Manuscripts Quotes

“It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written.”
― Karl Marx

“Only Southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This--the actual pistols--was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.”
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“إن محاولة الاطلاع على المصاحف الكريمة المخطوطة، والقديمة منها خاصة، أمر في غاية الصعوبة، وليس من اليسير التوفيق بين طموحات الباحث في الحصول على المادة من تلك المصاحف وبين حرص القائمين بالمحافظة عليها بألا تمسها يد أحد حتى لو كانت يد باحث مسلم ليس بأقل حرصاً منهم عليها، وقد حرم هذا البحث، وذلك مما يمكن أن يستفيده لو تيسرت له القراءة في المصحف الجليل المنسوب إلى سيدنا عثمان بن عفان، والمحفوظ في جامع الحسين بالقاهرة، ولم تغن مخاطبة كلية دار العلوم للجهة المسؤولة عن حفظ المصحف شيئاً”
― غانم قدوري الحمد, رسم المصحف : دراسة لغوية تاريخية

“Petrarch sometimes wrote letters to long-dead authors. He was also a dedicated hunter of classic manuscripts. Once, after discovering some previously unknown works of Cicero, he wrote Cicero the news.”
― David Markson, Reader’s Block

“It is, however, very important never to lose sight of the fact that the miniatures in illuminated books were not conceived as individual and independent paintings. They are book illustrations and are thus always intimately connected with a text.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“To my amazement, miraculously, the lid suddenly loosened and slid all the way open, revealing its hidden cargo: A stack of small paper booklets. Dozens and dozens of them. Booklets made of ordinary sheets of white writing paper, folded in half, and hand-stitched along the spine. Booklets in remarkably pristine condition, all covered in a small, neat handwriting that I instantly recognized. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I could hardly breathe.”
― Syrie James, The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

“The preparation of an illuminated book has always been a very expensive business.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“A single illuminated book may contain several hundred paintings.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Some of these [coloured pigments] were commonly accessible in most parts of Europe but others travelled thousands of miles among the international trade routes from countries which were themselves on the brink of legend.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“It should be understood that in medieval eyes an artist was simply a craftsman, his activities having little to do with the twentieth-century notions of self-expression, individual genius and 'artistic temperament' that nowadays cling to his profession.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Anglo-Saxon and Irish saints and scholars played a vital role in the conversion of Europe, especially during the seventh and eighth centuries, and through them insular art influenced the work of early continental illuminators.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Anglo-Saxon England had the richest tradition of written vernacular literature of any country in Europe, including a large body of original poetry and many translations of earlier Latin works.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Although most Romanesque manuscripts are attributed to communities of monks, the great nunneries must have supported their own scribes and illuminators.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Although most of the finest early illumination is to be found in liturgical manuscripts, some secular texts were also illuminated. Their number was to increase with increasing individual ownership of books.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Contemporary records reveal that in cities such as Paris the various craftsmen involved in the production of books—illuminators, ink and parchment makers, bookbinders and so forth—tended to live side by side in specific streets or neighbourhoods, which made co-operation easy.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Although illuminated books were an expensive luxury, it would be a mistake to suppose that all the most elaborate ones were made exclusively for royalty or for the higher ranks of the nobility.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“The style of the Luttrell Psalter is less polished than that found in the Queen Mary or St Omer manuscripts, but it surpasses them in vitality.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“The majority of Gothic manuscripts provide some reflections of contemporary life, because the idea of representing even biblical scenes in any but the idiom of their own times was quite alien to medieval artists.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“We do not know whether Jewish manuscripts were usually made by Jewish artists to order in Christian workshops, but they were certainly made in the styles locally current in their countries of adoption.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Although the emphasis during the late Middle Ages was upon the provision of books for private patrons, many manuscripts were also made for public use.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“The term International Gothic is applied to the arts in the early fifteenth century because there was so general an exchange of influences throughout Europe.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript