Monday 12 March 2012

Day 21 - Monks and Magic

My open-top bus tour ticket lasts three days, with free travel on Dublin buses. I better make use of it! I embark towards Trinity College, Dublin, home to the legendary Book of Kells - an 8th century illuminated manuscript of the gospels and a 'must see' according to a Sydney Morning Herald travel feature. Founded in 1592, Trinity College is Ireland's oldest university, and is certainly older (by several centuries) than any building in Australia. Needless to say, the university has a grand, schoolmaster British majesty about it, the like that my imagination conjures when reading Tobias Smollett or Samuel Butler.


Before viewing the actual Book of Kells you are treated to an exhibit which relates its twelve hundred year history and summarises calligraphy, ornamentation and illumination. Why do they call it illumination and not just illustration? The scribes let their imagination run riot. A simple "b" beginning a paragraph could become a twisted tree with a saint peering from its bows. Elaborate title pages are like medieval versions of Where's Wally or Animalia. The variety of pigments range from lustrous green, yellow and red to lapis lazuli.

After the comprehensive history of illumination, spanning more than six rooms, you finally reach the little chamber where the actual codex is on display, housed inside a glass covered table barely two metres square. After all the beat up this is a bit of a let down. Only two folios are on display at any one time - a full page illumination, and a page of latin calligraphy. Very pretty. 

The exhibit is still well worth going to. The Book of Kells is not the only medieval codex on display. Trinity College Library is in possession of several illuminated manuscripts, and although these might not have the same mystique and legendary tale of intrigue, theft and monkish heroism, they are yet impressive and important relics.

The exhibition entry also entitles you to have a squizz in The Long Room, repository of many rare books. Oh to be a librarian amongst these musty tomes, allowed to pass beyond the ropes where us lay tourists can only stare, letting our eyes wander up the ladders to shelf level Q where the pages of some three hundred year old alchemical treatise remain closed to mortal eyes, and have not tasted air since an itinerant scholar in black robes retrieved it from the shelf many centuries ago - only to realise it wasn't the 17th century gardening almanac he was seeking after all.

Venturing down this 200 metre long hall with its  dark vaulted ceiling makes you scratch your head in wonder, and its aisles and its old tomes has any book collector salivating, eagerly anticipating his next adventure into an antique shop in the hope he may acquire a book as old and rare as one of these ... you can easily see where writers like Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling find inspiration for their unseen universities and gothic magic schools.

I would provide you with a picture of the library ... but no photos are allowed, not even without flash ... of course this didn't stop some naughty German tourists turning and taking a few snaps as they walked down the exit stairs, much to the annoyance of a nearby guard.

No comments:

Post a Comment