Lambeth Palace Library exhibit

If you have any chance at all of being in London this summer, get your tickets to see the libary exhibit - Treasures of Lambeth Palace Library, running

17 May-23 July 2010

Robert and I went yesterday to a special evening viewing with Lady Cassandra Tantifer, member of the Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society (CLAS).

Highlights:

• Lambeth Bible - bigger than you ever expected! one of the three definitive Romanesque bibles
• one of the handful of illuminated Gutenberg Bibles, printed on vellum, not paper (whitework to die for)
• the warrant for Mary Queen of Scots execution
• some correspondence from Elizabeth, with a holograph addendum (ie. in her own hand) saying that she'd had the pox, but you could hardly tell now, she's recovered so well

Another gem is the catalogue, which as Patricia Lovett the host pointed out, showed as much calligraphy as illumination - every item gets several pages of pictures. Glorious. Well worth the price (£15 for the duration of the exhibit, I think).