Le Scriptorial, musée des manuscrits du Mont-Saint-Michel, Manuscript museum in Avranches, France

Le Scriptorial is the Mont-Saint-Michel manuscript museum in Avranches, opened in August 2006 below the town ramparts. Architects Emmanuel Berjot, Daniel Cléris and Jean-Michel Daubourg modelled the building on the Mont, with gentle ramps leading to the Treasure Room, which holds twelve medieval manuscripts at a time, rotated quarterly. The building incorporates the cellar of a 13th-century structure.

The collection comes from monks at Mont-Saint-Michel who copied texts in the Middle Ages, preserving and sharing the knowledge of their time. This copying tradition was a vital part of monastic work in safeguarding education and literature.

The name Scriptorial refers to the scriptorium, the workshop where Mont-Saint-Michel monks copied texts from the late 10th century, praised for the quality of their writing and the richness of their illuminations. The museum keeps 199 manuscripts, most produced there between the 10th and 13th centuries, alongside the cartulary Ms.210, written over three centuries from the 12th.

The museum stands behind Avranches' town ramparts, and its gentle ramps toward the treasure room echo those of Mont-Saint-Michel. The treasure room shows twelve medieval manuscripts at a time, rotated every three months, so 48 can be seen in a year. Multimedia terminals, electronic books and video projections make the visit interactive.

A special section of the museum houses rare early printed books kept under strict conditions to ensure their preservation. These valuable items show the early history of book printing and how technology developed following manuscript traditions.