a museum where his artworks are now kept. The collection grew substantially by the donations of Frank McClean in 1904 (203 mss.), Charles Faifax Murray in 1904 and 1905 (30 mss.) and Charles Brinsley Marlay (1831-1912), including his collection of 240 cuttings from medieval manuscripts dating from the 12th to the 16th century. In a time when collection manuscripts was an almost exclusive passion of learned collectors and the last great private collections were formed (one only needs to think of the beginnings of J.P. Morgan's famous library, which was opened to the public by his son in 1924, and Henry Yates Thompson's legendary 100, that, much to the distress of Rhodes Montague James and others were not given to a public collection but instead sold separately in 1919 and 19201), the early directors of the Fitzwilliam Museum (R.M. James and Sydney Cockerell) moreover enlarged the collection through spectacular acquisitions (They weren't the only museum directors to seek extraordinary manuscripts for their collections: in 1882 the Prussian State acquired the collection of another great amateur, Alexander Douglas Hamilton, 10th duke of Hamilton, prior to its sale but was then forced to sell parts of it again in order to pay for it2).
Today, the Fitzwilliam Museum houses an outstanding collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, a fantastic portion of it is currently on view in the exhibition COLOUR. The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts. But the exhibition is much more than a dazzlingly beautiful show of manuscript treasures, it is the fruit of a years-long interdisciplinary research project on the non-invasive scientific study of illuminated manuscripts from all regions of the world that are represented in the museum's collection: MINIARE. And between 8-10 December, international experts, conservators, scientists and art historians gathered in Cambridge for the conference "Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science" (the programme is available here) to present their research projects and discuss their findings, in a true effort to bridge the gap between scientific research results and historical interpretation.
This account (as the writer only attended one of three full days) starts on the night of 8 December, while listening to an ardent opening speech to a splendid soirée on the necessity of studying and exhibiting medieval manuscripts, that are always an attractant to most visitors as they are among the most inaccessible but - at least in the case of the Fitzwilliam holdings - well-preserved and complex objects surviving from these far distant times that we call the Middle Ages. They trigger the interest with their (to the modern eye) unusual secretive beauty. It might just be their key quality to making us wanting to learn exactly why an object as (again, spoken from the modern perspective of plentitute in a post-printing era) common as a book could have survived for over 1.300 years, could have become witness to rulership, bastion of faith, with the capacity to constitute justiciability and veneration. Of course one needs to add that these objects are the peek of craftsmanship in a period that is often referred to as the "dark ages", impressive in their patient and refined scribal execution and attention to minute perfection in creating decorations and imagery that seem to transcend this notion. The second appeal was for collaboration within the field of study and its benefits: not only, as the papers presented the following day were about to show, does the comprehensive analysis of illuminated manuscripts demand time, combined work experience and expertise to develop a methodology and framework for interpretation, but it also carries the promise to overcome the limitations of individual scholarship to benefit a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of an object's or a group of objects' history, which might be one of the most important gains for the discipline.
Without attempting to recount every paper, some of the broader themes presented on 9 December included the use of different non-invasive analytical methods to create a more complete understanding of technical properties, especially with regards to identifying pigments and binders and the advantages of image mapping over point-analysis, the general analytical methodology in order to generate comparative data, and the usability of examination results applied to the art historical study and broader understanding of artistic techniques, workshop practices, as well as regional and temporal specifities for materials used in illuminated manuscripts.3
Particular attention was also given to questions relating illuminators' practices and materials to other areas of artistic production and creating an artistic topography based on physical properties and technical comparison.4 Another very insightful session focussed on the use of metals as both pigment and in leaf form, as well as the changing practices of their use throughout the centuries.5
While looking forward to the conference proceedings, the exhibition, on view until 2 January, is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue that presents an impressive portion of the research project's findings: Stella Panayotova (Ed.), Colour: Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2016.