Fashions of Friendship in an Early Modern Illustrated Album Amicorum: British Library, MS Egerton 1191

Abstract

The illustrated album amicorum, or album of friends, is a singular visual example of early modern travelers' fascination with swiftly changing fashions, regional customs, family lineage, and manuscript decoration. 1 A predecessor of the sixteenth-century printed costume book, the illustrated album preserves in its pages colored depictions of dress, local scenes of work and entertainment, modes of transportation (boats, litters or sedan chairs, carriages, horses), regional festivals, games, and civic rituals such as weddings, funerals, and state and religious ceremonies, often with identifying captions written in a contemporary hand. 2 The illustrations reveal a keen attention to major changes in fashionable clothing, particular uses of fabrics and trims, and luxurious accessories such as feathered fans, hats with plumes, precious fabrics, and more. In addition, these albums exemplify the interconnections between the printed book and illustrated manuscript in the early modern period, and call attention to the economic, cultural, and social dynamics affecting their production. 3

From scrapbook to Facebook: A history of personal media assemblage and archives

“…A typical page would feature an illustration or pre-inscribed verse in Latin, Greek or Hebrew. In the blank space provided, a friend would inscribe a personalized greeting or dedication to the album’s owner, often accompanied by a commissioned illustration in the form of a heraldic shield or small ‘emblem’ (Rosenthal, 2009: 622). As on Facebook today, friends could convey their personal touch through a reference to some other form of popular media − a motto, a poetic verse or a short epigram.…”

“…The books’ ornate illustrations and witty, multi-authored phrases suggest that they were not meant solely for private documentation, but for social circulation, sharing and display. Each album is a unique aggregation of exchanged inscriptions and emblems, yielding what Rosenthal (2009: 620) calls ‘a portrait of friends and personal experiences that form a communal self for posterity’.…”

El pasado como modelo a imitar. Relaciones entre historia y memorias, siglo XIX colombiano

“…Ante la inminencia de la muerte de grandes personalidades que habían participado en la guerra de la Independencia, sin que dejaran noticia de cuánto habían visto y vivido, se dio a la tarea de coleccionar, en un álbum, 4 los testimonios, escritos a puño y letra, de testigos sobresalientes de la "la guerra magna" como la llamó Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera en las memorias que recopiló en este manuscrito (MSS 545, p 1) . El álbum de Quijano Otero guardaba relación con el álbum amicorum, que definía la práctica de formar un librillo a fin recoger los escritos autógrafos de los amigos a petición de su dueño (Rosenthal, M. 2009).…”