Lieve Watteeuw

Jan van der Stock

The Anjou Bible, now kept in the Theology Faculty's Maurits Sabbe Library of the University of Leuven (Belgium) is a superbly illuminated manuscript created at the Royal Court of Naples in the turbulent fourteenth century. At this time much of Central and Southern Europe was governed by the successful dynasty of Anjou, which continued to expand its territories and encouraged artists and writers like Giotto, Simone Martini, Boccaccio and Petrarch. In 1328, after the death of her father, Joanna of Anjou became the official heir to the prosperous Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Several years later her grandfather, Robert I, gave Joanna and her young fiance Andrew of Hungary a precious gift, which became known as the Anjou Bible, a manuscript that is priceless from a historical and art-historical point of view. In addition to Bible texts and splendid miniatures, it contains a wealth of historical information about the house of Anjou and the book's origins. One of the artists responsible for the magnificent painting was Cristophorus Orimina, the leading illuminator in Naples, who signed the work. The Anjou Bible has now been carefully conserved and studied: the research findings are brought together in this book. Essays by some of the most noted experts in the field describe how the arts were promoted at the court of Robert I of Anjou and also shed light on the Bible's genesis and on all the research methods and results. This book is richly illustrated and contains all the illuminated folios of the Anjou Bible.

A Royal Manuscript Revealed : Naples 1340

The Anjou Bible

Leo Kenis

Wim François

The Maurits Sabbe Library of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) holds an exceptional treasury of manuscripts and printed books dating from the 10th to the 19th century. As part of KU Leuven Libraries it is recognised as a Heritage Library of the Flemish Community. This beautifully illustrated volume explores fourty-five remarkable books representing the immense variety and richness of the collections in the Maurits Sabbe Library. The described Bibles, missals, atlases, religious, devotional, historical, botanical, and medical works are all reflecting the wealth of one of the most distinctive rare book collections in the Low Countries.

Manuscripts & Precious Books in the Maurits Sabbe Library - Ku Leuven

Hannah Iterbeke

During the Late Middle Ages a unique type of 'mixed media' recycled and remnant art arose in houses of religious women in the Low Countries: enclosed gardens. They date from the time of Emperor Charles V and are unique examples of 'anonymous' female art, devotion and spirituality. A hortus conclusus (or enclosed garden) represents an ideal, paradisiacal world. Enclosed Gardens are retables, sometimes with painted side panels, the central section filled not only with narrative sculpture, but also with all sorts of trinkets and hand-worked textiles.Adornments include relics, wax medallions, gemstones set in silver, pilgrimage souvenirs, parchment banderoles, flowers made from textiles with silk thread, semi-precious stones, pearls and quilling (a decorative technique using rolled paper). The ensemble is an impressive and one-of-a-kind display and presents as an intoxicating garden. The sixteenth-century horti conclusi of the Mechelen Hospital sisters are recognized Masterpieces and are extremely rare, not alone at a Belgian but even at a global level. They are of international significance as they provide evidence of devotion and spirituality in convent communities in the Southern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. They are an extraordinary tangible expression of a devotional tradition. The highly individual visual language of the enclosed gardens contributes to our understanding of what life was like in cloistered communities. They testify to a cultural identity closely linked with mystical traditions allowing us to enter a lost world very much part of the culture of the Southern Netherlands. This book is the first full survey of the enclosed gardens and is the result of year-long academic research.

Late Medieval Paradise Gardens Revealed

Enclosed Gardens of Mechelen

Catherine Reynolds

From the 16th to the 19th century, illuminated manuscripts were collected by the great printer-publisher Christophe Plantin and his Moretus successors and descendants. Ranging in date from the 9th to the mid-16th centuries, the manuscripts in the Museum Plantin-Moretus come from all over Europe, chiefly the Southern Netherlands and France with a significant representation of 15th-century Dutch illumination. More surprisingly, about a quarter of the collection comes from England: manuscripts of the 10th to 15th centuries that left the country with Catholic refugees. Alongside the acknowledged masterpieces and rarities, like the Bohemian Bible of 1402, are volumes that have remained virtually unknown, their aesthetic appeal and historical or textual interest often passing unnoticed in the absence of published reproductions. In this beautifully produced catalogue, each of the 102 volumes is illustrated in colour, with more extensive coverage of the 55 volumes with the most rewarding illumination. For the first time it is possible to gauge the extent and nature of this fascinating and under-explored collection, still housed in the building on the Vrijdagmarkt in Antwerp to which Plantin moved his famous sign of the Golden Compasses in 1576.

Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp

Maarten Bassens

Joris Van Grieken

Jan Van Der Stock

The complete graphic work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, published in one luxurious edition.

Lieve Watteeuw

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