Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink

Book excerpt: Introduction: for the love of books / Marc Michael Epstein -- The people of the book/books of the people: illuminating the canon / Hartley Lachter and Marc Michael Epstein -- Parchments and palimpsests: scribe, illuminator, patron, audience / Marc Michael Epstein -- The illuminated page: materials, methods, and techniques / Barbara Wolff -- Mapping the territory: ʼArbʻah kanfot maʼareẓ, the four corners of the medieval Jewish world. Ereẓ Yisrael/The land of Israel: homeland and center / Marc Michael Epstein ; Italia/Italy: the first western diaspora / Marc Michael Epstein ; Ashkenaz: Franco-Germany, England, Central, and East Europe / Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein ; Sepharad and ʻArav: Spain and the Middle East / Raymond P. Scheindlin with Marc Michael Epstein ; The problem of national style / Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein -- Iconography: telling the story / Marc Michael Epstein -- Dialogue and disputation: cultural negotiation / Marc Michael Epstein -- This world centered on the home: women, marriage, and the family / Shalom Sahar -- Glimpses of Jewish life: reality or illusion? / Marc Michael Epstein -- Incidental details: margins and meaning / Marc Michael Epstein -- Sacred and profane: naked ladies in the Haggadah? / Ágnes Vető -- Other worlds: fantastic horizons and unseen universes / Hartley Lachter wtih Marc Michael Epstein -- Zion and Jerusalem: the sum of all beauty, the joy of all the earth / Shalom Sahar -- In the royal court: Jewish illumination in an age of printing / Marc Michael Epstein -- A Yiddish Minhagim manuscript / Diane Wolfthal -- Illuminating the present: contemporary Jewish illumination / Susan Vick with Marc Michael Epstein -- Continuing the journey: annotated bibliography and manuscript descriptions / Jenna Siman Jacobs with Marc Michael Epstein.