The 33-foot-long text, illustrated by 57 tiny scenes, is a history of the world from Genesis to 1380. Not publicly exhibited since the library acquired it more than a century ago, it is the centerpiece and greatest wonder of ''Secular/Sacred," an exhibit of wonders from the 11th to 16th centuries at the McMullen Museum through June 4. The show brings together more than 90 works from the Boston Public Library and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the majority of them rarely, if ever, shown.
The scroll, given the name ''La Chronique Universelle," is one of 32 hand-painted copies known to exist. ''This is by far the most completely illustrated and one of the earliest versions of this text," Netzer says. Walking the length of the grand case it is displayed in is like traveling through time. Centuries ago people may have unrolled it to see God creating the world, Adam and Eve, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, and King David. After the burning of Troy, the founding of Rome, and Alexander the Great, Jesus arrives.
By this point the text has been divided into four columns, with biblical tales and papal histories on the left, the decline of the Roman empire and rise of France and Britain on the right. The Franks drive out the Romans, King Arthur battles, Charlemagne makes an appearance. Religious and secular history mix fluidly, establishing connections between Adam and Eve and French and English kings, declaring their divine right to rule.
These last years are what the BC exhibit so magnificently documents. If you dream of rummaging through the Hogwarts library or the archives of Middle Earth, this is the show for you. It was a time of cathedrals and castles, the scruffy middle era between the crumbling of the Roman empire and the celebrated rebirth of European culture during the Renaissance. It was an era when the Roman Catholic Church vied with ascendant feudal kings for sacred and secular dominion.
