Exhibit: MANUSCRIPTS FROM CHURCH & CLOISTER (Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections)
Date and Time
Location
Houghton's exhibition emphasizes the centrality of books to monastic life. Male and female monasticism revolved around religion, but at its heart was a cult of the book: not just the bible, all books. Monastic scriptoria guaranteed the survival and transmission of classical literature and learning. Reverence felt for texts and their authors is manifest in the beauty of tbe books that were crafted in monasteries and convents. Manuscripts on display at the Houghton Library highlight the scriptorium as both a space for the production of manuscripts and the human collective that produced them.
Major support for the Houghton Library portion of the exhibition has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Edison & Newman Exhibition & Program Fund, the John & Ann Clarkeson Library Fund and the Bayard Livingston & Kate Gray Kilgour Fund.
About the Collaborative Project "Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections", Sept 12, 2016 to January 16, 2017:
This exhibition highlights illuminated manuscripts in the Boston area. An ambitious collaborative project at three venues, Beyond Words is notable for the size of its curatorial team, the number of lending institutions, and a multi-venue display. The exhibition presents more than 260 outstanding manuscripts and printed books from nineteen Boston-area collect ions, dating from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. The exhibition is supplemented by an extensive catalog, a three-day symposium, and public programming. The curatorial team for Beyond Words includes: Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University; William P. Stoneman, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Anne-Marie Eze, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Lisa Fagin Davis, Medieval Academy of America; Nancy Netzer, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College.
Many more lectures, guided tours and other events linked to the exhibition, see calendar at http://beyondwords2016.org/#overview