The Saint John's Bible represents an extraordinary achievement, a handwritten manuscript of the Bible produced in 21st-century Wales and Minnesota. But the tradition of writing the Bible by hand reaches back two thousand years, to the earliest fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It grows out of the western monastic tradition established by Benedictine monks in Northumberland and Ireland after the retreat of the Romans and exported to the European continent in the early Middle Ages. Medieval manuscript scholar Lisa Fagin Davis will trace this development from the earliest Latin versions to the contemporary Saint John's Bible.

LISA FAGIN DAVIS received her PhD in Medieval Studies from Yale University in 1993. She has catalogued medieval and Renaissance manuscript collections throughout the United States and has published five books and numerous articles in the field. In 2016, she co-curated the major exhibition "Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections" at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In addition to serving as Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America, Davis regularly teaches an introduction to manuscript studies at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

November 13-17: St. Jerome’s University will host an exhibit of manuscripts from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (PIMS), University of St. Michael’s College