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

by J. H. Middleton

Atque inter geminas pingantur cornua frontes.

The frontes are the edges of the roll, and the cornua are the projecting portions of the two wooden rollers.

Inscribed titles.

Inscribed titles.The title of the manuscript was written on a ticket or slip of vellum, which hung down from the closed roll like the pendant seal of a mediaeval document. Thus when a number of manuscripts were piled on the shelf of an armarium the pendants hanging down from the ends of the rolls indicated plainly what the books were, without the necessity of pulling them from their place.

Small numbers of rolls, especially manuscripts which had to be carried about, were often kept in round drum-like boxes (capsae or scrinia), with loop handles to carry them by.

Coloured inks.

Coloured inks.Much of the beauty of an ancient manuscript depended on the use of red or purple ink for headings, indices and marginal glosses. As Pliny says (Hist. Nat. XXXIII. 122) minium in voluminum quoque scriptura usurpatur.

The use of purple ink for the index is mentioned by Martial in his epigram Ad librum suum (III. 2) where he sums up the various methods of decoration which in his time were applied to manuscripts,

Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus,

Et frontis gemino decens honore