Tales of foreign places, medieval folklore, and travels throughout the world—sounds magical, right?
Getty’s newest manuscript, The Book of the Marvels of the World, provides fascinating glimpses into the mindset of medieval Europeans about faraway peoples and places.
Produced in France between about 1465 and 1470 by the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio (a name of convenience given to an otherwise anonymous artist), the manuscript offers examples of the “exotic” peoples and their customs from around the world, capturing medieval European notions about difference and the perception of outsiders.
To learn more, I chatted with Larisa Grollemond, assistant curator in the Department of Manuscripts about the recent acquisition.
Valerie Tate: Tell me about the manuscript, what is it about?
Larisa Grollemond: The Book of the Marvels of the World (sometimes also known as the Secrets of Natural History) weaves together tales of locales both near and far from its place of composition in France that are based on ancient sources, medieval folklore, and the supposed travels of eyewitnesses. Originally compiled by an anonymous author around 1380, the text exists in only four known copies, all of which were extensively illuminated. The first section devoted to 56 geographic sites is arranged alphabetically, moving from Arabia, to China, to India, to Judea, to Provence, to Ululande, and many places in between, giving the text an air of encyclopedic detachment and scientific authority. However, its compelling but often fictitious descriptions were intended to both attract readers with a sense of the “exotic” and repel them by reinforcing their own sense of civilized superiority. The accompanying images–one per location but packed with narrative details–visually transformed each description into contemporary terms that appealed to its medieval audience. A shorter second section of the manuscript, illuminated with tiny, exquisite historiated initials, describes the wonders of humanity and the natural world.
VT: What do we know about the history of this manuscript?
LG: We know the names of various owners of the manuscript over the centuries since its creation, but we still, unfortunately, do not know for whom it was originally made. The Getty manuscript is one of a closely related group of four examples produced in France during the 15th century. One of these, now at the Morgan Library in New York, is a virtual twin of this manuscript, with the same set of illuminations by the same artist (the Getty manuscript is missing what would have been the first section and its associated miniatures). The Getty copy seems to have been made somewhat later and features a full suite of exquisite historiated initials for the second section of the manuscript that is absent in the Morgan copy.
VT: What is special about the artist’s technique and style?
LG: The illuminations are thinly painted in a technique sometimes called “colored grisaille,” characterized by soft, fluid lines and translucent, layered washes of color. Multiple scenes often appear in a single illumination, with the artist depicting facts about the places alongside fantastical stories and creatures.
All of this artist’s images are attentive to narrative details—close attention to the subtle shading of drapery, individualized facial features, meticulously detailed and lush landscapes, and lithe, elegant figures—heightened by flashes of brilliant color. The colored drawing technique allows for lively, dynamic, and fluid compositions that complement the sense of a whirlwind series of visits to the known world’s legendary locales.
VT: What’s exciting about adding this manuscript to our collection?
LG: The Book of the Marvels of the World is unlike any other object in the collection and fits our priorities in combining artistic merit with a global perspective that extends our ability to tell new stories in the gallery.
The acquisition of this manuscript not only strengthens our representation of French 15th-century illumination—one of the great eras in French art—but also represents a new type of manuscript in the collection. We have no other works that concentrate on global depictions instead of religious, historical, and mythological illumination.
The images in the manuscript, in their exploration of “foreignness,” also extend our ability to explore medieval European notions about difference and the perception of outsiders. The manuscript demonstrates the long origins of xenophobia in terms not only of geography but also race and religion. The further away the places in the list get from northern France, the more outlandish the stories become.
Although many of the stories, particularly those pertaining to Europe, would have been easily disprovable, the aim was to convey the idea that trade and travel would necessarily entail an interesting, if not scary, journey. This really underscores the idea that anything not in Europe or its immediate vicinity would be perceived as foreign. It gives us a sense of a medieval worldview that is simultaneously wider than expected but also narrower in its overall conception. The images reaffirm a perception of the greater world that was already there, confirming the reader/viewer’s comfort with familiar surroundings but also titillating the mind’s eye. This manuscript give us insight into the vantage point of 15th-century Europeans vis-à-vis the rest of the world, when Europe was on the precipice of global knowledge on an unprecedented scale.
