Illuminated Manuscripts Resources

The purpose of this guide is to support ENGL 2045 Image, Text, Manuscript. This is not a comprehensive guide or gateway but rather a starting point to information in the area:

If you know of an interesting site that is not listed please make a suggestion.

Catalogue Resources at the University of Sydney

The Library has a great number of resources that will assist your research. The most effective way to find these is to search the Library's catalogue by subject. A tutorial is available if you are unsure how to do this.

When searching the catalogue by subject it is important to know the correct subject heading. The following is a list of examples to assist you.
For references to manuscript collections you may use

For information on manuscripts and related art:

Databases

The following is a list of recommended databases that will assist in the quest for information on the topic of Image, Text and Manuscripts. The list is by no means exhaustive and you should also constult the large list of databases that the library subscribes to in the areas of Art History and Theory and English Literature.

EBBO - Early English Books Online.
From the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War, Early English Books Online (EEBO) will contain over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).

Art Index
A bibliographic database that indexes articles from periodicals published throughout the world on art.

BHA
BHA is a bibliographic database that contains current literature on European art from late antiquity to the present, and American art from the European discoveries to the present. Photography and contemporary media are covered but film as dramatic art is not included. Covers art anywhere in the world that reflects contact with the Western tradition. Please note you will need a userid and password to access this database.

MLA
Contains bibliographic references to scholarly works, literature, linguistics and folklore in English, French, German, Italian and other languages on the topics of literature, literary theory and criticism, genres, linguistics and folklore.

LLBA
Abstracts of journal articles, citations of relevant dissertations, book review citations, book abstracts and abstracts of association papers on liguistics.

British Humanities Index - Trial

Internet Resources

Libraries and Collections

Bibliothèque nationale de France - Cabinet des Manuscrits.
Information about and digital examples of material held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Bodleian Library - Images of manuscripts.
A collection of nearly a thousand digital images and information about the manuscripts they have come from.

Koninklijke Bibliotheek - National Library of the Netherlands and the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum.
This site provides selected highlights of illuminated manuscripts held by both institutions and is browsable by subject.

University of Sydney Library - Treasures of the Rare Book Library
Virtual exhibition of material held by the Rare Books Library at the Univerrsity of Sydney.

Projects and Exhibitions

The Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library MS 24)
This is the digital version of the manuscript which written and illuminated in England around 1200.

Early Manuscripts at Oxford University
This site provides access to over 80 early manuscripts now in institutions associated with the University of Oxford including:

Web Gallery of Art - Illuminated manuscripts (miniatures) from the 12th to 16th centuries
Links to examples of the Gothic and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts

Leaves of Gold
Leaves of Gold is a collaborative exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries.

General Resources

Art History Resources - Art of the Middle Ages

Grover Furr's Medieval History and Literature Page

Medieval Sourcebook
An extensive list of resources in the area of medieval literature available on the web.

The Online Resource Book for Medieval Studies (ORB)
A cooperative effort on the part of scholars across the internet to establish an online textbook source for medieval studies on the World-Wide Web.

Manuscripts, Paleography, Codicology
A list of interesting links.

Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL)
A collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization

How to make

Making Manuscripts (Getty Museum)
Includes video.

Medieval Calligraphy
The site was developed for a class project for the Survey of Publishing course at Harvard University's Extension School

Calligraphy and Illumination Links
List of interesting links on the subject of illumination.