Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

In addition to these mineral and very permanent reds there were some more fugitive vegetable and animal scarlets and reds which were used in illuminated manuscripts.

Murex.

Murex.Murex. One of these, the murex shell-fish, has already been mentioned for its use as a dye for the vellum of the magnificent Byzantine and Carolingian gold-written manuscripts. The murex was also used as a color infectivus by concentrating it on powdered chalk[^[275]].

Kermes.

Kermes.Kermes. Another very beautiful and important carmine-red pigment was made from the little kermes[^[276]] beetle (coccus) which lives on the ilex oaks of Syria and the Peloponnese. It is rather like the cochineal beetle of Mexico, but produces a finer and more durable colour, especially when used as a dye. For the woven stuffs of classical and mediaeval times, and in the East even at the present day, the kermes is one of the most beautiful and important of all the colours used for dyeing. The mediaeval name for the kermes red was rubeum de grana; when required for use as a pigment it appears to have been usual, not to extract the colour directly from the beetle, but to get it out of clippings of red cloth which had been dyed with the kermes, by boiling the cloth in a weak solution of alkali and precipitating the red pigment from the water with the help of alum.

The reason for this method is not apparent. Possibly it was first done as a means of utilizing waste clippings of the costly red cloth, and then, when the habit was established, no other method was known to the colour-makers, who in some cases bought pieces of cloth on purpose to cut them up and use in this way[^[277]]. The scarletum blanketum mentioned at page [234] was bought for this purpose.

Madder.

Madder.Madder-red was also used as a pigment by boiling the root of the madder-plant (rubia-tinctorium), and then using the concentrated extract to dye powdered chalk. Various red and purple flowers, such as the violet, were used in the same way as colores infectivi.

Lac.

Lac.Lake-red (lacca or lac) was made and called after a natural gum or resin, the lach of India; see Cennino Cennini, § 44.