From the tales of famous travelers like Marco Polo and Alexander the Great to the ancient encyclopedias of Pliny and Isidore, medieval conceptions of the world were often based more on authoritative tradition than direct observation. This exhibition presents one of the most fascinating examples of a medieval guide to the globe, known as the Book of the Marvels of the World. Written in France by an unknown author, this fifteenth-century illustrated text vividly depicts the remarkable inhabitants, customs, and natural phenomena of various regions, both near and far. Reuniting two of the four surviving copies, The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World brings to life medieval conceptions—and misconceptions—of a global world.
Additional objects in the exhibition demonstrate how foreign cultures were imagined in the Middle Ages, and what the assumptions of medieval Europeans tell us about their own implicit biases and beliefs. Highlights include rare illustrated manuscripts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville; a richly ornamented Ottoman Book of Wonders, made for a sultan’s daughter; and a spectacular medieval map of the Holy Land, based on pilgrimage accounts.
The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World is made possible with support from the New York Medieval Society, an anonymous donor, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, Martha J. Fleischman, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Master of the Geneva Boccaccio, Traponee (Sri Lanka), France, Probably Angers, ca. 1460-65, in the Book of the Marvels of the World, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 124, fol. 32r (detail).