This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.
The exhibition focuses on six cities or geographic regions that were important for making manuscripts, each with its own artistic traditions and circumstances of production. The exhibition begins in southern Italy with a Breviary from Montecassino, the cradle of Benedictine monasticism, and then proceeds to Bologna, the site of the first medieval university, and on to Siena, Florence, and the Renaissance courts of northern Italy. It ends in Rome, the seat of papal power and home to some of the greatest High Renaissance works of art.