Garden at The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park, New York City

The Cloisters is the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art and architecture of the European middle ages. The Cloisters is located in New York City, specifically Fort Tryon Park near the northern tip of Manhattan island on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. The Cloisters include the museum building and the adjacent 4 acres (16,000 m²). The collection, which includes a small chapel and various artifacts incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters: Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert, Bonnefont-en-Comminges, Trie-en-Bigorre, and Froville. These disassembled European buildings were reassembled in the park (1934/38) setting with gardens planted according to horticultural information culled from various medieval documents and artifacts.

The Cloisters as seen from the Hudson River

From The Cloisters in New York City. The inscription reads, “Through the Sign of the Holy Cross, from our enemies, our God frees us.”

Among the famous works of art held at the Cloisters are seven south Netherlandish tapestries depicting “The Hunt of the Unicorn”, Robert Campin’s Merode Altarpiece, and the Romanesque altar cross known as the “Cloisters Cross” or “Bury Cross.” The Cloisters also holds many medieval manuscripts and illuminated books, including the Limbourg brothers’ Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry and Jean Pucelle’s book of hours for Jeanne d’Evreux.

Notable works of architecture are the Cuxa cloister, with an adjacent Chapter House; and the Fuenteduena Apse from a chapel in the Pyrenees.

The museum and adjacent park were created thanks to an endowment grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Besides purchasing this land and donating it to the city, Rockefeller also purchased and donated to the State of New Jersey several hundred acres of the New Jersey Palisades on the other side of the Hudson River in order to preserve the view for the museum.

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