About This Item
The Book of Miracles is a recently discovered 16th Century German manuscript made up of 167 surviving sheets, depicting in vivid detail miraculous signs, natural catastrophes and Christian myths. Bookended with depictions of biblical events - including stories from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation - and overflowing with striking images of comets, fantastical beasts, miracles, celestial apparitions and other astronomical events, the manuscript is both an exceptional and unique work of renaissance art but also a comprehensive record of natural and supernatural phenomenon from antiquity to middle of the 16th Century. This collection of visually arresting illustrations is steeped in European folklore - inextricable events are playfully depicted with chimerical and wondrous detail. These images are at once strikingly modern - existing somewhere outside of time - and yet inhabit a world of myth and superstition that are inevitably linked to Christian mythology. From these images I have drawn inspiration for the four movements of this concerto. The piece won an Ivor Novello Award in 2019.
