Now and Forever: The Art of Medieval Time

January 26 through April 29, 2018

What time is it? The question seems simple, and with a watch on your wrist or a cell phone in your hand, the answer is easy. In the Middle Ages, however, the concept of time could be approached in many different ways, with vastly different tools.

Drawing upon the rich holdings of the Morgan’s collection of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, Now and Forever explores how people told time in the Middle Ages and what they thought about it. The manuscripts range in date from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries and come from all the major countries of Europe.

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Chronique anonyme universelle.

The exhibition begins with the quirks of the medieval calendar, exploring sacred feasts, the mysteries of Golden Numbers, the utility of Dominical Letters, and how the Middle Ages inherited the Roman Calendar of Julius Caesar. Visitors will engage with the complexities of time as defined by liturgical celebrations and their two overlapping systems of temporale (feasts of time) and sanctorale (feasts of saints), systems that still influence the way we tell time today. Now and Forever also explores how time beyond the grave preoccupied medieval people for whom life on earth was a mere dress rehearsal for the main event—the afterlife.

Now and Forever: The Art of Medieval Time is made possible with generous support from Barbro and Bernard Osher, The Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden Fund for Exhibitions and Publications, and the Andrew W. Mellon Research and Publications Fund.

August: Reaping Wheat, “Da Costa Hours,” Belgium, Ghent, ca. 1515, illuminated by Simon Bening, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.399, fol. 9v, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910. Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.

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August: Reaping Wheat, “Da Costa Hours,” Belgium, Ghent, ca. 1515, illuminated by Simon Bening, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.399, fol. 9v, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910. Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/ Austria.

Liturgical calendar for Ravenna, Italy, Milan (?), 1386, illustrated by a follower of Giovannino de’ Grassi, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.355, fol. 8v (detail), purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909.

Canonical Hour of Lauds (Visitation), “Hours of Antoine Raguier and Jean Robertet,” France, Tours, ca. 1460–65, and Bourges, ca. 1465–70, illuminated for Antoine Raguier by Jean Fouquet and completed for Jean Robertet by Jean Colombe, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.834, fol. 40, purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1950.

Canonical Hour of Matins (Annunciation), Book of Hours, Italy, Florence, 1490s, illuminated for a member of the Pitti-Taddei de’ Gaddi family by Attavante degli Attavanti, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.14, fols. 19v-20r, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1902.

Entry in Jerusalem, “Berthold Sacramentary,” Germany, Weingarten, 1215–17, illuminated for Abbot Berthold of Weingarten by the Master of the Berthold Sacramentary, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.710, fol. 37v, purchased by J. P. Morgan, Jr., 1926.

Coronation of David; Fall of Troy; Aeneas, Priam, Turcus, and Helenus Set Sail for Europe, from the Chronique anonyme universelle, Northern France, 1473–83, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.1157, detail from section 11, Melvin R. Seiden Collection, 2007.

Saul as a Lesson in Kingship, Boccaccio, Cas des nobles hommes et femmes malheureux, France, Tours(?), ca. 1480, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS G.35, fol. 41v, gift of the Trustees of the William S. Glazer Collection, 1984.

Hell, “Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” The Netherlands, Utrecht, ca. 1440, illuminated for Catherine of Cleves, duchess of Guelders, by the Master of Catherine of Cleves, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.917/945, III, fol. 168v. Purchased on the Belle da Costa Greene Fund and through the generosity of the Fellows, 1963 and 1970.

Damnation, “Hours of Claude Molé,” France, Paris, ca. 1500, illuminated for Claude Molé by the Master of Petrarch’s Triumphs, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.356, fol. 64r, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.

Parliament of Heaven and a Rare Depiction of Limbo, Book of Hours, Northeastern France or Paris, ca. 1465, illuminated by the Master of Jacques de Luxembourg, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M. 1207, purchased on a grant provided by the Bernard H. Breslauer Foundation and with a gift from Marguerite Steed Hoffman, member of the Visiting Committee to the Dept. of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, 2017. Image courtesy of Dr. Jörn Günther, Rare Books AG.

Vision of Heaven, St. Bridget of Sweden, Revelations, Italy, Naples, late fourteenth century, illuminated by the Master of the Liber celestium revelationum, MS M.498, fol. 4v, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1912.

Worship of the Beast and the Dragon, “Burckhardt-Wildt Apocalypse,” France, Metz, 1290s, illuminated possibly for Eleanor Plantagenet, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.1071.1r, gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Kraus, 1985.

The False Prophet Directs the Worship of the Beast, “Burckhardt-Wildt Apocalypse,” France, Metz, 1290s, illuminated possibly for Eleanor Plantagenet, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.1071.2v, gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Kraus, 1985.

San Zeno Astrolabe, Italy, Verona, ca. 1455, illuminated for the Abbey of San Zeno by an anonymous Lombard artist, private collection of Michael Stone. Image courtesy of Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla, Michael Stone, Founder.