Images in the Margins Margot McIlwain Nishimura
"Images in the Margins" is the third in the popular "Medieval Imagination" series of small affordable books drawing on manuscript illumination in the collections of the British Library and the J Paul Getty Museum. Each volume focuses on a particular theme, providing an accessible, delightful introduction to the imagination of the medieval world. An astonishing mix of mundane, playful, absurd and monstrous beings, called marginalia, are found in the borders of English, French, and Italian manuscripts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Unpredictable, topical, often irreverent, marginalia were a source of satire, serious social observation, and amusement for medieval readers. Though enlarged full colour details, and a lively narrative, this volume brings these intimately scaled and fascinating images to a wider audience.