Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Irish Art, Volume II : Manuscript Illumination

Volume one of this collection focuses on enamel and metalwork, including Irish examples. Volume two delves into Irish manuscript illumination, spanning centuries of Christian Celtic art. Volume three covers early Christian architecture, sculpture, and her valuable contributions to the archaeology of early Christian Ireland.

Over the past fifty years, Françoise Henry has been the leading authority on the history of early Irish art. A pupil of Henri Focillon, she united two traditions of scholarship, one French and one Irish, and her understanding of the European context within which the art of early Christian Ireland developed has had a profound influence on subsequent research. These three volumes bring together the articles that Dr. Henry published on Irish art and its European links. The second volume deals with Irish manuscript illumination. Since a number of the articles reprinted here were published in collaboration with Geneviève Marsh-Micheli, this volume, as Françoise Henry wished, is published as a joint work, and includes an independent article by Mrs. Marsh-Micheli on the Irish manuscripts of St. Gall and Reichenau. The manuscripts dealt with here cover the entire span of Christian Celtic art in Ireland, from the earliest works of the seventh and eighth centuries to the later manuscripts of the period between the Norman Conquest and the final collapse of Gaelic civilisation in Ireland in the late sixteenth century. There are joint studies of Irish manuscripts in Continental and English collections, and a valuable review by Françoise Henry of the facsimile edition of the Book of Lindisfarne. Volume II contents include: Preface; Henri Focillon (by F. H. and G. M.-M.); Les débuts de la miniature irlandaise (F. H.); The Lindisfarne Cospels (a review by F. H.); Les manuscrits de St. Gall et de Reichenau (G. M.-M.); An Irish manuscript in the British Museum (F. H.); Remarks on the decoration of three Irish Psalters (F. H .); A century of Irish illumination (F. H. and G. M.-M.); The decoration of Irish manuscripts from the Norman Conquest to the end of the sixteenth century (F. H. and G. M.-M.); Index.