The Troyes Mémoire

Book excerpt: First English translation of a late fifteenth century manuscript containing instructions for designing a medieval tapestry - the only such to survive. The "Troyes Mémoire", a late fifteenth-century manuscript preserved in the archives of the town of Troyes, France, is the sole surviving example of the written instructions used in designing tapestries during the Middle Ages. It is unique in its presentation of detailed information on how patrons and church officials communicated complex iconographic material to the medieval artists commissioned to paint cartoons for tapestries. It is here translated intoEnglish for the first time, with full introduction and extensive notes. The volume also includes a translation of another richly informative document from medieval Troyes: the Account Books of the Church of Sainte-Madeleine, whichintroduces us to the actual people who worked together, between 1416 and 1430, to produce a set of tapestries for the town's oldest church. They shed important new light on an era when tapestry represented a supreme form of art. Tina Kane is Conservator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Textile Conservation.