Listen with headphones for best experience.

Join curator Catherine Yvard inside the National Art Library as she introduces us to a medieval choirbook from the 15th century. This particular object is an illuminated manuscript – a handwritten book which has been illustrated in gold, silver and rich colours that make the page shimmer.

Sound designer and performance-maker Julie Rose Bower has documented Catherine's delicate examination process using ambisonic sound, letting us get closer to the object than ever before.

Watch as Catherine examines the book in preparation for a display, and turns the pages. She tells us how the manuscript would have been used, shows us the exquisite illustrations, tells us about the parchment that it is made from, and how notation was scraped away with a knife when the liturgy changed.