Synopses & Reviews
The Copenhagen Bohun Manuscripts provides a detailed analysis of the components of two exquisitely illuminated fourteenth-century English manuscripts, the Hours of the Virgin and the Lives of the Virgin Mary, St. Margaret, and Mary Magdalene. Based on pictorial as well as documentary evidence, Marina Vidas offers a detailed assessment of the manuscriptsandrsquo; patronage, provenance, imagery, and texts. The result is a fascinating insight into the remarkable production of English illuminated manuscripts of this period. and#160;
Synopsis
"This book focuses on one of the most attractive yet poorly understood features of late-medieval manuscript illumination: the portrait of the book owner at prayer within the pages of her own prayer-book"--
Synopsis
This book investigates the "owner portrait" in the context of late-medieval devotional books primarily from France and England. These mirror-like pictures of praying book owners respond to and help develop a growing concern with visibility and self-scrutiny that characterized the religious life of the laity after the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The image of the praying book owner translated preexisting representational strategies concerned with the authority and spiritual efficacy of pictures and books, such as the Holy Face and the donor image, into a more intimate and reflexive mode of address in Psalters and Books of Hours created for lay users. Alexa Sand demonstrates how this transformation had profound implications for devotional practices and for the performance of gender and class identity in the striving, aristocratic world of late medieval France and England.
About the Author
Marina Vidas is senior researcher at the Royal Library in Copenhagen and adjunct associate professor in the department of arts and cultural studies at the University of Copenhagen.and#160;