The McCarthy Collection, Volume I : Italian and Byzantine Miniatures (Hardcover)

This handsomely produced publication is the first of a three-volume set exploring an outstanding collection of leaves and miniatures from medieval manuscripts. Brimming with beautiful illustrations, this welcome contribution to medieval scholarship covers a period from the late ninth to the late fifteenth centuries and incorporates new discoveries in this developing field.

Assembled in relatively recent years, The McCarthy Collection stands in line with many similar anthologies of miniatures in private or public hands. By contrast, the collection has not limited its focus on one school of European illumination but aims to present a panorama of the sophisticated art called, to use Dante’s words, ‘illumination’ (quell’arte ch’alluminar chiamata e in Parisi;  Purgatorio, XI, 78-80).

Given the wealth of The McCarthy Collection, it was decided to document this substantial overview of European illumination in two books. The present volume is dedicated to the holdings of single leaves and cuttings from medieval Italian manuscripts from the late ninth to the mid-fifteenth centuries and includes several important and rare Byzantine items described by Georgi Parpulov. Documenting for the first time this important and hitherto unknown collection, this lavishly illustrated book incorporates a wide range of comparative material and introduces new research on many of the leaves and their parent volumes, constituting a notable contribution to the scholarship of late medieval Italian illumination. Reflecting their historical and artistic status within medieval Italian illumination, the core of the miniatures of the McCarthy collection belongs to the most important centers of book production in Italy: Bologna and its surrounding region, Umbria, and Tuscany. The regions are all represented with very interesting examples, among them some extraordinary masterpieces. Among other developments, the rich holdings of late thirteenth and early fourteenth century illumination in the collection demonstrate the propagation of the new painting evolved by Giotto.

 Robert McCarthy’s passion for the medieval and early Gothic world is also apparent in his holdings of English and French illuminations, discussed in a second volume by Peter Kidd (forthcoming 2019).