About
Illuminated manuscripts from the Medieval to the Renaissance era are known for their intricate decoration and detailed illustrations. One of the most popular decorative styles in these manuscripts was floral illumination, which used brightly colored flowers and leaves to create ornate borders, initials, and other decorative elements. The use of floral illuminations in European and Arabic manuscripts has long been a subject of fascination and intrigue for scholars and enthusiasts alike. These intricate designs and patterns, often found in the margins of texts, are frequently imbued with deeper symbolic meanings and hidden messages, making them a rich area of exploration for those interested in the art and literature of the Middle and Renaissance Ages. With this digital exhibit, we will be exploring the symbolic significance of floral illumination within selected manuscripts from multiple cultures.
The concept for this project came to our attention when we realized how difficult it was to gain context for the majority of digitized manuscript pages. Floral illumination is undoubtedly very pleasant to look at, but we wanted to know more about what these flowers could mean when analyzing a text, if it affected readership, and if so how. Drawing greatly from the wonderful works of Celia Fisher we were able to learn more about and identify the foliage within various manuscripts. Although not as thorough a resource as we had hoped to create we hope this digital exhibit can offer a little insight into how different plants and herbs were perceived throughout the Medieval and Renaissance eras.
Created by
Ashlyn Higareda
Melissa Fallon
Resources Used for this Project
Binski, P. (1996). Medieval death: Ritual and representation. Cornell University Press.
Burnett, C. (2018). Liber florum celestis doctrine: The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching, by John of Morigny. Aries.
Camille, M. (2013). Image on the edge: The margins of medieval art. Reaktion Books.
Dondi, C. (2007). The production of illuminated manuscripts: Methods and techniques. In A. Derolez (Ed.), The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (pp. 283–311). Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, C. (2004). Flowers in medieval manuscripts (1. publ). British Library.
Fisher, C. (2007). The medieval flower book. British Library.
Gathercole, P. M. (1997). The landscape of nature in medieval French manuscript illumination. Edwin Mellen Press
McLeod, E. (2018). The senses and the pages: Reading the late medieval book. University of Toronto Press.
Parkes, M. B. (1975). The influence of the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio on the development of the book. Scriptorium, 29(2), 215–228.
Rudy, K. M. (2011). Postcards on parchment: The social lives of medieval books. Yale University Press.
Wieck, R. S. (1988). Time sanctified: The book of hours in medieval art and life. George Braziller.