The Book of Marvels Goes on Show at the Morgan

Book of Marvels of the World
The Book of the Marvels of the World, an illustrated guide to the globe filled with oddities, curiosities, and wonders for the medieval armchair traveler will go on display at The Morgan Library & Museum tomorrow.
Running January 24 through May 25, The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World is at the center of the exhibition which brings together two of the four surviving copies of this rare text - one from the Morgan’s collection, the other from the J. Paul Getty Museum - to examine medieval conceptions and misconceptions of a global world.
The related works on display bring to life the world of the Book of Marvels. Together, these objects demonstrate how foreign cultures were imagined in the Middle Ages and what the assumptions of medieval Europeans reveal about their own beliefs and biases. The exhibition also features Persian and Ottoman manuscripts that engage the theme from a non-European perspective.
Accounts of marvels were a primary way for pre-modern people across many cultures to learn about distant lands. Stretching the limits of imagination, these accounts often become increasingly fantastical the farther one travels from home. So in the description of Sri Lanka from the Book of Marvels, both text and image focus on the region’s massive snails which are said to be so large that locals live inside their shells and hunt them like wild game. Likewise, Arabia is depicted as a region rich in precious gems which are cut from the stomachs of dragons like pearls from oysters.
In Europe these accounts reinforced notions of cultural and religious superiority, often by characterizing other cultures as immoral or uncivilized.
“This exhibition is an opportunity to exhibit and study the Morgan’s copy of the Book of the Marvels of the World, the most complete extant copy, while also examining its perspective on the global medieval world,” said Colin B. Bailey, Katharine J. Rayner Director of the Morgan Library & Museum."
Other highlights iinclude:
- rare illustrated manuscripts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville
- a richly ornamented Ottoman Book of Wonders, made for a sultan’s daughter
- a spectacular medieval map of the Holy Land, based on pilgrimage accounts; and one of the earliest European depictions of Native Americans
In summer 2024, a complementary show, The Book of Marvels: Wonder and Fear in the Middle Ages, was held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where their copy and the Morgan’s copy of the Book of Marvels manuscripts were placed in conversation with objects from the Getty’s collection.