The University of Illinois' Krannert Art Museum plans an exhibition of medieval manuscripts starting this month. The museum says the exhibit "Making and Breaking Medieval Manuscripts" will display primarily books from the 13th through 16th centuries originally adorned with hand-drawn illustrations. In many cases those illustrations remain but some are missing those pages.
Maureen Warren is the Krannert Art Museum's curator of European and American art. She says the exhibit will celebrate both how such manuscripts were made and in some cases taken apart by collectors. The latter practice was known as book breaking and was common.
The manuscripts are owned by the university. The exhibit runs through Feb. 11.
