Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from the Philadelphia Collections. (Shorter Notices).

Alexander, Michael

ed. James R. Tanis (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), xiv + 256 pp.; 143 colour and 42 black and white illustrations. ISBN 0-87633-1445-2, $55.00 (hard covers); 0-87633-144-4, $34.95 (p/b). This volume records a major collaborative exhibition of manuscript illustrations taken from collections held in eleven Philadelphia institutions, comprising 500 volumes; eighty manuscripts are described. It reaches the highest standards of colour reproduction with illustrations from a range of mostly late-medieval manuscripts, clerical, medical, and lay. It contains clear and detailed scholarly essays on the collectors, how manuscripts were made, bibles, psalters, books of hours, liturgical manuscripts, and literary and secular texts. These are admirably suited to their introductory purpose, and begin at the beginning: `Young, healthy animals will produce the best parchment. Kill each animal by stunning it with a heavy rock, and hang the carcass upside down to drain the blood from its veins. This will make for an evenly colored sheet of parchment. Then skin the calves ...' (`From calf to codex'). The merit of the book lies in the vision that guided and put together the exhibition and the firm editorial control which bears the needs of readers, learned or lewed, always in mind. It describes and introduces manuscripts which have never been described, and experts will find much that is new. Such books would however be better still if they would both transcribe and translate the portions of text visible in the illustration.