The beginnings of scholarship on early medieval book illumination (1700-1850): between classicism and ethnicity

Abstract

This essay addresses historiographical and methodological issues about the very beginnings of the scholarship on early medieval manuscript illumination during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The enduring importance of Greek art and the development of national or ethnic approaches have profoundly shaped our appreciation and interpretation of early medieval illumination, and the latter is still relevant today. By putting into perspective the deep history of early medieval manuscript illumination studies, I seek to show how this area of research connects with other fields such as history or archaeology and why it occupied a long marginalized position within art historical scholarship.

Keywords

• early medieval illumination
• classicism
• ethnicity