When Richard 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion died on the 4 February 1816 he bequeathed his entire collection of art, his books, music and illuminated manuscripts, along with £100,000 for the founding of ‘a good substantial Museum’ to his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. So it was that the Fitzwilliam Museum came into being and Viscount Fitzwilliam’s treasured illuminated manuscripts became the basis of a collection that today is described by Dr Stella Panayotova, Keeper of Manuscripts and Printed Books at the museum, as ‘second to none’.
The finest of those manuscripts, and some later acquisitions, are the subject of COLOUR: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, a major exhibition that plays a leading role in the year-long celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the museum.
Viscount Fitzwilliam was an exceptionally knowledgeable collector of illuminated manuscripts and the 130 that he bequeathed to the museum are outstanding examples of late medieval and Renaissance work, says Dr Panayotova, so they are the perfect subject on which to focus in this bicentenary year
