Illumino: A History of Medieval Britain in Twelve Illuminated Manuscripts

by Michelle P. Brown

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 320
Rating:

Synopsis:

Incandescent with illustrations, a history of Britain as told through a remarkable collection of illuminated manuscripts--at once chronicles of their time and works of art.

Illumino explores the history of medieval Britain through the biographies of twelve remarkable illuminated manuscripts and their creators. Each manuscript serves as a gateway into the lives of its makers and commissioners, and as a springboard into the era of its creation. Illuminated manuscripts are among the most intricate and fascinating forms of medieval evidence, blending literature, art, science, faith, and human thought with the materiality of their production. By undertaking the detective work needed to determine the nature of each project and the underlying human-interest stories, this book reveals their social, economic, and cultural contexts and charts the exchange of ideas and materials across time and space. Featuring over a hundred beautiful illustrations, this is a unique and accessible introduction to Britain's history as well as art and book history over a thousand years.

Michelle P. Brown’s Illumino is a really lovely volume, beautifully illustrated with in-line colour images. There are full-page images and double-page spreads, as well as smaller images set into the text, and it’s all pretty gorgeous. All in all, it does make for a good history of manuscripts.

What it isn’t is a good history in manuscripts. I love this genre of “a history of X in Y things”, and the best remember to keep the focus on the object, and use the object to tell the story. There are glimpses of it here, like the reference to a girdle book belonging to Anne Boleyn that contains a love-note written by Henry VIII — but that’s not the manuscript the chapter is about.

Mostly, this is a history of medieval Britain that mentions many more than twelve illuminated manuscripts, throwing names and contexts at the reader swiftly, and sticking to what feels like only a handful of pages actually about the manuscripts discussed in the chapter. This might be more satisfying and more relevant if you’re interested in more general manuscript culture in Britain, and at another time I might be… but I was promised a history in twelve manuscripts, and I’d be hard-pressed to name even six of the manuscripts that allegedly headed their chapters here.

I’ve encountered this a couple of times now, and I think it’s a desire to jump aboard a trend that readers (including yours truly) enjoy. Don’t do it if that’s not the book you want to write, please! We actually want the format we bought the book for.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)