ALCUIN BIBLE. Carolingian, 9th Century
Showing the Caroline Minuscule
(Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 10546. 20 × 14¼ inches)
It is the hand lettering rather than the illumination or the decoration that particularly interests me. When I first began my work in designing my Humanistic type, I was amazed that the humanistic scribes of the fifteenth century, upon whose letters I based my own, could have so suddenly taken such a stride forward. The mere fact that there was a greater demand for their work did not seem to explain the phenomenon. Then I discovered that these fifteenth-century artists, instead of adapting or copying the Caroline minuscule, set about to perfect it. They mastered the principles upon which it was based, and with the technical advantages that had come to them through the intervening centuries, brought the design to its fullest beauty.
To supplement my study of the Alcuin Bible, I turn to the masterpiece of the Carolingian School in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The Golden Gospels of Saint Médard belongs to the same period as the Alcuin Bible, and its hand letters are of the same beautiful design, but more brilliant in that they are written throughout in gold. In spite of the crude and unnatural figures, I am always impressed with a feeling that the artist is, for the first time, making a definite effort to break away from past tradition toward more natural design. The Byzantine atmosphere still clings to the work as a whole ([opp. page]), but in the frames and the backgrounds there is an echo of the ivory carving and the architecture of the new Church of San Vitale at Ravenna, and the powerful influence of the early Christian symbolism asserts itself in the miniatures.
GOLDEN GOSPELS OF ST. MÉDARD.
Carolingian, 9th Century