Last week, it was announced that the Cleveland Museum of Art agreed to return a leaf of an illuminated manuscript back to Italy. The page, from a 14th century hymnal, features St. Lucy. According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcements, the museum had bought the work in good faith, unaware that the page was stolen and that the Italian government was actively searching for it. Once aware of the situation, the museum negotiated with the Italian authorities and returned the leaf. The museum plans to send the piece back to Italy in time for the Feast of St. Lucy in mid-December.

Illuminated manuscripts are valuable on the art market, with some single pages valued in the tens of millions. Because of the great value, forged pages have appeared on the market. For more insights into this fascinating genre of art, three museums in Boston are presenting a collaborative 3-part exhibition, Beyond Words, focused on manuscripts. The McMullen Museum at Boston College, Houghton Library at Harvard University, and the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum are displaying three magnificent exhibitions on these works. I had the opportunity to visit all three shows during this past week, and I was impressed by the superb curation of the exhibition, variety of manuscripts on view, and beauty of the display. The three exhibitions are on display through various dates in December and January.