The (recto) page opposite that shown in the plate has an initial D and a border similarly treated, and each one of the Psalms and Prayers throughout the book is begun in like manner.
[to beginning of [PLATE XIX Notes].]
[PLATE XX.]—One page of an Italian (late) Fifteenth-century MS. Ex libris S. C. Cockerell.
“From a book containing the Penitential Psalms in Italian, the Psalter of St. Jerome, and various prayers. Written with great delicacy by Mark of Vicenza for some one named Evangelista [see 11th line] in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Other works of this accomplished scribe are known.”—[S. C. C.]
THE VOLUME—of which a complete (recto) page is shown—contains 60 leaves (512 inches by 334 inches): MARGINS, approx.: Inner 12 inch, Head 78 inch, Side 1316 inch, Foot 11316 inch.
This very fine WRITING is typical of the practical style and beautiful workmanship which should be the aim of a modern scribe (see pp. [47], [310]).
It is written with a very narrow nib, hence the pen-forms [p482] are not so obvious as in some early formal hands; and for this reason alone it would be better to practise such a hand as the tenth-century MS. ([Plate VIII.]) before seriously attempting to model a hand on the above (see pp. [416], [311], [324]).
The use of a fine pen is apt to flatter the unskilled penman, and he finds it hard to distinguish between delicate pen-work which has much character, and that which has little or none. And he will find, after some knowledge of penmanship gained in practice with a broad nib, that the copying of this fine Italian writing—while in reality made much more feasible—may even appear more difficult than before.
CONSTRUCTION.—The pen has a moderate slant—see thin stroke in e. The letters are very square, the tops flat (especially in m, n, and r), and the lower parts flat (as in u). This shows the same tendency that there is in the tenth century and other hands to avoid thin or high arches in the letters.
The feet in some of the letters (in i, for example) are in the nature of stroke-serifs, but the pen probably made these with an almost continuous movement—from the stem.