| Stilus lines. |
Stilus lines.In early manuscripts the guiding lines to keep the text even are usually ruled, not with colour or ink, but simply traced with a pointed stilus, which made a sufficiently clear impressed line on the vellum, showing through from one side to the other.
| Lead lines. Red lines. |
Lead lines.In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the practice began of ruling the lines with a lead point; and then, from the fourteenth century onwards, they were usually ruled with bright red pigment[[288]]; this has a very decorative effect in lighting up the mass of black text, Red lines.and thus we find in many early printed books[[289]] these red guiding lines have been ruled in merely for the sake of their ornamental appearance.
This ruling was nearly always done with special metal ruling-pens, very like those now used for architectural drawing; and thus the lines are perfectly even in thickness throughout.
| The plain text. |
The plain text.The next stage in the work was the writing of the plain black text. In early times it appears to have been usual, or at least not uncommon, for the same hand to write the text and add the painted illuminations, but when the production of illuminated manuscripts came mostly into secular hands, the trades of the scribe and the illuminator were usually practised by different people; and in late times a further division still took place, and the miniaturist frequently became separated from the decorative illuminator.
| Guiding letters. |
Guiding letters.Thus we find that in many manuscripts the scribe has introduced in the blank spaces minute guiding letters[[290]] to tell the illuminator what each initial was to be, and, especially in fifteenth century Italian manuscripts, instructions are added for the miniaturist, telling him what the subject of each picture was to be. These instructions were commonly written on the edge of the page so that they were cut off by the binder, but in many cases they still exist, not obliterated by the subsequent painting.
But to return to the progress of the page, when the scribe had finished the plain text, leaving the necessary blank spaces for the illuminated capitals and miniatures, the work of decoration then began.