Gold speaks in a universal tongue and has long held a special place in manuscript traditions around the world. Throughout the centuries, it has been incorporated into books and documents in all sorts of ways: as golden writing, as inscriptions on strips of gold, in illuminated paintings, and in gilded book covers. So intrinsic was gold to the craft of luxury book production that manuscript decoration is known as ‘illumination’ from the use of gold to light up the pages. This relationship is at the heart of the British Library’s new exhibition, Gold: 50 spectacular manuscripts from around the world, which showcases 50 golden manuscripts in 17 different languages, from 20 countries, ranging in date from around the 5th century AD to the 1920s. It includes many of the finest items within the Library’s collection. Some of these are very well known, and may be familiar from publications or previous exhibitions, but there are many other no less exquisite manuscripts that have never been seen in a gallery setting before.
We open the exhibition with three sacred texts, representing three major religions, each illustrating perfectly how – across time and place – people wrote in gold to express the extraordinary importance of a text. The 9th-century Harley Golden Gospels – a copy of the Four Gospels, probably written for Emperor Charlemagne at his court in Aachen – is shown alongside one of seven volumes of a Qur’an commissioned by the Mamluk ruler of Egypt, Sultan Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Jashnagir, and completed in Cairo between 1304 and 1306. Between these two impressive books is another spectacular text: a lavishly decorated scroll from Japan, written in 1636 in gold ink on blue indigo-dyed paper, commissioned by the Emperor Go-Mizunoo for presentation to the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko. It contains the Lotus Sutra, one of the most influential scriptures of the Mahayana school of Buddhism in East Asia, and seen by many as the summation of the Buddha’s teachings. All three copies of holy scriptures, which are written entirely in gold respectively in Latin, Arabic, and Japanese, also contain beautiful painted illuminations – such as the depiction at the start of Lotus Sutra of the Buddha granting promises to his disciples that they may attain Buddhahood in their future lives – but in this exhibition we have chosen to focus attention on the golden text itself.
Just as gold was used in sacred contexts to evoke the awe and mystery of God, secular rulers also saw the potential of gold for conveying an impressive message. Royal documents were embellished with gold to both honour the recipient and reflect the wealth and stature of the sender, as well as to emphasise the text’s authority. Perhaps the most magnificent royal decree in the exhibition was issued by the Mughal emperor Shah ‘Alam II in 1789 to Sophia Elizabeth Plowden, bestowing on her the aristocratic rank of begum with the title Bilqis uz-Zaman, ‘Sheba of the Age’. The wife of an East India Company Officer, Sophia collected Persian and Hindustani songs at the Lucknow court, which she recorded in European musical notation and later published to great acclaim. The background of this great firman or decree written in Persian is entirely gilded, with religious phrases in Arabic at the top written in gold in ‘square’ calligraphy. The whole document was then mounted on a fine piece of red silk brocade almost two metres in height.
