Description

This is the ninth volume in a continuing series of publications listing and identifying all illustrations contained in English manuscripts from the time of Chaucer to Henry VIII. Because representations of all types are included-from miniatures to marginalia- the series provides unparalleled reference to imagery in the long fifteenth century. The present fascicle, the second of two devoted to the collections in Cambridge, catalogues 553 manuscripts for eleven colleges and can be used as a search tool for manuscripts available on line. The manuscript entries in the catalogue note the subject of every illustration, all of which are fully indexed in the index of pictorial subjects. Entries for alchemy and medicine are particularly rich in this fascicle; the largest entry is for costume. The broad range of pictorial information makes the Cambridge fascicles useful supplements to the fifth volume of A Catalogue of Western Illumination in the Fitzwilliam Museum and Cambridge Colleges. Like the other fascicles in the series, Cambridge II includes a manual for users, an extensive glossary of subjects and terms, indexes of authors, texts and incipits, as well as a list of manuscripts with coats of arms. There are forty-two black and white illustrations.