“We do have to adapt conventional analytical techniques to make them safe to use on something as fragile as an illuminated manuscript,” said conservation scientist Dr Paola Ricciardi. ![]() Using a combination of imaging techniques, including photomicroscopy, visible and infrared imaging at multiple wavelengths, reflectance imaging spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography, the MINIARE team is able to peer through the layers of a painting to uncover its history, as in the case of the Hours of Isabella Stuart. So we could certainly see what the problems were.” “Part of our research is in the area of medical diagnostics and environmental sensing, where we analyse materials in very thin layers, which is not so different from analysing a painting. “For our team, it was about finding new applications for existing techniques, and pushing them far beyond current boundaries in order to analyse the very thin layers of a manuscript,” said Elliott. To gather hard evidence about how these manuscripts were made, while preserving them, non-invasive techniques are required. Since they are so delicate and the layers of pigment are so thin, manuscripts are seriously compromised by taking samples, which is common practice for the analysis of panel or fresco paintings. Much of what we know about illuminated manuscripts comes from art-historical analysis and circumstantial evidence. “Thanks to the imaging techniques we’ve been using, we can see things in these manuscripts that we couldn’t see before.” “Working in a truly cross-disciplinary way can benefit art history, scientific research and visual culture in general, while pushing technology forward at the same time,” said Panayotova. The project is led by Dr Stella Panayotova, Keeper of Manuscripts and Printed Books at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Professor Stephen Elliott of the Department of Chemistry, who are working with colleagues from across the University and around the world. The team’s work is challenging previous assumptions about this and many other manuscripts, helping them to see and understand medieval painting and illumination in new and unexpected ways.Ĭombining research in the arts, humanities, sciences and technology, MINIARE (Manuscript Illumination: Non-Invasive Analysis, Research and Expertise) currently focuses on uncovering the secrets of medieval art, but it is anticipated that many of the imaging techniques they are adapting may be used to study other types of art, from a range of different periods. ![]() Then, when Francis was made a duke, the portrait was painted over yet again to give Isabella a coronet.Īrt historians have written volumes on the Hours of Isabella Stuart over the last century, but a cross-disciplinary Cambridge project is using a variety of imaging techniques to uncover this story of re-gifting. The portrait of his first wife was covered with that of Isabella and an image of St Catherine was added, using cheaper pigments. Francis had it altered and presented it to his new bride, Isabella Stuart, daughter of James I. He took something that was already in his possession and gave it to someone else.īut this was no ordinary gift: it was an illuminated manuscript, made for Francis’ first wife, Yolande of Anjou, who had died in 1440. Faced with the prospect of his rapidly approaching nuptials on 29 October 1442, and with no wedding gift purchased for his bride-to-be, Francis I of Brittany (1414–1450) did what many of us have done at some point: he ‘re-gifted’.
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