History of Art Research Seminar Series | Dr Victoria Whitworth

Join History of Art for the next talk in the Research Seminar Series chaired by Prof. Heather Pulliam.

This lecture will be hybrid. Please book your ticket for either online or in-person attendance.

A truism about the Book of Kells is that its artwork is intellectually complex and its script beautiful, but its Latin text is riddled with 'schoolboy' errors. This talk contends that the word choice and layout are intentional, defamiliarising the gospels and making reading into an adventurous spiritual exercise.

About Dr Victoria Whitworth

Dr Victoria Whitworth is the author of The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma (Bloomsbury, 2025). Her other specialisms include Pictish and Anglo-Saxon sculpture, and dying and death in the early middle ages. Her current project is a monograph on English, Scottish and Manx sculpture, 800–1100.

Image: Initial P from the Book of Kells, Trinity College Dublin, MS 50, f.179r.

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