Fig. 145. Hexagonal desk, with central spike, probably for a candle. From a French MS. of Le Miroir Historial.
These double desks are exceedingly common, and I might fill a large number of pages with figures and descriptions of the variety which the ingenuity of the cabinet-makers of the fifteenth century managed to impart to combinations of a screw and two or more tables. I will content myself with one more example ([fig. 144]) which shews the screw exceedingly well, and the two tables above it. The uppermost of these serves as a ledge to rest the books on, as does also the hexagonal block above it which conceals the top of the screw[534].
We meet occasionally with a solid desk, by which I mean one the level of which cannot be altered. In the example here given ([fig. 145]) from a French MS. of Le Miroir Historial, there is a central spike which I suspect to have been intended to carry a candle[535].
In some examples of these book-desks the pedestal is utilized as a book-cupboard ([fig. 146]). The picture which I have selected as shewing a desk of this peculiarity is singularly beautiful, and finished in the highest style of art available at the end of the fifteenth century in France. It forms half of the frontispiece to a fine manuscript of Boccacio's Livre des cas des malheureux nobles hommes et femmes[536]. The central figure is apparently lecturing on that moving theme, for in front of him, in the other half of the picture, is a crowd of men exhibiting their interest by the violence of their gestures. On his left is the desk I mentioned; it stands on an unusually firm base, and one side of the vertical portion is pierced by an arch, so as to make the central cavity available for putting books in. From the centre of the table rises a tall spike, apparently of iron, to which is attached a horizontal arm, bearing a lighted lantern. On the table, in addition to three books, is an inkstand and pen-case. In front of the lecturer is a carved chest, probably one of those book-coffers which I have already mentioned. The chair and canopy are richly carved, and the back of the seat is partially covered by a piece of tapestry. Further, the lecturer is allowed the unusual luxury of a cushion.
I will next deal with the appliances for reading and writing directly connected with the chairs in which scholars sat, and I will begin with the desk.
Fig. 146. A lecturer addressing an audience. From a MS. of Livre des cas des malheureux nobles hommes et femmes, written in France at end of fifteenth century.