Private Pleasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Persia to Paris reveals the Private personal manuscript collection of Denys Spittle (1920-2003), who was born in Cambridge, came to read Architecture at Pembroke College in 1939 and subsequently become a life member of the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The twenty-five exhibits represent literary and artistic traditions which flourished from the tenth to the twentieth century, and are here on public display for the first time. The exhibition features masterpieces as diverse as Nizami’s Persian Khamza, a Byzantine Gospelbook, a Parisian history of the French kings, a Bruges Book of Hours, the popular English Brut Chronicle, an Ottoman Qu’ran and a Venetian copy of Cicero.

Dr Stella Panayotova, Keeper of Manuscripts and Printed Books at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the curator of Private Pleasures, said "This exhibition celebrates the passion for medieval manuscripts, the pleasure of collecting them and the excitement of sharing them with others. We are delighted to have the opportunity to display this selection of treasures from so personal a collection."

Private Pleasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Persia to Paris is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue, available in the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Courtyard Shop for £14.95. The exhibition will be on view through 6 January 2008. -- www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk