IT and Culture: British Library’s illuminated royal manuscripts made available via mobile apps

The British Library has announced the release of its new app for smartphones and tablets, which gives users a unique chance to discover the treasure trove of illuminated manuscripts assembled by English kings and queens over 700 years.

The collection of outstanding illuminated medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, now made available via the mobile app, is a part of the future Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination exhibition which is opening at the British Library on November 11 2011.

Users will get access to 58 manuscripts from the exhibition, each with interpretive text, 500 high-resolution manuscript images of some of the best surviving examples of medieval painting in England, including many pages not on display in the exhibition, and expert curator videos exploring the history and details of the manuscripts.

Selected manuscripts include colorful histories and genealogies, Bibles and Psalters, scientific works and accounts of coronations. The highlights include the Book of Hours made for Margaret Beauchamp (great-grandmother of Henry VIII), Henry VIII’s Psalter, commissioned and annotated by the king himself, Maps of an itinerary from London to Apulia and to the Holy Land, and the Shrewsbury Book (Book of Romances), presented to Margaret of Anjou on her marriage to Henry VI in 1445.