Illumanu

This tumblr aspires to become a helpful resource for history (and mainly fashion history) research and focuses primarily on illuminations from medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Note: I am not a professional fashion historian. If you spot any inconsistency or outright fallacy somewhere in the picture descriptions please feel free (or even better, obliged) to let me know!

[illumanu]

1492

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 16827 - Missel romain, copié en 1492 pour Jean de Foix - 378r

source

[illumanu]

ca. 1200, Millstatt Abbey (Carinthia - Austria)

Kärntner Landesarchiv

a couple embracingsource

[jeannepompadour]

Ilustration from De claris mulieribus by Giovanni Boccaccio in an anonymous French translation from Rouen, c. 1440 

[jeannepompadour]

Ilustration from De claris mulieribus by Giovanni Boccaccio in an anonymous French translation from Rouen, c. 1440 

[illumanu]

selection of some dancing Salomes

1. bronze door, Verona, Basilica di San Zeno

2. Bourges cathedral

3. 1310-20 British Library, Royal 2 B VII (Queen Mary Psalter), fol. 264v

4. ca. 1200-25 British Library, Arundel 157, fol. 7r

5. St John in Mustair

6. c. 1325-50 British Library, YatesThompson 13, fol. 106v

[illumanu]

ca. 1508-1538

British Library, Add MS 20927: The 'Stuart de Rothesay Hours', use of Rome

119v - the Three Living and the Three Dead

source (BL)

read more for my failed attempt at a hilarious RPG reference!

... good thing the hero's Holy Lance has a +3 bonus against undead.

[illumanu]

15th century Italy

Bastia Mondovi, Chiesa di San Fiorenzo

Episodes from the Life of St Anthony Abbot (?) (frescoes)

source (flickr, Andrea Carloni)

Always remember to keep your women at a walking stick's length.

[illumanu]

1470s

Bibliothèque nationale de France, NAL 3187

fol. 139v - office of the dead

source

[illumanu]

ca. 1310 East Anglia

Oxford, Bodleian Library

MS. Douce 366: Ormesby Psalter

fol. 131r

source (LUNA)

Yes, I know what you're all thinking. It's a dagger.

[illumanu]

1400-7 France, Paris

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 7907 A

Eunuchus by Publius Terentius Afer

fol. 30r, 30v, 34r, 35r

Click here for a summary of the plot.

[illumanu]

ca. 1416 statue of Jeanne de Boulogne, Duchess of Berry (c.1378-c.1424), by Jean de Cambrai (d.1438), currently situated in the Bourges Cathedral

source1, source2 (by louis.foecy.fr on Flickr)

source3 (by Philippe_28 (maintenant sur ipernity) on flickr)

1523-4 drawing of the same by Hans Holbein the Younger

source (wikimedia commons)

[illumanu]

14th century (1341) Austria, St. Pölten

Herward von St. Andreae

unspecified manuscript, initial V

source (imareal)

[illumanu]

circa 1300, Catalonia

details of a ceiling panel:

1. a couple playing a board game

2. a musician (male) and an acrobat/dancer (female)

Barcelona, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

source

A beautiful - if a bit deteriorated - example of early 14th century Spanish (Catalan) fashions (and also of medieval concept of courtly fun).

[illumanu]

late 14th or early 15th century (1392-1410) Slovenia?

Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia - detail of a fresco in the parish church of St. Martin in Martjanci, Slovenia; by workshop of Johannes von Aquila

http://tethys.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/realonline/

no. 011000

[illumanu]

14th century (ca. 1300-1340) Switzerland - Zürich

Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg

Cod. Pal. germ. 848: Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse)

fol. 76v - Herr Heinrich von Morungen

http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848

[illumanu]

14th century

Bibliothèque nationale de FranceFrançais 343: 'La Quête du Saint Graal et la Mort d'Arthus' by Gautier Map

fol. 49v

[edralis]

ca. 1588 portrait of a man AKA “Man Among Flames” by Nicholas Hilliard

This one must have been very popular among the ladies.

source

[illumanu]

There's nothing that screams self-confidence louder than letting yourself be painted in your underwear - unbuttoned halfway to the navel, no less-, showing off your alabaster-white skin and artfully tumbled hair while being engulfed in flames.*

Oh, Renaissance England.

*also, conspicuously fingering fancy jewelry