LITMIR.BIZ

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Terrible! That will destroy the exhibition! Forgive my ill temper but cet idiot is interfering with my work.”

      “You know, you’re very beautiful when you’re angry.” I didn’t plan that – it just came out.

      She blushed. “Alors... let us have our visit.”

      She walked over to a diagram labeled Plan de l’Exposition. “Ah well, wherever they put me, the exhibition starts here,” she said, tapping the diagram. “We begin with a series of paintings depicting late medieval landscapes and chateaux, including the great Philippe Auguste fortress in which we now stand, which we show in its original condition.”

      She passed on to another diagram on the wall, this one brightly-colored. Her enthusiasm was lightening her mood. “Here we welcome the visitor into the royal drawing room – period furniture, tapisseries, costumed mannequins. The two central figures, le Duc de Berry and Jeanne each hold their own Books of Hours – replicas, of course. Such a conversation might have occurred since their lives did overlap. This conceit introduces the next room – our centerpiece, the two Books of Hours, side-by-side. Good so far?”

      “Excellent. I’ll be there.”

      “But who knows where or when. That’s an American song, isn’t it?”

      “From a Broadway show, I think. Don’t ask me which.”

      Lucie turned to a table where two Book of Hours replicas were set. “Here we display the pages life-size. The Condé’s Très Riches Heures was in need of conservation – you would never unbind such a delicate book to make photographs, so this is a wonderful opportunity. The Met has done the same with its Belles Heures, so our technicians will recreate both volumes for us on the computer. The visitor will page forward and back as if he were reading the very books. He will be able to enlarge the pages to compare for similarities, influences, and so on.”

      “Pretty neat.”

      “And accompanying will be descriptive placards which we are in process of writing. I have an assistant curator drafting them, she’s marvelous.”

      “What about the art in the books?”

      Lucie returned to the wall and pointed at a set of six panels. “Here we focus on the main themes, the page art and the ornamental margins. And this leads naturally into the next part of the exhibition.”

      Now we were standing before the renderings of the workshop. Two mannequins were hunched over a bench, intent on their work, the first lettering with a quill pen, his seatmate sketching the outline of a scene. “For this we use mainly the Metropolitan’s Belles Heures. The calligraphy comes first, the picture is then outlined, gold leaf applied where called for, then it is painted. The border comes last.” She pointed to the picture outline. “This page shows the beheading of St. Catherine. It is one of seven stories, quite extraneous to the devotional function but they permitted the Limbourgs to show their virtuosity. This next artist applies paint with a fine brush to the beheading scene. First the darker areas are filled in, then the lighter ones.”

      “I wonder how the older guys got along with the brothers, they were so young.”

      “Did they appreciate their genius? I don’t know. Perhaps they were terribly jealous.”

      The next craftsman was filling in a border, vines and leaves and flowers, his seatmate painting a border already sketched in. “As you see, this is a team effort.” The next panel shows a worker assembling the leaves that will become the pages. “They then are gathered into what we call ‘quires’ and sewn together. Next leather thongs are attached to reinforce. End covers will be fixed top and bottom and the whole thing enclosed by a cover of wooden boards in leather. One of our carpenters is fabricating a workbench, another display explains the tools, the inks and dyes, the paints and paper.”

      “I am impressed.”

      “I almost have le directeur convinced to let me produce a workbook for children. We will have copies in an alcove where they can letter and draw and paint while their parents examine le Catalogue de l’Exposition which will be a monumental work in its own right. For a year I’ve worked on a draft, another month perhaps, then my colleagues at the Met and the Condé will read and comment. Finally, outside the gallery we will have a small museum shop where items related to the exhibition will be for purchase.”

      “Books, recordings...”

      “Exactement.”

      “...mugs, t-shirts.”

      “Mais oui.”

      “Is there anything you haven’t thought of?”

      “Only how to make the exhibition happen where it must.”

      “You’ll get your way.”

      She smiled. “I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.” We retired to the café near the main entrance for lunch. I pulled out my copy of A Distant Mirror and held it up.

      “What are your impressions?” Lucie asked.

      “Well, it’s long, obviously.”

      “So was the fourteenth century.”

      “Touché. What I especially liked was how she portrayed the color and density of the times. She made an authorial decision to focus on important people, which is fine, but I would have liked more detail about the ordinary people. While I was reading I tried to get back inside the old cloister, as you put it. Made me realize how little I learned about the times, how little flesh there was on those philosophical bones.”

      “What about the popes? Hardly commendable representatives of God on earth, many of them.”

      “Here too my memory is fuzzy, but I’d been conditioned to think well of the Church. Needless to say my mentors weren’t inclined to encourage a different point of view.”

      “Do I detect some resentment on your part?”

      “Let me put it this way. I was comfortable asking questions, stirring things up, but if I’d read this book back then I would have had better questions. The issue of personal gain, or promoting the power of the institution, those were not stressed, I will tell you.”

      “The Reformation might have given you a clue, why it happened...”

      “But it didn’t.”

      “A course in the history of the period might have done it for you, assuming it was fairly presented. Poor thing, you were like our licorne, never thinking to jump the fence.”

      “At least the licorne had the advantage of once living in the outside world. It never occurred to me that what lay outside the fence might be important.”

      “But the sort of philosophy you studied provides a good foundation, I’m told.”

      “True, but you can’t live in a foundation – the rest of the house matters, too.”

      Lucie smiled. “By the way, just because I’m asking the questions, don’t think I know the answers. What I can tell you, there was great disharmony in the medieval world. The theory and the practice were far, far apart. Now for me, religion wasn’t as important as for you. Earlier, of course – Jésu and la vièrge, Jeanne d’Arc, Sainte Lucie, they were this little girl’s heroes, but as I grew religion didn’t maintain its hold.”

      “You grew out of it, I guess. I never did, probably never will.” I sighed. “What troubles me, why Christ has tolerated so many bad actors to run His Church over the centuries. On the other hand, and here I do fault the author, focusing on the powerful, especially the miscreants, makes her too critical. She ignores the millions of people who led exemplary lives, priests and bishops included. It’s as if those people never existed.”

      “They did, and their lives were difficult.”

      “God tests most severely the ones he loves the most.”

      “That’s

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