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“Illuminations” is an installation/exhibition inspired by a recently discovered manuscript, the Salzinnes Antiphonal*, scribed in 1554 at a convent in what is now Belgium. We exhibit high-resolution photographs from the manuscript, reproductions of the paintings on 12 banners suspended mid-air, and tools/materials for making a medieval book on loan from Boston’s North Bennet Street School. Our scribe will illuminate a replica of a page in real time. We offer food and drink that replicates the diet of the nuns in that particular convent, in that particular time and season. Clothed in habits from the order and the era, CC's women chant the hours in the medieval monastic day, telescoped down from 9 hours to about 1.5, so that each hour lasts about 10 minutes. In between the chanting of the hours, the audience is invited to walk around, inspect, read, listen to scholars, watch the scribe at work, eat and drink. Scholar Judith Dietz, discoverer of the Salzinnes Antiphonal, will be present for Q&A's.

* The Salzinnes Antiphonal is held in the collection of the Patrick Power Library, St Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. We are grateful to St. Mary's for permitting us to draw on this material.

7pm Saturday October 19th at Eliot Church
             474 Centre Street, Newton, MA 02458

5pm Sunday October 20th at St. Paul's Church
             15 St. Paul's Street, Brookline, MA 02446

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Want to know more about the Salzinnes Antiphonal at St Mary's U?

Click HERE!

Want to see Judith Dietz's power point presentation on the art of the Salzinnes nuns?

click HERE! 

Scribe Martha Bancroft illuminates her beautiful replica of a page.

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