British Library, Stowe MS 54 is a French

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

from the first quarter of the fifteenth century of the '' Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César'' ("Ancient History up to Caesar"), a medieval historical compilation recounting tales of the ancient world, especially the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

, the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

(particularly the Fall of Thebes), and the greatness of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. The manuscript was copied in Paris from an earlier Neapolitan exemplar illuminated by Cristoforo Orimina, also held by the British Library (Royal 20 D I). The illustrations in this copy were provided by an unidentified illuminator from the Low Countries, working in Paris. The manuscript forms part of the Stowe manuscripts in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Sources

*Pamela Porter, ''Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts'' (London: British Library, 2000), p. 42.

External links

British Library catalogue recordEncampment of the Greeks, and battle outside Troy
from Stowe 54, folio 83, at the Bridgeman Art Library. 15th-century illuminated manuscripts 54 (Histoire ancienne) Illuminated histories {{British-Library-stub