Manuscript Matters and the Persian Arts of the Book in Early Modern Times

Explores deluxe Persian manuscripts, their materiality and production from the fourteenth to seventeenth century

• Underscores the value to be gained from the close study of hand-made books as three-dimensional objects in tandem with textual and historical research and art historical interpretation
• Draws attention to numerous manuscripts in collections worldwide (Near East, Europe, North America), including many little studied for their material dimensions
• Takes a deep dive into selected features of deluxe manuscripts that have hitherto received only cursory, if any, scholarly attention, and explores the significance of those features
• Stresses the importance of critical looking for understanding the Persianate arts of the book
• Sheds light on how particular parts of manuscripts – whether large double-page paintings or virtually invisible artist signatures – contribute to our understanding of how manuscripts were conceived, made and used in traditional Persianate culture

Based on the 2025 Yarshater Lectures in Persian Art, this book presents distinctive aspects – some familiar and others overlooked – of Persianate manuscripts and manuscript making during the early modern period. Its four parts focus on paintings that often come at the beginning and end of manuscripts (frontispieces and finispieces); on the presence and use of page markers on manuscript folios; on the graphic and pictorial style of ‘Abdullah al-Shirazi, a prolific sixteenth-century painter-decorator; and on the image of the book in illustrated manuscripts from Iran and India.

Marianna Shreve Simpson explores particular material and artistic features, forms and functions that shaped the making of deluxe Persianate manuscripts over the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, and that contribute to the continuing appeal of this celebrated tradition today.