Even when dealing with the remote past, the historian cannot be entirely objective. And in an account of his own experiences and reactions the personal factor becomes so important that it has to be extrapolated by a deliberate effort on the part of the reader.
Erwin Panofsky
As we approach the end of the twentieth century, it is an appropriate time to consider the evolution of art-historical scholarship during this century; recent publications on this topic indicate its current interest. In particular, the discipline of manuscript studies, which has been flourishing and changing in its methodology over the last two decades, deserves re-evaluation and assessment. Rumination on the past is a fundamental process in our attempts to define new approaches and necessary to the positioning of our own approaches in relationship to what preceded them, especially methodologies that had conspicuous impact on the history of the discipline.