The National Library of Australia’s new exhibition to handwriting is an enticing one. Divided into three parts, it will hold the interest of a wide variety of viewers.

In the mysteriously dark first room of this exhibition, the lights are low, because of the precious manuscripts that are on display. This is a section devoted to the manuscript book, some religious works in tiny print; others romances and priceless legal works. The beauty of these manuscripts is equalled by the awareness that the authors and scribes were elite clergy and nobility.

The second room was the most exciting to me—receipts, diary entries, letters, scrawled ideas and signatures from some of the greats. Here the average member of the public can do some guesswork. Are dictatorial personalities like Napoleon and Simone de Bolivar naturally illegible? Why are the handwritings of Volta, Hegel and Erasmus so chaotic? And why are Newton and Nietzsche so neat?

The final room, manuscripts of great scores, is of particular interest to music lovers and experts. Wagner seems surprisingly controlled. The thrill of seeing Beethoven’s manuscript of the Fifth Symphony is enhanced by the book in which his visitors could write queries as his deafness increased.

The excellent descriptors in this exhibition help to explain such phenomena, but there is still a measure of judgment left to you.

Photo: Napoleon Bonaparte letter to his foreign minister Talleyrand-Perigord (12 October 1806). Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz.