Modern want of taste.A melancholy example of the existing want of taste and lack of appreciation of what is beautiful in art is afforded by the fact that such a thing as a manuscript signed and illuminated by Giulio Clovio would fetch a far larger sum than so perfect a masterpiece of poetic art as a fine example of a fourteenth century Anglo-Norman Apocalypse.
So also the late and inferior Horae of about 1480 to 1510 often sell for much higher prices than simpler but far more beautiful manuscripts of earlier date. Of course I am here speaking of the values of manuscripts regarded simply as works of art, not of those which are mainly of importance from the interest of their text.
The result of this is that a collector with some real knowledge and appreciation of what is artistically fine can perhaps lay out his money to greater advantage in the purchase of manuscripts than by buying works of art of any other class, either mediaeval or modern.
APPENDIX.
Mr Jenkinson, the Librarian of the University of Cambridge, has kindly supplied me with the following interesting extracts, from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the Parish Library of St James' at Bury St Edmunds (M 27 + B 357)[[302]], which gives instructions to scribes and illuminators of manuscripts as to the various tools they are to use.
"Scriptor habeat rasorium siue nouaculam ad radendum sordes pergameni vel membrane. Habeat etiam pumicem mordacem et planulam ad pactandum (?) et equandum superficiem pergameni. Plumbum habeat et linulam quibus liniet pergamenum, margine circumquaque tam ex parte tergi quam ex parte carnis existente libera......
Scriptor autem in cathedra resideat ansis utrimque eleuatis pluteum siue ait'em (?) sustinentibus, scabello apte pedibus posito.
Scriptor habeat epicaustorium.i.asserem centone copertum. Arcanum habeat quo pennam formet ut habilis sit et ydonea ad scribendum...... Habeat dentem canis (?) sive apri ad polliandum pergamenum...... Et spectaculum habeat ne ob errorem moram disspendiosam (?). Habeat prunas in epicausterio ut cicius in tempore nebuloso vel aquoso desicari possit...... Et habeat etiam mineum ad formandas literas puniceas, vel rubeas, vel feniceas et capitales. Habeat etiam fuscum pulverem; et azuram a Salamone repertam[[303]]."
Translation.
"The scribe should have a sharp scraper or knife to rub down the roughnesses of his parchment or vellum. He should also have a piece of 'biting' pumice-stone and a flat tool to smooth down and make even the surface of his parchment.