Cheeky Manuscripts and More Brillliant Technology: New Artwork/ Quote of the Week 3.6.2011

As I promised last week, we're going back to the Middle Ages for this week's Artwork of the Week. Now, some of you might be able to tell that I have a great weakness for manuscripts (even greater than my affinity for monks). The one trouble is that Medieval manuscripts are (un)surprisingly hard to get ahold of. Sometimes you can find an image or two online, but what you get is usually poor quality or a detail (ie not of the whole page but of one tiny sections). Well that is pretty useless, isn't it? I recently discovered (and 100% support) that some organizations holding manuscripts are moving towards putting digital versions online. In particular, I would like to give props to the British Library for its "Turning the Pages" program. As it turns out, they have this week's artwork as one of their online manuscripts. (Feel free to ogle online by clicking here- but read the rest of the post first to figure out which manuscript to look at!)

So, after all that build-up, I'm happy to announce that this week's Artwork of the Week is the Luttrell Psalter! It was written between 1320 and 1340 for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, who you will see astride his horse in the picture below (Folio 202 verso):

Apparently in Latin, Geoffrey Luttrell is spelled "Galfridus Louterell" (read the line of text above the image). Anyways, the Luttrell Psalter is full of fascinating images of everyday life in the Middle Ages (seriously, check out the other pages in the online version). There's all sorts of charming scenes, like men hitting each other over the head with pottery and oxen plowing fields. Additionally, there are two jousting knights thought to be Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. And did you catch the fish with a face on this page? Oh, and side note: in case you're not familiar with various forms of religious texts or can't read Latin (or both), a psalter is a book of Psalms.

How the book itself came to be in the British Library is an interesting story also. It was sold at auction in 1929 with an asking price of £31,500, which was way outside the British Library's budget. Instead it was purchased by the American John Pierpont Morgan (USA! USA!) ...for the British Library. This is slightly strange, because he has his own extensive collection of Medieval manuscripts and could have bought and kept it for himself. But instead he spent his money and gave it away to the British Library. Which is cool, sort of.

Don't go thinking I forgot a quote for this week- I just got all excited about the artwork.

"If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians."
-Warren Buffet

Yes, I think it is an amusing quote. Well, because he is one of the world's richest people...also what does he know about librarians?