The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

At work: Dr Paul Binski (centre) and Dr Stella Panayotova (right) examine a medieval manuscript with a student
importance of technical data in enlarging our
understanding of artistic practices. It also serves to
remind us of the interdependence of the arts and
crafts in the Middle Ages, of the materials common
to painting and sculpture; wood, glass and metal and
the similar skills they demanded. Nowhere is this
clearer than in the Westminster Retable, or what
survives of it. Work is already well advanced at the
Institute, on this noble ruin of an altarpiece, once a
prime example of courtly art, a glittering assemblage
of painting, carving, jewellery and metalwork, all of
the very highest quality. Looking closely at individual
figures within this and other altarpieces is to be
reminded, once again, of the close relationship
between painting on panel and painting on vellum;
a sufficiently close relationship in some cases to
suggest a common origin in the same workshop.
While these investigations continue at the Hamilton
Kerr Institute, a group of Cambridge scholars have
embarked on a research project which encompasses
the Colleges as well as the University Library and the
Fitzwilliam Museum. Its purpose is to catalogue all of
the medieval manuscripts in Cambridge, some of
which have been in college libraries since the
Reformation and some of which, spectacularly so in
the case of the Macclesfield Psalter, are recent
acquisitions. Stella Panayotova, Keeper of Manuscripts
and Printed Books, was already working on the
catalogue when she transferred from the University
Library to the Museum. Two years ago she proposed
to highlight the project in the exhibition of The
Cambridge Illuminations, which will open here and
at the University Library during the summer of 2005.
No fewer than fifteen colleges have agreed to lend
their treasures to what will be the most spectacular
display of European illuminated manuscripts
mounted in recent years; comparison has already
been made with Sydney Cockerell’s exhibition held
at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1907. It will range
from the Ottonian manuscripts in the Parker Library,
Corpus Christi College, to the Renaissance cuttings,
or single leaves, in the Fitzwilliam’s own collection.
In selecting the objects and writing the catalogue,
Dr Panayotova has been joined by a distinguished
group of scholars from Cambridge and abroad,
including Dr Binski and two of our Honorary
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Research