Book Of Kells 2e [Paperback]

This is essentially a scholarly introduction to the Book of Kells, the ancient illuminated manuscript of the gospels housed at Trinity College in Dublin. The text is laced with 117 mostly color photographs of the book's beautifully illustrated pages. For religious and art collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For the fiscally conservative library, this fine, small book is an ideal substitute for the recent $18,000 facsimile of Ireland's renowned Book of Kells, the most famous of all illuminated medieval Gospels. This representation might not include all 680 illuminated pages, but it does offer 110 color illustrations, including dozens of enlargements, that permit the reader to ponder the excruciatingly complex ornamentation which makes the Book a masterpiece of Celtic interlacing. Meehan, keeper of manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, which has housed the Book since the seventeenth century, provides erudite but direct commentary about the Book's background, its motifs and themes, and even the material from which it is constructed. Patricia Monaghan

This edition reproduces the most important of the fully decorated pages plus a series of enlargements showing the almost unbelievable minuteness of the detail; spiral and interlaced patterns, human and animal ornament - a combination of high seriousness and humour. Accompanying the illustrations is a new text by Bernard Meehan, the Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin. He provides an authoritative analysis of these exuberant inventions, the artists, the text and the writing, and a full account of the historical background to the miraculous world of the Book of Kells.