Illuminators’ Materials and Techniques in Fourteenth-century English Manuscripts

English illumination reached new levels of sophistication during the 1300s. Anatomically accurate depictions of the human body, evocative portrayals of emotions and draperies modelled so as to simulate palpable volume and texture are prominent among the numerous accomplishments of fourteenth-century English illuminators, but we know little about the painting materials and techniques with which they created such effects. Except for occasional acts of censorship and common issues, such as the corrosion of verdigris, the discolouration of glazes or the darkening of silver, red lead and occasionally vermilion, most manuscripts – unlike the few extant easel and wall paintings or polychrome sculptures – are in good condition and have suffered no modern intervention. This makes them the most extensive and reliable corpus for the study of medieval English painting. Fourteenth-century manuscripts (and later ones) have not yet benefited from the amount of scientific analyses undertaken on earlier material from England and Ireland, but recent studies are beginning to fill the lacuna. Since 2012, the MINIARE project has analysed over 200 manuscripts dating from the tenth to the sixteenth century and originating from Italy, Central Europe, France, Flanders and England. This paper shares the preliminary findings on twelve fourteenth-century English manuscripts

The Psalter-Hours of Isabelle of France in the Nineteenth Century

This small volume, intended to be held intimately in the devotee’s palms, represents the ultimate medieval prayer book. It combines the two texts central to private devotion, the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament and the Hours of the Virgin, prefaced by a cycle of full-page miniatures (ills. 1-2). One of the finest illuminated manuscripts to survive from thirteenth-century Paris, it is the sister book of the celebrated Psalter of Louis IX of France. The two volumes share size, layout, style and heraldic ornament as well as textual and iconographic sources for their Calendars and Psalms. The female prayers, heraldic line-fillers and obits of Capetian family members reveal that the Psalter-Hours was made for a royal woman related to Louis IX. Her identity has been the subject of debates for over a century, but the likeliest candidate remains Louis’ sister, Isabelle of France. The manuscript remained with the French royal family at least until the time of Charles V (1364-1380). Its next known owner was the London art dealer and collector John Boykett Jarman (1782-1864). In February 1954 he sold it to John Ruskin who recorded in his diary: ‘On Friday the 24th I got the greatest treasure in all my life: St Louis’ Psalter.’ The stories about Ruskin cutting leaves from the volume, using them for teaching in Oxford or sending them as presents to a friend in Harvard with the promise ‘If they sink in the way, I will send two others’, and those about Sydney Cockerell recovering the dispersed leaves after Ruskin’s death, acquiring the manuscript first for Henry Yates-Thompson in 1904 and then purchasing it for the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1919, are well known. This paper explores an aspect of the manuscript that has been alluded to occasionally, but never properly examined – namely the fate of the Psalter-Hours before Ruskin bought it from Jarman

Painting the Trinity Hrabanus: Materials, Techniques and Methods of Production

This study focuses on a tenth-century copy of De laudibus sanctae crucis preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge. The volume emulates ninth-century Carolingian examples, but its place of origin remains the subject of debates. The new evidence on previously unexplored aspects of the manuscript presented here clarifies its methods of production. The non-invasive technical analyses of the Trinity Hrabanus, undertaken in 2017 as part of the MINIARE project, identified the rich palette and sophisticated painting techniques. The results are interpreted here vis-à-vis three sets of evidence: textual and palaeographical studies of the Trinity Hrabanus; art-historical comparisons with contemporaneous English and continental manuscripts; and analytical data currently available on ninth- and tenth-century English and continental illumination, wall painting and polychrome sculpture. The synthesis of earlier and new research, integrating the disparate priorities and contexts of several disciplines, is intended to help resolve some questions about the manuscript’s origin and raise new ones about the possible survival of knowledge alongside artefacts from late Antiquity into the tenth century

Mechanisms regulating skin immunity and inflammation

Immune responses in the skin are important for host defence against pathogenic microorganisms. However, dysregulated immune reactions can cause chronic inflammatory skin diseases. Extensive crosstalk between the different cellular and microbial components of the skin regulates local immune responses to ensure efficient host defence, to maintain and restore homeostasis, and to prevent chronic disease. In this Review, we discuss recent findings that highlight the complex regulatory networks that control skin immunity, and we provide new paradigms for the mechanisms that regulate skin immune responses in host defence and in chronic inflammation