From hands to vaults: reflections on material transformations and ownership transference of devotional books in the late middle ages

Abstract

Medieval illuminated codices belonging to public collections are presented under the perspective of the modern era’s habit of collecting. The material approach is based in the analysis of descriptions from several national libraries, especially the catalogue rendered by the librarian Frei João de Santa Ana, between 1809 and 1821 for the Mafra’s National Palace Library collection. This work aims to reflect on the ownership transference of private devotion codices – of reserved and personal use –, their presence in royal libraries and the significant shifts in their physical shape and symbolical-functional assignments.
To do so, a brief study on the practices of production, use, circulation, collecting and preservation of illuminated manuscripts, in general, is presented, through the study of emblematic case studies of circulation and material transformations. Regarding their production, formulas of pictorial representation disseminated by studios on the Italian Peninsula, Andes, Flanders and France are comparatively classified and identified in specific codices. Also, the alterations inflicted to the codices to meet the preferences of the new owners are used as material signs that reveal practices of preservation and the habit of collecting.