This is a remarkable book about remarkable books.
There are many joys and discoveries to be made within its pages but perhaps the single most notable aspect of the book is de Hamel’s appreciation of books as physical objects: even the way the pages are stuck together (their ‘collation’ as I learned from de Hamel) provides insights into how the book was made and its subsequent history. But even more, there is the joy that de Hamel so wonderfully transmits in holding a book, turning its pages, examining it and even smelling it. You won’t get any of this with a Kindle!
Perhaps my favourite chapter is the second, the one on the Codex Amiatinus. This is a complete edition of the Bible, a pandect as it’s called in the language of scholars, that was made in the twin monasteries of St Peter and St Paul in Wearmouth and Jarrow in the 7th century, under the direction of the Venerable Bede and Abbot Coelfrith. It’s a huge book, and one that I had a privilege to see at the British Library a few years ago. In fact, it’s as close to being physically intimidating as a book can be – and weighs, as a scholar famously remarked, as much as a female Great Dane. De Hamel got to open it, to read it and to examine it himself – there’s a wonderful description of how he managed to penetrate Italian bureaucracy to get to the book – and that examination revealed details that no reproduction could show, such as the titles on the spines of the books in the famous painting of Ezra in the scriptorium. The chapter also includes the extraordinary history of the Codex, of how it was taken by Abbot Coelfrith as a gift to Rome but ended up in the monastery at Amiatinus in Italy with its dedicatory preface forged to give legitimacy to its new home, and how the forgery was discovered and the book’s true provenance revealed.
For book lovers, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is essential reading. But this is one book that repays investment: buy the hardback – it’s worth it!
