The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts

De Hamel (Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts) takes an expansive look at the history of creating and collecting ancient and medieval manuscripts since the 11th century. He profiles generations of collectors, some of whom “have held the same manuscripts in their hands, centuries apart.” These include 11th-century monk St. Anselm, whose well-documented life provides insight into the manuscript culture of the Middle Ages; 16th-century illustrator Simon Bening, who became famous for continuing to practice the art of illumination (the decoration of pages with intricate hand-drawn illustrations) well after the invention of the printing press; disgraced 19th-century collector Constantine Simonides, a manuscript forger who “conjur[ed] up whatever Greek manuscripts people desired”; 19th-century classicist Theodor Mommsen, who pioneered the recreation of ancient texts through trace remains in surviving sources; and American banking tycoon J. Pierpont Morgan’s famously enigmatic curator, Belle da Costa Greene, who “singlehandedly... created the fashion for millionaire manuscript libraries.” De Hamel’s fascination with rare manuscripts shines throughout, such as when he imagines using his own copy of the Codex Gregorianus, a set of legal codes of the Roman Empire, to attract the attention of the famously preoccupied Mommsen. This erudite yet accessible study is sure to entertain bibliophiles. (Nov.)