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The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is an illuminated Book of Hours commissioned by Jean, Duke of Berry, in the early 15th century. Its best-known paintings are the calendar scenes begun by the Limbourg brothers, which combine courtly life, agricultural labor, architecture, and seasonal landscape...
The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp is a lavishly illustrated manuscript of Ferdowsi's Persian epic, produced at the Safavid court during the 16th century. Created by leading painters, calligraphers, and decorators associated with the royal workshop, it originally contained 258 paintings distinguished by...
The Vienna Dioscurides is an early sixth-century Byzantine illuminated manuscript containing Dioscorides' De materia medica and related medical and natural-history texts. Made in Constantinople for Juliana Anicia, it includes numerous plant illustrations as well as portraits, diagrams, and dedicator...
The Grimani Breviary is an extensively illuminated book of hours and liturgical offices produced in the southern Netherlands during the early sixteenth century. Its decoration is attributed to several Flemish artists, including contributors associated with the Ghent-Bruges school, and includes calen...
The Catalan Atlas is an illuminated world map produced around 1375 and commonly attributed to the Majorcan Jewish cartographer Abraham Cresques and his workshop. Preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, it combines Mediterranean portolan-chart conventions with geographical, political, comm...
The Codex Manesse, also called the Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Zurich during the first half of the fourteenth century. Written in Middle High German, it preserves the largest surviving collection of Minnesang lyric poetry, arranging works by authors...
The Manesse Codex is a large illuminated anthology of Middle High German lyric poetry produced in Zurich during the early fourteenth century. Also known as the Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, it contains works attributed to numerous Minnesänger and organizes them broadly by social status. Full...
The Great Mongol Shahnameh, also called the Demotte Shahnameh, is an extensively illustrated Persian manuscript produced under the Ilkhanids during the 14th century. It presents episodes from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh in large, elaborate paintings that combine Persian traditions with artistic influences...
Flateyjarbók is a large Icelandic vellum codex compiled between 1387 and 1394 and catalogued as GKS 1005 fol. It preserves Old Norse kings' sagas, shorter tales, poems, genealogies, and narratives concerning Norse voyages to Vinland. The manuscript is held in Reykjavik by the Árni Magnússon Institut...
The Hamzanama is an illustrated Mughal manuscript recounting the legendary adventures of Amir Hamza. Commissioned by Emperor Akbar and produced by a large imperial workshop during the 16th century, it originally comprised about 1,400 unusually large paintings on cloth, accompanied by text. Its survi...
The Pearl Manuscript, catalogued as Cotton Nero A.x, is a late 14th-century Middle English codex held by the British Library. It uniquely preserves Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, four poems generally attributed to the same unidentified writer, often called the Pearl...
The Maciejowski Bible, also called the Morgan Picture Bible or Crusader Bible, is a richly illuminated manuscript produced in France around the mid-13th century. Its large miniatures narrate episodes from the Hebrew Bible while depicting weapons, clothing, architecture, and combat in contemporary me...
The Rabbula Gospels is an illuminated Syriac manuscript containing the four canonical Gospels. A scribal colophon dates its completion to 586 at a monastery associated with the monk Rabbula, although the precise relationship between its text and surviving painted leaves has been debated. Its illustr...
The Ellesmere Manuscript is an early 15th-century illuminated copy of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and one of the work's most important surviving textual witnesses. Written by a professional scribe on parchment, it contains decorated initials and individual portraits of many pilgrims, includi...
The Hours of Etienne Chevalier is a French Book of Hours illuminated by Jean Fouquet for Etienne Chevalier, treasurer to King Charles VII, during the 15th century. Its miniatures combine detailed northern European painting with architectural perspective, classical forms, and other elements associate...
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is a richly illuminated Dutch Book of Hours made around 1440 for Catherine of Cleves, Duchess of Guelders. Its anonymous principal artist is known as the Master of Catherine of Cleves and is distinguished by inventive borders containing plants, animals, household obj...
The Paris Psalter, catalogued as Bibliotheque nationale de France grec 139, is a Byzantine Greek manuscript conventionally dated to the 10th century. It contains the Psalms and a group of fourteen full-page miniatures whose modeled figures, personifications, landscapes, and architectural settings de...
The Luttrell Psalter is an English illuminated manuscript produced during the 14th century for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, a landowner in Lincolnshire. Alongside the Psalms and other devotional texts, its margins contain saints, grotesques, hybrid creatures, musicians, laborers, and unusually detailed sc...
The Gospels of Henry the Lion is a richly illuminated Romanesque Gospel book commissioned by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and his wife Matilda. It was produced at the Benedictine abbey of Helmarshausen in the late twelfth century for the altar of the Church of St. Blaise at Brunswick....
The Codex Aureus of Lorsch, also called the Lorsch Gospels, is an illuminated Carolingian Gospel book produced around the beginning of the ninth century, probably at the court of Charlemagne. Its text is written in gold ink, accompanied by decorated pages, canon tables, and evangelist portraits infl...
The Menologion of Basil II is an illuminated Byzantine manuscript commissioned for Emperor Basil II around the turn of the 11th century. Preserved as Vatican Greek manuscript 1613, it contains Greek accounts of saints and feast days from September through February, accompanied by about 430 miniature...
The Vienna Genesis is a fragmentary illuminated Greek manuscript of the Book of Genesis, usually dated to the 6th century. Its surviving folios are written in silver ink on purple-dyed parchment and contain narrative miniatures arranged beneath the text, sometimes combining successive moments within...
The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duke of Berry, is an illuminated book of hours made in the early 15th century by the Limbourg brothers. Created for private devotion, it contains the customary prayers for the hours of the day together with unusually extensive picture cycles devoted to saints and...
BnF Arabe 5847 is an illustrated Arabic manuscript of the Maqamat, a collection of rhymed-prose tales by al-Hariri centered on the eloquent trickster Abu Zayd. Copied and illustrated in 1237 by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, it contains scenes of travel, preaching, scholarship, trade, and communal life...
The Vivian Bible, also known as the First Bible of Charles the Bald, is a 9th-century Carolingian illuminated manuscript produced at the Abbey of Saint Martin at Tours around 845-846. Count Vivian, the abbey's lay abbot, presented it to Charles the Bald, whose enthroned portrait appears in the volum...
The Rossano Gospels, or Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, is a 6th-century Greek Gospel book written in silver and gold ink on purple-dyed parchment. Its surviving text contains the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, accompanied by illustrated scenes from the life and Passion of Christ. The manuscript is among...
The Book of Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux is a small illuminated prayer book created in Paris around 1324 to 1328 for Jeanne d'Évreux, queen of France. Its paintings are attributed to Jean Pucelle and are distinguished by refined grisaille figures, delicate linework, and lively marginal scenes. The manus...
The Hours of Mary of Burgundy is a lavishly illuminated Flemish book of hours made in the late 15th century, probably around 1477, and associated with Mary of Burgundy. It contains prayers and devotional texts for private use, accompanied by detailed miniatures. The manuscript is especially noted fo...
The Font Màgica de Montjuïc is a monumental fountain located in Barcelona’s Montjuïc Park. Built for the 1929 International Exposition, it's notable for its synchronized water displays accompanied by vibrant light projections and music. These shows are particularly engaging for visitors and locals a...
The Gospels of Otto III is an Ottonian illuminated Gospel book produced around the year 1000, probably at the monastery of Reichenau, for Emperor Otto III. Its full-page images include portraits of the four evangelists and an imperial scene showing the enthroned ruler receiving homage from personifi...
