Kelin Michael

This fascinating volume explores an important fifteenth-century illustrated manuscript tradition that provides a revealing glimpse of how western Europeans conceptualized the world.

From the classical encyclopedias of Pliny to famous tales such as The Travels of Marco Polo, historical travel writing has had a lasting impact, despite the fact that it was based on a curious mixture of truth, legend, and outright superstition. One foundational medieval source that expands on the ancient idea of the “wonders of the world” is the fifteenth-century French Book of the Marvels of the World, an illustrated guide to the globe filled with oddities, curiosities, and wonders—tales of fantasy and reality intended for the medieval armchair traveler. The fifty-six locales featured in the manuscript are presented in a manner that suggests authority and objectivity but are rife with stereotypes and mischaracterizations, meant to simultaneously instill a sense of wonder and fear in readers.

In The Book of Marvels, the authors explore the tradition of encyclopedias and travel writing, examining the various sources for geographic knowledge in the Middle Ages. They look closely at the manuscript copies of the French text and its complex images, delving into their origins, style, content, and meaning. Ultimately, this volume seeks to unpack how medieval white Christian Europeans saw their world and how the fear of difference—so pervasive in society today—is part of a long tradition stretching back millennia.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from June 11 to September 1, 2024, and at the Morgan Library & Museum from January 24 to May 25, 2025.

In this dissertation, I explore how Hrabanus Maurus's unique combination of text and image formed "iconotexts," works of inextricable text and image, which largely contributed to the the success and longevity of his magnum opus "In honorem sanctae crucis" (In honor of the holy cross). I trace the reception of this collection of carmina figurata (figured poems) from its inception (c. 810 CE) to the final manuscript copy of the work made for Rudolf II in 1600 CE.

As I am currently working on further projects related to my research, I have not uploaded my dissertation here, but please feel free to reach out to me should you be interested in reading portions.

Devotion is a fully embodied activity that engages the senses as well as the heart and mind. The Materiality of Devotion: From Manuscript to Print provides visitors with the opportunity to explore a variety of objects, texts, and images that supported devotional practices in the medieval and early modern world. The exhibition invites visitors to consider both the form and the content of these sources, which include traditional theological and biblical material as well as musical scores, cityscapes, and poetry. Though these materials have been removed from their original contexts (manuscript leaves excised from full books and books removed from their sacred or secular settings), the exhibition offers a glimpse into the rich and endlessly multimodal world of premodern devotion.

The exhibition drew on Pitts Theology Library’s medieval manuscripts as well as its world-renowned early print collection, and also benefited from generous loans made by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library and the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

This exhibition explores the Book of the Marvels of the World, an illuminated manuscript made in the 1460s that weaves together tales of places both near and far. Told from the perspective of a medieval armchair traveler in northern France, the global locations are portrayed as bizarre, captivating, and sometimes dangerously different. Additional objects in the exhibition highlight how the overlapping sensations of wonder and fear helped create Western stereotypes of the “other” that still endure today.

This online Google Arts & Culture exhibition complements the incredible physical show curated by Larisa Grollemond, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Both explore the ways in which ideas about the Middle Ages have informed visual traditions from the medieval to the contemporary.

This project is connected to my 2019 Mellon Fellowship in Object-Centered Curatorial Research which allowed me to thoroughly investigate a group of primarily Visigothic material in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. The project aimed to create an online exhibition for the Carlos Museum which showcases both the objects and the research I conducted in 2019. Because the physical objects currently reside in museum storage, the intent of this exhibition is to bring the objects to the attention of visitors by placing the buckles in conversation with a larger corpus of Migration Period personal adornment.

This chapter, which came out of a conference paper in October 2021, addresses the transition of Hrabanus Maurus's "In honorem sanctae crucis" from manuscript to print, and then back again. It analyzes how the collection of poems was customized and the challenges presented by the unique format of the work.

This paper, given at the 2020 Virtual International Medieval Conference (Leeds) addressed two later manuscript copies of Hrabanus Maurus's "carmina figurata," In honorem sanctae crucis and examined how visual alterations to the poems reflect contemporary religious movements.

This paper investigates Hrabanus's Maurus's work of carmina figurata, In honorem sanctae crucis, and examines how relationships to the work changed as it was created in both manuscript and printed forms. Video of the full paper available here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/3181752/video/323855725

I gave a guest lecture for Emory University's ARTHIST 259: Global Baroque Art & The Digital Humanities (Spring 2023). During the lecture, I discussed my own experiences writing for a general audience, focusing on my projects in the digital sphere.

Did you know that Ethiopia has one of the longest standing traditions of Christian practice in the world? Let’s explore this Gospel Book, which dates to the early 1500s, and includes textiles, illuminations, and details that tell of travel, trade, and diaspora.

Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you’re looking to learn more at home or want to make art more accessible in your classroom. This six-part video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.