Numerous museums of applied art and design were founded in the 19th and early 20th centuries after the model of the Museum of South Kensington, London, renamed in 1899 as the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Some of these later institutions, including the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto (ROM), united their collections of art and design with those of archaeology, natural history, and science. The V&A collection of illuminated cuttings was an inspiration for the collecting of manuscript fragments in such museums, but many collections have long been hidden from view and unpublished. This article examines Italian leaves and cuttings in two museums inspired by the V&A, the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Initial study of the large group of miniatures purchased by the MAK from the auction of Johann Anton Ramboux’s collection in 1867 gives insight into the illuminations acquired by this important German artist, connoisseur, and collector. In addition, this study highlights three sets of items in the two museums that expand our understanding of Italian manuscript illumination: Four montages of cuttings created from sixteen leaves of a magnificent disassembled fourteenth-century Book of Hours from the Veneto, a Gradual leaf by the Master of the Antiphonal Q of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, and a montage of cuttings created by Abbé Luigi Celotti from the Missal created for Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini for use in the Sistine Chapel.
