The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

10 The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production
in the Medieval West
Exhibitions
The Hours of Isabella
Stuart (c. 1431) Virgin
and Child with
scenes from the Life
of the Virgin,
Fitzwilliam Museum,
MS 62, fol. 141v
James H. Marrow
Mounted from 26 July through 30 December 2005, The Cambridge Illuminations was a
landmark exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the exhibition gallery of the University
Library and, indeed, in the history of exhibitions devoted to illuminated manuscripts in the
British Isles. The first major exhibition devoted exclusively to medieval manuscripts under the
auspices of the Fitzwilliam Museum, it presented a selection of 215 of the most important
western European medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, cuttings, and
documents held in collections at Cambridge, including a good many works very little known
even among specialists.
The material on display, which spanned some “ten
centuries of book production in the medieval West”
- the subtitle of the exhibition - included works of
extraordinary historical, intellectual, social and
artistic importance. No exhibition of medieval and
Renaissance manuscripts of comparable scope or
importance had ever been held in Cambridge, and
in the British Isles only the exhibition of illuminated
manuscripts held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in
London in 1908, organized by Sydney Cockerell in
the same year he was appointed to the directorship
of the Fitzwilliam Museum, presented a larger group
of works.
Probably the greatest achievement of the show, and
the single most important cause of its success, was
the fact that it was mounted at all, for few medieval
manuscripts are ever exhibited or, for that matter,
seen. Illuminated manuscripts, even in many of the
most highly reputed collections, are very little
known, the great majority unpublished or published
only superficially and increasingly difficult of access
for reasons that include legitimate concerns for their
conservation. As opposed to most other works of
medieval art, illuminated manuscripts are held
primarily in libraries rather than museums. This
difference is important because museums are
devoted to the display of their collections, while
most libraries are primarily warehouses for books
rather than centres that have traditionally committed
major resources to the systematic display and
publication of their holdings. In Cambridge medieval
manuscripts are distributed widely among the