Symposium
Northern Netherlandish Manuscript Illumination in the Fifteenth Century - Symposium
- Date
- Thursday 19 November 2026
- Time
- Address
-
University Library
Witte Singel 27
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- Kartini Auditorium
The most beautiful and richly decorated medieval manuscripts were created in the fifteenth century. During this period manuscript illumination in the Northern Netherlands was at its peak. These manuscripts remain breathtaking and are still an important source for research.
Leiden University Libraries and the Alexander Willem Byvanck Genootschap kindly invite you for a symposium on recent research into fifteenth-century manuscript illumination in the Northern Netherlands on Thursday, 19 November. Topics will include the work of the Master of Catherine of Cleves – the most prominent illuminator in the Northern Netherlands during the fifteenth century – as well as the market for illuminated books of hours in Leiden and the UBL’s collection of illuminated Northern Netherlandish manuscripts.
The symposium will take place from 13:30 to 17:30, at the Kartini Auditorium in the University Library, Witte Singel 27, 2311 BG, Leiden. After the symposium, visitors will be able to view an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts from the collection of the UBL, curated especially for this day. There will be a reception with drinks afterwards.
Guest of honour will be James Marrow, professor emeritus of Art History at Princeton University and renowned specialist in the field of medieval manuscript illumination.
Admission is free. Registration is mandatory.
RegistrationProgram
13:30 | Doors open
14:00 | Welcome by Sabine Craft-Giepmans (Head of Special Collections, Leiden University Libraries)
14:15 | Martine Meuwese (Assistant Professor of Medieval Art at Utrecht University)
Inventive iconography in the margins. Marginal decoration in the Utrecht Pontifical illuminated by the Master of Catherine of Cleves.
14:45 | Anne Margreet As-Vijvers (Illuminare scribendo – Research and projects in Art History)
Choosing a book of one's own. The market for Books of Hours in fifteenth-century Leiden.
15:15 | Coffee and tea
15:45 | Anne Korteweg, curator emerita of medieval manuscripts KB | National Library of the Netherlands
New developments in Dutch manuscript painting of the fifteenth century.
16:15 | Mart van Duijn, Curator of Western Manuscripts and Archives UBL
Remarks on the pop-up exhibition of illuminated manuscripts from the Northern Netherlands (c. 1400–1520).
16:30 | Viewing of the pop-up exhibition and drinks
17:30 | End
The lectures will be given in English.
Medieval manuscripts in the UBL collection
With over 1,400 volumes and more than a thousand fragments, the Leiden collection of medieval manuscripts (dating up to c. 1550) is the largest in the Netherlands. The vast majority date from the fifteenth century, yet only a modest portion is illuminated. Anne Korteweg, former curator of medieval manuscripts at the KB, catalogued the Northern Netherlandish illuminated manuscripts held by Leiden University Libraries in the first volume of the Catalogue of Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Held by Leiden University Libraries (2025).
Written Treasures (2025) provides an extensive overview of the UBL’s medieval manuscript collection and presents and describes fifty exceptional manuscripts from the collection.
Stichting Alexander Willem Byvanck Genootschap
The Alexander Willem Byvanck Genootschap was founded in 1989 to study and catalogue medieval illuminated manuscripts. The society focuses primarily on Northern Netherlandish illuminated manuscripts held in public collections, both in the Netherlands and abroad. It also studies illuminated manuscripts held in Dutch collections that originated elsewhere.
The symposium is funded by the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies.