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

by J. H. Middleton

The Writers of Illuminated Manuscripts.

Monastic scribes; the great beauty of their work, and the reasons for it; their quiet, monotonous life; examples of monastic humour; no long spells of work in a monastery; care in the preparation of pigments; variety of the schemes of decoration; the scriptoria of Benedictine monasteries; their arrangement in one alley of the cloister; the row of armaria; the row of carrels; the carrels in the Durham cloister described in the Rites of Durham; the scribes of other regular Orders. Secular scribes; the growth of the craft-guilds; the guilds of Bruges; their rules, and advantages to both buyer and seller; the production of cheap Horae; wealthy patrons who paid for costly manuscripts; women illuminators, such as the wife of Gérard David; the high estimation of fine manuscripts. Extract from the fourteenth century accounts of St George's at Windsor showing the cost of six manuscripts. Similar extract from the Parish books of St Ewen's at Bristol in the fifteenth century, giving the cost of a Lectionary.

CHAPTER XIV. Page [224] to [238].

The Materials and Technical Processes of the Illuminator.

The vellum used by scribes, its cost and various qualities; paper made of cotton, of wool and of linen; the dates and places of its manufacture; its fine quality. The metals and pigments used in illuminated manuscripts; fluid gold and silver; leaf gold, silver and tin; the highly burnished gold; leaf beaten out of gold coins; the goldsmith's art practised by many great artists; the mordant on which the gold leaf was laid; how it was applied; a slow, difficult process; laborious use of the burnisher; old receipts for the mordant: the media or vehicles used with it; tooled and stamped patterns on the gold leaf; the use of tin instead of silver; a cheap method of applying gold described by Cennino Cennini.

CHAPTER XV. Page [239] to [256].

The Materials and Technical Processes of the Illuminator (continued).

The coloured pigments. The vehicles used; blue pigments, ultramarine; its great value; story told by Pliny and Vasari; smalto blues; "German blue;" Indigo and other dye-colours; how they were made into pigments; green pigments; terra verde, verdigris, smalt, leek-green; red pigments, minium red lead, vermilion, red ochre (rubrica); murex and kermes crimson; kermes extracted from scraps of red cloth by illuminators; madder-red; lake-red; purples; yellow pigments, ochre, arsenic and litharge; white pigments, pure lime (Bianco di San Giovanni), white lead, biacca or cerusa. Black inks, carbon ink and iron ink (incaustum or encaustum and atramentum); red and purple inks; writing in gold; the illuminator's pens and pencils; the lead-point and silver-point; red chalk and amatista. Pens made of reeds, and, in later times, of quills; brushes of ermine, minever and other hair, mostly made by each illuminator for himself; list of scribes' implements and tools. Miniatures representing scribes; the various stages in the execution of an illuminated manuscript; ruled lines; writing of the plain text; outline of ornament sketched in; application of the gold leaf; the painting of the ornaments and miniatures; preparation for the binder.

CHAPTER XVI. Page [257] to [264].

The Bindings of Manuscripts.