Deathless Fragments Manuscript Exhibition Opens

Ohio is packed with parts of medieval books and some of the finest manuscript examples are now on display in Deathless Fragments, a new exhibition at The Ohio State University’s Rare Books & Manuscripts Library.

The library holds the state’s largest collection of these pieces, including more than 500 unique Western European manuscripts dating to 1000-1500AD, and ranging from illuminated Bibles to scientific treatises. But many of them are fragments as a result of vermin, war, and simply breaking up for commercial profit.

“The exhibit features more than 100 different manuscript items,” Eric J. Johnson, Professor & Curator of Thompson Special Collections at The Ohio State University Libraries, told Fine Books. “ranging from a small parchment fragment pasted to an unknown saint’s finger bone, to fragments that once were, or currently are, serving as binding supports of different types, deluxe illuminated manuscript folios, the carcasses of manuscripts - empty bindings and cut apart pages - rescued from book-breakers’ trash, and selected examples of complete medieval manuscripts including multiple Books of Hours, an illuminated sermon collection, and a 13th-century illuminated Bible.”

The exhibition pays particular attention to the legacies of two well-known Ohio-based book breakers, Otto Ege and Bruce Ferrini, who over nearly 80 years between the 1930s and early 2000s cut apart hundreds of medieval manuscripts, dispersing their pages around the world.

“One of the main components of the exhibit is a lavish display of more than 30 illuminated leaves of the so-called ‘Hornby-Cockerell’ Bible,” said Johnson, “a deluxe illuminated early-13th century French manuscript purchased at auction by Ferrini and associates in September 1981 and immediately cut apart, its pages rapidly distributed around the world. Ohio State holds the largest number of folios of this MS today, 197 of an original 440.”