FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Beyond Words: Italian Renaissance Books
Exhibition to showcase Boston’s hidden Renaissance paintings
On View: Sept. 22, 2016 to Jan. 16, 2017
Cristoforo Majorana, Penelope writing to Odysseus, in a late fifteenth-century Neapolitan copy of Ovid’s Heroides made
for a member of the Aragon rulers of Naples. Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 8, f. 2v.
BOSTON, MA (May 2016) – Rarely seen, exquisite Renaissance manuscripts and early printed books
make this a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. Beyond Words: Italian Renaissance Books showcases over 65
Renaissance paintings hidden between the covers of rare books in Boston’s libraries and museums.
The works – remarkable for their beauty and jewel-like colors – will be on view at the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum in Boston from Sept. 22 through Jan. 16, 2017.
At the heart of the show is a remarkable trove of illuminated manuscripts from celebrated
Renaissance libraries. Written, illustrated, and bound by the hands of leading artists for popes, princes,
and scions of Italian dynasties, they were produced as one-of-a-kind luxury items. Complementing
the painted manuscripts are books from the dawn of printing including Isabella Stewart Gardner’s
own rare, first Florentine edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy illustrated by Botticelli and the first copy of
this edition to enter an American collection. All of the books in the exhibition shed new light on
Renaissance patrons, artists, scribes, and printers from an era when the art of bookmaking reached its
pinnacle.
FOR RELEASE MAY 2016
MORE
BEYOND WORDS: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE BOOKS
PAGE 2
The Gardner’s show is part of an ambitious city-wide collaborative project entitled Beyond Words:
Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, which is the largest ever exhibition of medieval and
Renaissance books held in North America. The Gardner joins Harvard University’s Houghton Library
and Boston College’s McMullen Museum as one of three venues which will simultaneously display 260
outstanding painted and printed books selected by a team of local experts from 18 Boston-area
institutions. Lenders to the show include the Boston Public Library, Museum of Fine Arts, and Wellesley
College among many others.
Gilded Age Bostonians such as Isabella Stewart Gardner brought most of these European treasures to
America. They have scarcely been seen since, even by scholars. Dating from the 9th to 17th centuries,
the books will be displayed thematically across the venues– the Humanist Library (Gardner), the
Monastic Library (Houghton), and the Layman’s Library (McMullen). Their pages chart nearly a
millennium in the history of European painting.
Focusing on the Humanist Library, the Gardner’s exhibition reveals the key role of Renaissance
scholar/book-hunters in the birth of the modern book in fifteenth-century Italy. The story unfolds in four
sections: Study, Library, Chapel and Press. Study introduces the concept of humanism, a cultural
movement that took off in Florence around 1400. Humanists believed that by reviving classical
antiquity, they would usher in a new age of peace, prosperity, culture and religion in Italy. They
searched monastery libraries in Europe for forgotten ancient Greek and Roman texts, which they
painstakingly copied by hand into a new type of book. Portable, legible and elaborately illustrated,
humanist manuscripts are the forefathers of books we use to this day.
Library showcases relics from the magnificent libraries of Rome, Venice and other Italian states
demonstrating how the humanist book aided the ruling class’s displays of learning, taste, and power.
In Chapel, the exhibition highlights manuscripts used for public and private devotion, including giant
choir-books made for the famous monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza and an impressive array of Books
of Hours. The final section (Press) reveals how the arrival of the newly-invented printing press in Italy in
the late 1460s transformed book production. The Venetian book trade rapidly disseminated its
products to a Europe-wide public, incorporating broad margins, legible typeface and cleaner layouts
that essentially remain unchanged to the present day.
“Many years in the making, Beyond Words is a unique collaboration between the city’s most
prestigious academic and cultural institutions. It pays homage to the extraordinary visual beauty of
books in Renaissance Italy, to Isabella Stewart Gardner, and to other prominent Bostonians, who
brought these treasures to their city,” said Dr. Christina Nielsen, William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the
Collection. “The most lavish manuscripts featured in Beyond Words reveal paintings on every page,
constituting miniature museums. We are excited to be part of this rare opportunity to reveal these
hidden artworks to the public.”
The Gardner exhibition is organized by Drs. Anne-Marie Eze, former Associate Curator of the
Collection, and Nathaniel Silver, Assistant Curator of the Collection.
The manuscripts assembled in all three Boston area exhibitions will be included in a single catalogue
with contributions from 85 international scholars, edited by co-curators Jeffrey Hamburger, William P.
Stoneman, Anne-Marie Eze, Lisa Fagin Davis and Nancy Netzer and published by the McMullen
Museum.
BEYOND WORDS: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE BOOKS
PAGE 3
Exhibition support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for
the Humanities. This exhibition also is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which
receives support from the State of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as
well as by the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency which is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural
Council, and administrated by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture. This exhibition is part of Beyond
Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, a three-venue collaborative exhibition with the
McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College and the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Media
sponsor: The Boston Globe.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - a work of art in totality - is a highly personal installation of Isabella
Gardner’s collection, intended to fire the imagination of all who visit. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, the
galleries surround a verdant Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian,
Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The new Renzo Piano-designed wing provides an innovative venue for
contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way Boston MA 02215 • Hours: Open Daily from 11a.m. to 5 p.m.
and Thursdays until 9 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $15; Seniors $12; Students $5; Free for members,
children under 18, everyone on his/her birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 •
www.gardnermuseum.org
MEDIA CONTACTS
DIANA BROWN MCCLOY
TEAK MEDIA
978.697.9414
[email protected]
SARAH WHITLING
MARKETING ASSISTANT
GARDNER MUSEUM
617.264.6061
[email protected]