During the fifteenth century the making of paper reached its highest degree of perfection, and in the following century its excellence began to decline.
| Beauty of Venetian paper. |
Beauty of Venetian paper.The Venetian paper of about 1470, used, for example, in the printed books of Nicolas Jenson and other printers in Venice, is a substance of very great beauty and durability, inferior only in appearance to the very best sort of vellum. It is very strong, of a fine creamy tint, and sized[[250]] with great skill, so as to have a beautiful glossy texture. For the illuminator's purpose it appears to have been almost as good as vellum. It even receives the raised mordant for burnished gold of the highest beauty and brilliance.
The very small quantity of good paper that is now manufactured, mainly for artistic purposes, is made by hand in exactly the same way that was employed in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Most paper is now made by machinery, and as a rule contains more esparto grass than pure linen fibre.
The Metals and Pigments used in Illuminated Manuscripts[[251]].
| Fluid and leaf gold. |
Fluid and leaf gold.Gold and silver or tin. The splendour of illuminated manuscripts of almost all classes, except manuscripts of the Irish school such as the Book of Kells, is largely due to the very skilful use of gold and silver. These metals were applied by the illuminator in two ways, first, as a fluid pigment, and secondly in the form of leaf.
The fluid method appears to have been the older. It is easier to apply, but is not comparable in splendour of effect to the highly burnished leaf gold, which was used with such perfection of skill by the illuminators of the fourteenth century.
| Method of grinding. |