Illumino: A History of Medieval Britain in 12 Illuminated Manuscripts

by Michelle P. Brown

Genres: History

256 pages, Hardcover

Published August 25, 2025

About the author

Michelle P. Brown is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She was previously (1986–2004) Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. She has been a historical consultant and on-screen expert on several radio and television programmes. She has published books on the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Luttrell Psalter and the Holkham Bible.

Reviews

[Matthew Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

The images are beautiful but the narrative is a bit inconsistent in tone, varying from general overview to specific details where the author has first-hand knowledge, I'm guessing. The figure captions also are too long, reproducing almost verbatim a lot of text that appear in the body of the book in following paragraphs.