The New York Public Librarys collection of nearly three hundred Western European illuminated manuscripts is one of the largest in America but also one that is very little known. Dating from the turn of the tenth century unto well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who discovered ever-new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. To introduce this magnificent collection and many of its most important works to scholars and the wider audience, The Splendor of the Word presents one hundred manuscripts of particular cultural, historical, and artistic significance, selected from the Librarys collection.--Amazon.com.