Publisher's Synopsis
In Les Marges a droleries des manuscrits gothiques, Jean Wirth and his team of researchers analyze the secular and humoristic marginalia that appeared in illuminated manuscripts throughout Europe over the course of the thirteenth century. Along with an iconological method adapted to the subject, the work describes the genre's stylistic evolution and characteristics, as well as its principal influences, from Biblical iconography to classical art and secular literature. The different decorative themes are studied, including games, dancing, courtly pastimes, and even religious satire. The paradoxical presence of such secular marginalia in devotional books destined mostly for aristocratic women is elucidated by what is known about the patrons and painters. Wirth's conclusions renew our knowledge of medieval aristocratic behavior and ideology. They also show that by having their way of life comically depicted in these books the patrons contributed to the flowering of an iconography with a great future in Western art: genre paintings. French text."
