Many manuscripts—literally, documents written by hand—from medieval Europe were supplemented with decorations that ranged from ornate initials and borders to illuminations that dominated the page. For a largely illiterate population, these illustrations often conveyed the essential meaning of the text more successfully than the words. The lives of Christian saints—their martyrdom and miracles—were frequently the subject of these illustrations. Miracles and Martyrs: Saints in the Middle Ages at the Getty Center features an extra-ordinary collection of illuminated manuscripts portraying saints from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s permanent collection. Just as medieval viewers would have learned about the saints’ piety […]
