From the classical encyclopedias of Pliny to famous tales such as The Travels of Marco Polo, historical travel writing has had a lasting impact, despite the fact that it was based on a curious mixture of truth, legend, and outright superstition. One foundational medieval source that expands on the ancient idea of the “wonders of the world” is the fifteenth-century French Book of the Marvels of the World, an illustrated guide to the globe filled with oddities, curiosities, and wonders—tales of fantasy and reality intended for the medieval armchair traveler. The fifty-six locales featured in the manuscript are presented in a manner that suggests authority and objectivity but are rife with stereotypes and mischaracterizations, meant to simultaneously instill a sense of wonder and fear in readers.
Larisa Grollemond, Associate Curator of Manuscripts at the Getty Museum, and Kelin Michael, former graduate intern in the Getty’s Manuscripts Department, discuss the collaborative process of bringing the Book of Marvels to a general audience in both publication and exhibition forms. Ultimately, this project aimed to unpack how medieval white Christian Europeans saw their world and how the fear of difference—so pervasive in society today—is part of a long tradition stretching back millennia. Larisa and Kelin discuss the challenges and opportunities in addressing culturally sensitive historical material in responsible but provocative ways for a twenty-first-century public.
Larisa Grollemond is Associate Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Her research interests include late medieval and Renaissance French illuminated manuscripts and paintings, multimedia fifteenth–sixteenth century visual culture, early printing, materiality, royal patronage of the arts, and medievalism. She was co-editor and contributor to Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World (Getty Publications, 2019), the co-author of The Fantasy of the Middle Ages (Getty Publications, 2022), was a contributing author to The Book of Marvels: A Medieval Guide to the Globe (Getty Publications, 2023), and has published research in the journals postmedieval and Digital Philology. She has curated a number of exhibitions for the Getty; past projects include Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World (2019), Transcending Time: The Medieval Book of Hours (2021), The Fantasy of the Middle Ages (2022), Blood: Medieval/Modern (2024), and Rising Signs: The Medieval Science of Astrology (2024).
Kelin Michael is a curatorial professional based in Los Angeles, currently working as a fellow in the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at UCLA's Hammer Museum. She was the Getty Graduate Intern in the Manuscripts department in 2021-2022, where she co-curated the exhibition The Book of Marvels: Wonder and Fear in the Middle Ages and worked on the corresponding publication. Kelin received her PhD in Art History from Emory University in 2023. She now enjoys continuing her research on medieval manuscripts, specifically the relationship between text and image and the ways in which the medieval remains relevant today.
Key resources:
Getty Museum exhibition information
Morgan Library exhibition information
Publication information
Collections page for Getty Book of Marvels
Collections page for Morgan Book of Marvels
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