The seminar cycle «Tesouros em Pergaminho – A coleção de manuscritos iluminados ocidentais de Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian» (Treasures in Parchment – the Western Illuminated Manuscript Collection of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian) results from a partnership between the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the Institute of Medieval Studies, and aims to showcase the excellence of the codices and fragments gathered by the collector. Although they have always been accessible to researchers and have already been studied by specialists, and many of them have been disseminated on international circuits and exhibited in the context of the exhibition “The Image of Time. Western Manuscript Books” (2000), the examples included in this collection deserve wider dissemination among the national scientific community and the general public. For this purpose, a group of researchers specialising in this area selected a significant set of manuscripts whose texts and images marked the European Middle Ages. In thematic terms, the sessions cover a wide range of works, with reference texts in the fields of Biblical exegesis, spirituality, philosophy, law, liturgy and profane literature, plus a session on the problems of the conservation and restoration processes to which many of them were subjected.

This seminar cycle is open to the general public but is of particular interest and relevance to teachers, researchers and students in the History of Medieval Art field.

Coordinated by Luís Correia de Sousa and Maria Adelaide Miranda, this project stems from the collaboration between the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the Institute of Medieval Studies, a research unit of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University.