THE ILLUMINATED MIDDLE AGES

For the first time, the Middle Ages presented on DVD for general audiences

This outstanding new DVD-ROM is the richest, most comprehensive multimedia program to date on the medieval period. With 600 images of miniatures from illuminated manuscripts preserved in French libraries, most of them previously unpublished, the program offers ten major animated segments on themes designed to reveal life during the Middle Ages: animals, time and space, family and kinship, work and daily life, power, justice, knowledge and education, artistic creation, the faces of God, and the world of marginalia.
Ten of the world’s most renowned specialists share their erudition and enthusiasm as they guide your discovery of a luminous Middle Ages that will surprise you and challenge many common misconceptions.

75 min. of video:
- 10 thematically structured animated segments and ten “pauses” offering detailed discussion of specific images
- Interviews with the authors

600 imagesorganized by theme, date, and location of manuscript:
Advanced search capacity across the database by:
- location of manuscript (some fifty libraries located throughout most regions of France)

- chronology (to situate the manuscripts in the context of the events of each historical period)
- 10 main themes
- 2000 keywords
Each miniature is accompanied by complete catalogue information (date, place, manuscript of origin, attribution, iconographic description, historical commentary...)

Behind the scenes: a complete introduction to the codes and to medieval manuscript making and illuminating.

10 renowned authors among today’s preeminent medievalists: Jacques Dalarun, Michel Pastoureau, Jean-Claude Schmitt, Patrick Boucheron, François Boespflug, Patrick Gautier Dalché, Christian Heck, Robert Jacob, Didier Lett, Perrine Mane, Daniel Russo.

A New Look at the Middle Ages:
***A large corpus of previously unpublished images from Occidental art: historians themselves have never before had access to all of these images, culled from thousands of manuscripts and brought together onscreen for the first time.
A zoom function enables viewers to enjoy the beauty and extraordinary finesse of the images in all their detail. From the Romanesque through the Gothic, and from one region to another, the images show a surprising diversity of styles and reflect a reality that is quite different from the “official” imagery of the Middle Ages.
Discovering the richness of this reality has led historians to modify their analyses and to correct certain misconceptions about the Middle Ages: contrary to popular belief, medieval scholars knew that the earth was round, not flat; the notion of perspective was known to medieval artists, etc.

DVD-ROM Mac / PC (in French)
Now available
Suggested retail price : 59 euros
Distributor: Hachette multimédia.
Available in bookstores, museum shops and other cultural specialty stores, and on the Web: www.nouveau-monde.net

Also available : The Illuminated Middle Ages , an art book by the same authors, edited by Jacques Dalarun.
Format 27,5 cm X 35,5 cm; 400 pages, 80 € until 31 January 2003; 100 € thereafter.