THE BINDINGS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
_Costly bindings._
For the more magnificent classes of manuscripts, such as the _Textus_
(_Gospels_) used as altar ornaments, every costly and elaborate artistic
process was employed. In addition to the sumptuous gold and jewelled covers
mentioned above at page 55, manuscripts were bound in plates of carved
ivory set in gold frames, in plaques of Limoges enamel, especially the
_chamlevé_ enamels with the heads of the figures attached in relief, such
as were produced with great skill at Limoges during the eleventh to the
thirteenth century. Some _Evangeliaria_ were bound in covers made of the
ancient Roman or Byzantine ivory diptychs, a custom to which we owe the
preservation of the most important existing examples of these.[294] Such
costly methods of binding were of course exceptional, and most manuscripts
were covered in a much simpler manner.
_Common bindings._
The commonest form of binding was to make the covers of stout oak boards,
which were covered with parchment, calf-skin, pig-skin or some other
leather. Five brass or bronze bosses were fixed on each cover, arranged
thus :·: and two or four stout clasps made of leather straps with brass
catches were firmly nailed on to the oak. The angles of the covers were
often strengthened by brass or _latten_ cornerpieces, and in some cases
metal edgings were nailed all along the edges of the oak, making a very
strong, massive and heavy volume. Large pieces of rock crystal, amethyst or
other common gem were frequently set in the five bosses of the covers.
These were always cut in rounded form _en cabochon_, not faceted as is the
modern custom.
The small amount of decoration, which was usually employed on early
bindings, was often limited to tooled lines joining the five bosses on the
covers[295].
_Titles of MSS._
If the title of the manuscript was placed on the binding, a not very common
practice, it was usually written on the upper part of one of the covers. In
some cases the title was written on a separate slip of vellum and was
protected by a transparent slice of horn, fixed with little brass nails.
This appears to have been the usual system as long as books were kept in
coffers or _armaria_; but when open bookshelves with chained books came
into use, about the time when printing was invented, the title of a book
was usually written on the front edges of the leaves.
At that time books were set on the shelves in the opposite way to that now
used, so that, not the back, but the edge of the volume was visible.
_Painted edges._
Towards the close of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century,
the front edges of printed books and manuscripts were sometimes decorated
with painted illumination, usually a portrait figure of the author of the
work or some object illustrating its subject[296].
The parchment which was used to cover the oak bindings of manuscripts was
often coloured by staining or painting; red and purple being the favourite
colours. Chaucer, in the Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_, describing the
Clerke of Oxenford says,
For him was lever have at his beddes heed,
Twenty bookes, clothed in blak and reed
Of Aristotil and of his philosophie
Then robes riche or fithul or sawtrie.
_Painted bindings._
In some cases the oak covers of manuscripts were not hidden by leather, but
were decorated by elaborate paintings. A very interesting series of folio
account-books of the Cathedral of Siena, now preserved in the _Opera del
Duomo_, are specially remarkable for their pictured bindings. These
manuscripts date from about 1380 to 1410, one volume being devoted to the
expenses and records of each year. On one of the covers of each is a large
painting on the oak, frequently of a view of some part of Siena or of the
interior of the Cathedral. Very interesting evidence with regard to the old
fittings of the high altar, with Duccio di Buoninsegna's great retable, and
the original position of the magnificent pulpit are given by some of these
pictured covers. One volume of this Sienese series is now in the South
Kensington Museum.
_Stamped leather._
In the fourteenth century bindings of books began to be decorated by
stamping patterns with dies or punches on the vellum or pigskin covering of
the oak board; a method of decoration which was greatly elaborated and
developed in the sixteenth century, especially by the German and Dutch
bookbinders.
The earlier stamped designs were of a much simpler character, usually
consisting of powderings all over the surface of the cover, with small
flowers or animals, such as lions, eagles, swans and dragons of heraldic
character. In many cases these punches, or at least their designs,
continued in use for a long time, and so one occasionally meets with a
fifteenth century book, the binding of which is decorated with stamps of
fourteenth or even thirteenth century style.
_Stamped bindings._
The later class of stamped bindings, belonging rather to printed books than
to manuscripts, is often very beautiful and decorative in character, the
whole surface of the cover being completely embossed in relief by the
skilful application of a great number of punches used in various
combinations, so as to form one large and perfectly united design. In these
later times, from about the middle of the sixteenth century the tendency
was to cut larger designs on one punch or die; and the leather or parchment
was softened by boiling so that a large surface could be embossed at one
operation. This process was much aided by the invention of the screw-press,
which enabled the workman to apply a steady and long-continued pressure.
But in the older stamped bindings, as a rule, small punches were used, and
the force was simply applied by the blow of a hammer[297].
_English bindings._
In England very fine stamped bindings of this class were made even in the
first half of the fifteenth century. And, just as in earlier times the
operations of the binder and the manuscript illuminator had been carried on
by the same man, or at least in the same workshop, so we find that some of
the earliest English printers, such as Julian Notary, were also skilful
binders of their own printed books. The very fine stamped bindings of
Julian Notary and other English craftsmen are commonly decorated on one
side with the Tudor arms and badges supported by angels, and on the other
side with a pictorial scene of the Annunciation of the B. V. Mary with I.
N. or other maker's initials.
_Wallet bindings._
Returning now to the earlier bindings of manuscripts, we should mention one
system which was frequently applied to _Books of Hours_, _Breviaries_
(_portiforia_), and other _portable_ books. This system was to extend the
leather covering far beyond the edges of the wooden boards, which formed
the main covers of the manuscripts, so that the book, edges and all were
protected, very much as if it were kept in a bag. In fact this sort of
binding really was a leather bag to the inside of which the book was
attached.
The mouth of the bag was closed by a running thong, a loop or some other
fastening, and the book was thus carried about, hung from its owner's
girdle[298].
In bindings of this class the leather covering was frequently dressed with
the hair on. Corpus Christi College at Oxford possesses a very
well-preserved example of this, a manuscript of the thirteenth century in a
contemporary bag-covering made of deer's skin, with its soft brown fur in a
perfect state of preservation.
_Velvet._
Bindings of red or violet velvet were also frequently used for manuscripts.
Plain red velvet, with elaborate clasps and corner-pieces of chased gold or
silver, was perhaps the most usual form of binding for costly manuscripts
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Fine gems, especially the
carbuncle and turquoise, were set in the gold mounts of some of these
princely books.
_Dyed vellum._
Vellum dyed with the _murex_ was used to cover the oak boards of
manuscripts at a time when purple-stained vellum was no longer used for the
pages of manuscripts. A fine green dye and other colours were also used for
vellum bindings. The Vatican records of books borrowed (and returned)
usually mention how each volume was bound. Among the earliest of these
records, dating from the Pontificate of Leo X. (1513 to 1522) the commonest
descriptions of bindings are _in tabulis_, _in rubio_, _in albo_, _in
nigro_, and _in gilbo_, indicating the colour of the skin or velvet in
which the manuscript was bound.
_Later bindings._
_Gold mounts._
In the sixteenth century, when private luxury and pomp were taking the
place of the earlier religious feelings and beliefs which had so greatly
fostered the decorative arts, bindings as costly as those of the
_Altar-textus_ of the great Cathedral and Abbey churches were again made at
the command of wealthy patrons. Thus, for example, Cardinal Grimani had his
famous _Breviary_[299] bound in crimson velvet, the greater part of which
is concealed by the most elaborate mounts, clasps, corner-pieces and
borders of solid gold, of the most exquisite workmanship, decorated with a
medallion portrait head of the Cardinal himself.
So also the very similar _Horae_ of Albert of Brandenburg[300] is decorated
with clasps and other mounts of pure gold; and an immense number of other
sumptuous bindings, rich with embossed and chased gold, studded with
precious gems, were made to enshrine the costly manuscripts of Giulio
Clovio and other famous miniaturists of the sixteenth century period of
decadence.
_Bindings of needlework._
At the close of the fifteenth century or rather earlier, the custom became
popular of having _Horae_ and other manuscripts owned by wealthy secular
personages bound in velvet, richly decorated with embroidery in gold and
silver thread and silk mixed with a great number of seed pearls. The arms,
badges and initials of the owner are the commonest designs for these
embroideries.
Some of the German examples of this class of binding are especially
elaborate and magnificent; but on the whole this method of decoration is
not at all suited for covering books.
_Works on bindings._
With regard to books on the subject of early bindings; it is much to be
regretted that existing works, of which there are a great many, especially
in French, all begin just about the period when bindings of the greatest
interest and the truest artistic value were no longer made. Plenty has been
written about the costly bindings in which Grolier, Maioli, and other
wealthy book-buyers had their purchases encased, but no work exists on the
bindings of the mediaeval period, when, frequently, the covers of a
manuscript were as much a labour of love as the illuminated pages within.
The sixteenth century binders, who worked for Grolier and other rich
patrons of art, lived at the verge of a commercial epoch, and though their
works are often very pretty and technically of high merit, yet they cannot
be compared, as true works of art, with the bindings of the period before
printing was invented.
_Small cost of MSS._
_The present value of illuminated manuscripts._ On the whole a fine
manuscript may be regarded as about the cheapest work of art of bygone days
that can now be purchased by an appreciative collector. Many of the finest
and most perfectly preserved manuscripts which now come into the market are
actually sold for smaller sums than they would have cost when they were
new, in spite of the great additional value and interest which they have
gained from their antiquity and comparative rarity.
For example, a beautiful and perfectly preserved historiated Anglo-Norman
_Vulgate_ of the thirteenth century, with its full number of eighty-two
pictured initials, written on between six and seven hundred leaves of the
finest uterine vellum, can now commonly be purchased for from £30 to £40.
This hardly represents the original value of the vellum on which the
manuscript is written.
Manuscripts of a simpler character, however beautifully written, if they
are merely decorated with blue and red initials, commonly sell for
considerably less than the original cost of their vellum[301].
Again, the more costly manuscripts of fine style, which now fetch several
hundred pounds, usually contain a wealth of pictorial decoration and
laborious execution far in excess of that which could be purchased for a
similar sum in any other branch of art.
_Want of taste._
Another noticeable point is that the modern pecuniary values of
manuscripts, even those which are bought only as works of art, are by no
means in proportion to their real artistic merits. Manuscripts of the
finest period of the illuminator's art, the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, are now sold for very much smaller sums than the immeasurably
inferior but more showy and over-elaborated manuscripts of the period of
decadence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
_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.
He should have a lead pencil and a ruler with which to rule lines on the
parchment, leaving a margin free (from lines) on both sides of the
parchment, on the back of the leaf as well as on the flesh side....
The scribe should sit in an arm chair, with arms raised on each side to
support a desk or ?; a footstool should be conveniently placed under his
feet. The scribe should have an _epicaustorium_[304] covered with
leather; he should have an _arcanum_ (pen-knife ?) with which to shape
his pen, so that it may be well formed and suitable for writing....
He should have the tooth of a dog (?) or of a wild boar for the polishing
of his parchment.... And he should have spectacles lest troublesome delay
be caused through blunders. He should have hot coals in a brazier so that
[his ink] may dry quickly [even] in cloudy or rainy weather.... He should
also have mineum (_minium_) for the painting of red, crimson or purple
letters and initials. He should also have a dark powder (pigment), and
the azure which was invented by Solomon."
The following excellent description of the chief kinds of Service-books
which were used during the later mediæval period was originally written in
1881 by Henry Bradshaw, the Cambridge University Librarian, for _The
Chronicles of All Saints' Church, Derby_, by the Rev. J. C. Cox and Mr W.
H. St John Hope. It is by the kind permission of Mr Cox and Mr Hope that I
am able to reprint Mr Bradshaw's valuable note, which, with admirable
clearness and conciseness, explains the character of each of the principal
classes of Service-books used in English Churches and the manner in which
these books became differentiated and multiplied down to the time of the
Reformation.
NOTE BY HENRY BRADSHAW.
_The Hours._
In the old Church of England, the Services were either--
1. For the different hours (Mattins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None,
Vespers, and Compline), said in the Choir,
2. For Processions, in the Church or Churchyard,
3. For the Mass, said at the Altar, or
4. For occasions, such as Marriage, Visitation of the Sick, Burial, &c.,
said as occasion required.
Of these four all have their counterparts, more or less, in the English
Service of modern times, as follows:
1. The Hour-Services, of which the principal were Mattins and Vespers,
correspond to our Morning and Evening Prayer.
_Processions._
2. The Procession Services correspond to our Hymns or Anthems sung before
the Litany which precedes the Communion Service in the morning, and after
the third Collect in the evening, only no longer sung in the course of
procession to the Churchyard Cross or a subordinate Altar in the Church;
the only relic (in common use) of the actual Procession being that used
on such occasions as the Consecration of a Church, &c.
3. The Mass answers to our Communion Service.
_Occasional Services._
4. The Occasional Services are either those used by a Priest, such as
Baptism, Marriage, Visitation and Communion of the Sick, Burial of the
Dead, &c., or those reserved for a Bishop, as Confirmation, Ordination,
Consecration of Churches, &c.
All these Services but the last mentioned are contained in our
"Prayer-book" with all their details, except the lessons at Mattins and
Evensong, which are read from the Bible, and the Hymns and Anthems, which
are, since the sixteenth century, at the discretion of the authorities.
This concentration or compression of the Services into one book is the
natural result of time, and the further we go back the more numerous are
the books which our old inventories show. To take the four classes of
Services and Service-books mentioned above:
_The Breviary._
1. The Hour-Services were latterly contained, so far as the text was
concerned, in the _Breviarium_, or _Portiforium_, as it was called by
preference in England[305]. The musical portions of this book were
contained in the _Antiphonarium_. But the Breviary itself was the result
of a gradual amalgamation of many different books:
_The Breviary._
(_a_) The _Antiphonarium_, properly so called, containing the Anthems
(_Antiphonae_) to the Psalms, the Responds (_Responsoria_) to the Lessons
(_Lectiones_), and the other odds and ends of Verses and Responds
(_Versiculi et Responsoria_) throughout the Service;
(_b_) The _Psalterium_, containing the Psalms arranged as used at the
different Hours, together with the Litany as used on occasions;
(_c_) The _Hymnarium_, or collection of Hymns used in the different
Hour-Services;
(_d_) The _legenda_, containing the long Lessons used at Mattins, as well
from the Bible, from the _Sermologus_, and from the _Homiliarius_, used
respectively at the first, second, and third Nocturns at Mattins on
Sundays and some other days, as also from the _Passionale_, containing
the acts of Saints read on their festivals; and
(_e_) The _Collectarium_, containing the _Capitula_, or short Lessons
used at all the Hour-services except Mattins, and the _Collectæ_ or
_Orationes_ used at the same.
_Procession Services._
2. The Procession Services were contained in the _Processionale_ or
_Processionarium_. It will be remembered that the Rubric in our
"Prayer-Book" concerning the Anthem ("In Quires and places where they
sing, here followeth the Anthem") is _indicative_ rather than
_imperative_, and that it was first added in 1662. It states a fact; and,
no doubt, when processions were abolished, with the altars to which they
were made, Cathedral Choirs would have found themselves in considerable
danger of being swept away also, had they not made a stand, and been
content to sing the Processional Anthem without moving from their
position in the Choir. This alone sufficed to carry on the tradition; and
looked upon in this way the modern Anthem Book of our Cathedral and
Collegiate Churches, and the Hymn Book of our parish Churches, are the
only legitimate successors of the old _Processionale_. It must be borne
in mind, also, that the Morning and Evening Anthems in our "Prayer-Book"
do not correspond to one another so closely as might at first sight
appear to be the case. The Morning Anthem comes immediately before the
Litany which precedes the Communion Service, and corresponds to the
Processional Anthem or Respond sung at the churchyard procession before
Mass. The Evening Anthem, on the other hand, follows the third Collect,
and corresponds to the Processional Anthem or Respond sung "_eundo et
redeundo_," in going to, and returning from, some subordinate altar in
the church at the close of Vespers.
_The Mass._
3. The Mass, which we call the Communion Service, was contained in the
_Missale_, so far as the text was concerned. The Epistles and Gospels,
being read at separate lecterns, would often be written in separate
books, called _Epistolaria_ and _Evangeliaria_. The musical portions of
the Altar Service were latterly all contained in the _Graduale_ or
Grayle, so called from one of the principal elements being the
_Responsorium Graduale_ or Respond to the _Lectio Epistolae_. In earlier
times, these musical portions of the Missal Service were commonly
contained in two separate books, the _Graduale_ and the _Troparium_. The
_Graduale_, being in fact the _Antiphonarium_ of the Altar Service (as
indeed it was called in the earliest times), contained all the passages
of Scripture, varying according to the season and day, which served as
Introits (_Antiphonae et Psalmi ad Introitum_) before the Collects, as
Gradual Responds or Graduals to the Epistle, as _Alleluia_ versicles
before the Gospel, as _Offertoria_ at the time of the first oblation, and
as _Communiones_ at the time of the reception of the consecrated
elements. The _Troparium_ contained the _Tropi_, or preliminary tags to
the Introits; the Kyries; the _Gloria in excelsis_; the Sequences or
_Prosae ad Sequentiam_ before the Gospel; the _Credo in unum_; the
_Sanctus_ and _Benedictus_; and the _Agnus Dei_; all, in early times,
liable to have insertions or _farsuræ_ of their own, according to the
season or day, which, however, were almost wholly swept away (except
those of the _Kyrie_) by the beginning of the thirteenth century. Even in
Lyndewode's time (A.D. 1433), the _Troparium_ was explained to be a book
containing merely the Sequences before the Gospel at Mass, so completely
had the other elements then disappeared or become incorporated in the
_Graduale_. This definition of the _Troparium_ is the more necessary,
because so many _old_ church inventories yet remain, which contain books,
even at the time of writing the inventory long since disused, so that the
lists would be unintelligible without some such explanation.
_Occasional Services._
4. The Occasional Services, so far as they concerned a priest, were of
course more numerous in old days than now, and included the ceremonies
for _Candle_mas, _Ash_ Wednesday, _Palm_ Sunday, &c., besides what were
formerly known as the Sacramental Services. The book which contained
these was in England called the _Manuale_, while on the Continent the
name _Rituale_ is more common. No church could well be without one of
these. The purely episcopal offices were contained in the _Liber
pontificalis_ or Pontifical, for which an ordinary church would have no
need.
_The Ordinale._
5. Besides these books of actual Services there was another, absolutely
necessary for the right understanding and definite use of those already
mentioned. This was the _Ordinale_, or book containing the general rules
relating to the _Ordo divini servitii_. It is the _Ordinarius_ or
_Breviarius_ of many Continental churches. Its method was to go through
the year and show what was to be done; what days were to take precedence
of others; and how, under such circumstances, the details of the
conflicting Services were to be dealt with. The basis of such a book
would be either the well-known Sarum _Consuetudinarium_, called after St.
Osmund, but really drawn up in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century, the Lincoln _Consuetudinarium_ belonging to the middle of the
same century, or other such book. By the end of the fifteenth century
Clement Maydeston's _Directorium Sacerdotum_, or Priests' Guide, had
superseded all such books, and came itself to be called the Sarum
_Ordinale_, until, about 1508, the shorter Ordinal, under the name of
_Pica Sarum_, "the rules called the Pie," having been cut up and
re-distributed according to the seasons, came to be incorporated in the
text of all the editions of the Sarum Breviary.
H. B.
CAMBRIDGE,
_March 17, 1881_.
Mr Micklethwaite has kindly pointed out to me the following passage from
the Cistercian _Consuetudines_ (Guignard, _Documents inédits_, Dijon,
1878, p. 174), cap. LXXII, "Nullus ingrediatur coquinam excepto cantore
et scriptoribus ad planandam tabulam, ad liquefaciendum incaustum, ad
exsiccandum pergamenum...." That is, the kitchen fire might be used for
melting the wax on the tablets, so that a fresh list of names could be
written (see above, p. 8), for liquefying frozen ink, and for drying the
vellum skins ready for writing on.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
SOME PUBLICATIONS OF
The Cambridge University Press.
THE ENGRAVED GEMS OF CLASSICAL TIMES, with a Catalogue of the Gems in the
Fitzwilliam Museum, by J. HENRY MIDDLETON, M.A., Slade Professor of Fine
Art, and Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Royal 8vo.
Buckram, 12_s._ 6_d._
THE LEWIS COLLECTION OF GEMS AND RINGS in the possession of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, with an Introductory Essay on Ancient Gems by
J. HENRY MIDDLETON, M.A. Royal 8vo. Buckram, 6_s._
THE TYPES OF GREEK COINS. By PERCY GARDNER, Litt.D., F.S.A. With 16
Autotype plates, containing photographs of Coins of all parts of the
Greek World. Impl. 4to. Cloth extra, £1. 11_s._ 6_d._; Roxburgh (Morocco
back), £2. 2_s._
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. By C. WALDSTEIN, Litt. D., Reader in
Classical Archæology in the University of Cambridge. Royal 8vo. 16
Plates. Buckram, 30_s._
A CATALOGUE OF ANCIENT MARBLES IN GREAT BRITAIN, by Prof. ADOLF
MICHAELIS. Translated by C. A. M. FENNELL, Litt. D. Royal 8vo. Roxburgh
(Morocco back), £2. 2_s._
THE LITERARY REMAINS OF ALBRECHT DÜRER, by W. M. CONWAY. With Transcripts
from the British Museum MSS., and Notes by LINA ECKENSTEIN. Royal 8vo.
Buckram, 21_s._ (_The Edition is limited to 500 copies._)
THE WOODCUTTERS OF THE NETHERLANDS during the last quarter of the
Fifteenth Century. In 3 parts. I. History of the Woodcutters. II.
Catalogue of their Woodcuts. III. List of Books containing Woodcuts. By
W. M. CONWAY. Demy 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._
London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
NOTES.
[1] See pages 97 and 113.
[2] See _Jour. Hell. Stud._ Vol. III. p. 112.
[3] It was not till quite a late period that the word [Greek: biblos] was
used to mean another form of book than the roll. The word [Greek:
sanis] is also used for a tablet; see p. 30.
[4] A fine set of five tablets is preserved in the coin room in the Paris
Bibliothèque Nationale; see _Revue Archéol._ VIII. p. 461.
[5] A well-preserved example of Roman _pugillares_ formed of two leaves
of ivory, now in the Capitoline museum in Rome, is illustrated by
Baumeister, _Denkmäler_, I. p. 355.
[6] Lucian, who lived in the second century A.D., mentions (_Vita Luc._
II.) that when he was a boy he was in the habit of scraping the wax
off his writing-tablets and using it to model little figures of men
and animals. Probably he was not the only Roman school-boy who amused
himself in this way.
[7] Charcoal or crayon-holders of bronze with a spring clip and sliding
ring, exactly like those now used, have been found in Pompeii. These
and other writing materials are illustrated by Baumeister,
_Denkmäler_, Vol. III. p. 1585.
[8] An Athenian inscription (_C. I. A._ I. 32) mentions accounts and
other documents written on [Greek: pinakia kai grammateia].
[9] See, for example, a relief on the sarcophagus of a _scriba librarius_
or library curator which is illustrated by Daremberg and Saglio,
_Dict. Ant._ I. p. 708. The scribe is represented seated by his
book-case _armarium_, on the shelves of which both _volumina_ and
_codices_ are shown.
[10] The ancient method of manufacturing papyrus paper is described below,
see page 22.
[11] Some very interesting fragments of the _Antiope_ of Euripides have
been brought to England by Mr Flinders Petrie, and have been edited
by Dr Mahaffy in a collection entitled _The Flinders Petrie Papyri_,
Dublin, 1892.
[12] The book-market in Athens was called [Greek: ta biblia], i.e. [Greek:
hou ta biblia ônia]; see Pollux IX. 47. Lucian, in his treatise
_Adversus Indoctum_, gives an interesting account of the Greek
book-buyers and book-sellers in his time; see § 1 and § 4.
[13] The end of the Argiletum is shown in the plan of the Forum Romanum in
Middleton, _Ancient Rome_, 1892, Vol. I.
[14] One reason of this was that even the most popular authors did not
receive large sums for the copyright of their works.
[15] A good deal of what is said in this section with regard to the
technique of classical manuscripts will apply also to manuscripts of
the mediaeval period. Many of the processes had been inherited in an
unbroken tradition from ancient times, and others were revived in the
Middle Ages through a study of various classical writers on pigments
and the like, especially Pliny and Vitruvius.
[16] The words _parchment_ and _vellum_ are used vaguely to imply many
different kinds of skins. Strictly speaking _vellum_ implies
calf-skin, but the word is commonly used to denote the finer and
smoother qualities of skin; the name _parchment_ being given to the
coarse varieties; see Peignot, _L'histoire du parchemin_, Paris,
1812.
[17] In some cases the paper was _sized_, before the final smoothing; but
as a rule sufficient _size_ was supplied by the flour used to paste
the layers together.
[18] Some of the enormous ranges of store-houses for goods imported into
Rome and landed on the Tiber quay were specially devoted to the use
of paper warehouses, _horrea chartaria_; extensive remains of these
have recently been discovered near Monte Testaccio; see Middleton,
_Remains of Ancient Rome_, 1892, Vol. II. pp. 260-262.
[19] Now in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
[20] A silver pen was found by Dr Waldstein in 1891 in the tomb of the
Aristotle family at Chalcis.
[21] There is, of course, no etymological connection between the words
_miniature_ and _minute_; the latter being derived from the Latin
_minutus_, _minus_.
[22] Further details with regard to these pigments are given below, see
pages 239 to 249.
[23] Reproductions of these miniatures were published by Cardinal Mai,
_Picturae antiquissimae bellum Iliacum repraesentantes_, Milan, 1819.
Far more accurate copies of some of the miniatures, but without
colour, are given by _Palaeo. Soc._, Plates 39, 40, 50 and 51.
[24] Some fairly accurate reproductions of these miniatures were published
by Bartoli, _Antiquissimi Virgiliani Codicis fragmenta Bibl. Vat._,
Roma, 1741 and 1782. Examples from this and two other ancient but
un-illuminated codices of Virgil in the Vatican library are given by
the _Palaeo. Soc._, Plates 113 to 117.
[25] The chief of these paintings were cut off the walls of the villa, and
are now placed in the Museo delle Terme in Rome. The painting shown
in fig. 3 is still in situ; that given in fig. 4 is now in the Museum
at Naples.
[26] See above, fig. 2.
[27] The term Byzantine as applied to art is commonly used to denote the
style which was developed in the Eastern empire soon after
Constantine had transferred the seat of government from Old to "New
Rome," or Constantinople as it was also called instead of Byzantium,
which was the ancient name.
[28] Several manuscripts of this class are described by H. Bordier,
_Manuscrits Grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale_, Paris, 1883.
[29] A great public library was founded by Constantine in New Rome and
partially stocked by manuscripts transferred from the old Capital.
This library was rapidly enlarged by his sons and successors, and it
was rebuilt on a grander scale by the Emperor Zeno after the building
had been injured by fire about the year 488 A.D.
[30] For a valuable account of Byzantine manuscripts, see Kondakoff,
_Histoire de l'Art Byzantin_, Paris, 1886-1891.
[31] The title _Porphyro-genitus_, "Born in the purple," referred to the
fact that Byzantine Empresses brought forth their children in a
magnificent room lined with slabs of polished porphyry.
[32] A translation of this curious treatise was published by Didron and
Durand, in their _Manuel d'iconographie chrétienne_; Paris, 1845.
[33] All manuscripts described in this book, from the Byzantine school
onwards, may be understood to be in the _codex_ form and written on
_vellum_, unless they are otherwise described.
[34] Published by Lambecius, _Comment. sur la Bibl. de Vienne_, 1776, Vol.
III.
[35] Copies of some of the miniatures in the Vatican _Cosmas_ are given by
N. Kondakoff, _Histoire de l'Art Byzantin_, Paris, 1886, Vol. I. pp.
142 to 152.
[36] St Mark's in Venice and the churches of Ravenna and Constantinople
are full of examples of this design.
[37] This Sasanian art was an inheritance from ancient Babylon and
Assyria, and was the progenitor of what in later times has been
called Arab art, though the quite inartistic Arabs appear to have
derived it from the Persians whom they conquered and forcibly
converted to the Moslem Faith.
[38] The mere gold of even the finest Byzantine manuscripts is never as
sumptuous or as highly burnished as that in manuscripts of the
fourteenth century, owing to its being usually applied as a fluid
pigment, or at least not over the best kind of highly raised ground
or _mordant_, which is described below at p. 234.
[39] In early times and indeed throughout the whole mediaeval period very
few objects of any kind were placed upon the High Altar even in the
most magnificently furnished churches. In addition to the chalice
and paten, and the _Textus_, the only ornaments usually allowed were
a small crucifix and two candlesticks. The modern system of crowding
the _mensa_ of the altar with many candles and flowers did not come
in till after the Reformation.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the _Pax_ was usually a
separate thing, of more convenient size and weight than the heavy,
gold-covered _Textus_.
[40] Fine coloured plates of this wonderful _Textus_-cover were published
in 1888 by the Society of Antiquaries in their _Vetusta Monumenta_.
[41] Published in 1844 by the Surtees Society of Durham.
[42] The "Gospeller" was the officiating Deacon; the Sub-deacon being
called the "Epistoller."
[43] The remarkable artistic advance which was made by Giotto is to be
seen not only in his improved and more realistic drawing, but also in
his freedom from the long-established abuse of green in his flesh
painting, for which he substituted a warmer and healthier tint.
[44] Of the original mosaics on the west façade of Saint Mark's only one
remains of the original highly decorative twelfth century mosaics.
The rest, shown in Gentile Bellini's picture of Saint Mark's, have
all been replaced by later mosaics. Inside the church, happily, the
old mosaics still, in most places, exist; see p. 61.
[45] See page 202 for an account of Giulio Clovio.
[46] Mr M. R. James has pointed out to me an interesting example of
similar designs being used by illuminators of manuscripts and by
mosaic-workers. The designs of the miniatures in a fifth or sixth
century manuscript of _Genesis_ in the British Museum (_Otho_, B, vi)
are in many cases identical with those of the twelfth and thirteenth
century mosaics in Saint Mark's at Venice; see Tikkanen,
_Genesisbilder_, Berlin.
[47] Alcuin, when Dean of York, was sent by Offa, king of Mercia, about
782, as an envoy to Charles the Great. A large number of manuscripts
were written under his guidance and influence, not only in Tours, but
also at Soissons, Metz, Fulda, and in other Benedictine monasteries.
[48] It is priced in Mr Quaritch's catalogue of 1890 at £2500. This
manuscript was probably written at Tours in the school of Alcuin of
York; see Wattenbach, _Die mit Gold auf Purpur geschriebenen
Evangelienhandschriften der Hamilton'schen Bibliothek_, Berlin, 1889.
[49] See for example the beautiful patterns of the woven hangings behind
the enthroned figure of Christ shown on fig. 12; cf. also page 84.
[50] Theophilus, _Schedula diversarum Artium_, I. 34; this work is
frequently quoted in Chapter XV.
[51] See Janitschek, _Die künstlerische Ausstattung des Ada-Evangeliars
und die Karolingische Buchmalerei_; fol. Leipzig, 1889.
[52] See Weidmann, _Geschichte der Bibliothek von St Gallen_, 8vo, St
Gall, 1841.
[53] See J. R. Rahn, _Das Psalterium Aureum von St Gallen, ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte der Karolingischen Miniaturmalerei_, folio, St Gall, 1878.
[54] An excellent edition with 72 facsimiles of Villard de Honecourt's
_Album_ or sketch-book was produced by Professor Willis, London,
1859; it is superior to the French edition issued by J. B. Lassus,
Paris, 1858.
[55] See L. Delisle, _L'Evangéliaire d'Arras et la calligraphie
Franco-Saxonne du IX^{me} siècle_, 8vo, Paris, 1888.
[56] Earlier that is than the conversion of the Saxon conquerors; to some
extent a Romano-British Church had been established in Britain during
the period of Roman domination, but this native Church appears to
have been almost wholly eradicated by the Saxon Conquest.
[57] Celtic manuscripts of all periods are well illustrated by Westwood,
_Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts_,
London, 1868; see also Westwood, _Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria_,
1843-5, and the companion volume, _Illuminated Illustrations of the
Bible_, 1846.
[58] Tara was the ancient inland capital of Ireland before Dublin was
founded by the Viking pirates.
[59] The Irish monasteries of this date appear, frequently at least, to
have consisted of a group of a dozen or more separate wooden huts or
stone "bee-hive" cells, with one small central chapel of rectangular
plan; the whole being enclosed within a wooden fence or a stone
circuit wall, in which there was only one door of approach; see
_Arch. Jour._ XV. p. 1 seq.
[60] For example, in an early Cashel _Kalendar_ the monk Dagaeus, who died
in 586, is recorded to have been both a goldsmith (_aurifex_) and an
illuminator of manuscripts. Westwood, _Miniatures in Irish
Manuscripts_, gives a number of excellent coloured reproductions of
illuminations of this school and also of the Anglo-Celtic school of
Northumbria.
[61] It was formerly believed that this manuscript had once belonged to
Saint Columba, who lived from 521 to 597, but it is shown by the
internal evidence of its style to be a century later than Saint
Columba's time.
[62] See Westwood, _Irish Manuscripts_, Plate 9.
[63] See fig. 13 on page 67.
[64] When the grave of Saint Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral was opened in
1827, it was found that the Saint's body had been wrapped in rich
Siculo-Arab silk of the eleventh century at the time when his body
was moved, in 1104 A.D. See Raine, _St Cuthbert_, Durham, 1828, p.
183 seq.
[65] Library of Trinity College, Dublin, manuscripts A, iv. 5.
[66] See Jamieson, _History of the Ancient Culdees of Iona_; Edinburgh,
1811.
[67] Saint Cuthbert was a monk of Irish descent, at first a member of the
Celtic monastery of Melrose, and afterwards sixth Bishop of
Lindisfarne from 685 to 688. In later times his gold, gem-studded
shrine in Durham Cathedral was one of the most magnificent and costly
in the world; see _Rites and Monuments of Durham_, Surtees Soc.,
1842, pp. 3 and 4.
[68] The works of Symeon Dunelmensis were published by the Surtees Society
in 1868.
[69] Now in the Archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth.
[70] The _Book of Deer_ was first brought to light by Mr Henry Bradshaw,
and has been published by the Spalding Club, Ed. John Stuart,
Edinburgh, 1869. The Monastery at Deer in Aberdeenshire was founded
by Saint Columba as a branch house from Iona.
[71] The so-called _Itala_ version is the older Latin translation of the
Bible, which existed previous to the recension of Saint Jerome.
[72] A very interesting _Psalter_ of similar style and date is preserved
in the library of St John's College, Cambridge; its ornaments are of
the unmixed Celtic style, broad in treatment without any of the
marvellous minuteness of the _Book of Kells_ and the _Book of
Durrow_.
[73] See Westwood, _Irish Manuscripts_, Pl. 16.
[74] This is one of many examples of Books being called after some earlier
Saint who was connected with the monastery where the manuscript was
written; for example the Gospels of Saint Augustine in the Corpus
library at Cambridge, the Gospels of Saint Cuthbert, and the Gospels
of Saint Columba, are all later than the dates of the Saints they are
called after.
[75] See Weidmann, _Geschichte der Bibliothek von St Gallen_; St Gall,
1841.
[76] This manuscript was formerly believed to have been once in the
possession of Saint Augustine, but it is clearly a good deal later in
date than his time.
[77] Eventually there were three Norse kingdoms in Ireland, the capitals
of which were Dublin, Waterford and Limerick; and the three chief
ports of Ireland, Dublin, Cork and Belfast were all founded by the
Viking invaders; see C. F. Keary's valuable work, _The Vikings in
Western Christendom_, London, 1891, pp. 165 to 185.
[78] The blessing in the Greek Church is given by raising three fingers;
in the Western Church two fingers and the thumb are used.
[79] See Westwood, _Miniatures of Irish Manuscripts_, London, 1868, Pl. I.
and II.
[80] The points of difference between the Roman and Celtic Churches were
very trivial, the chief being the date for the celebration of Easter
and the shape of the monastic tonsure.
[81] See _note 2_ on page 97.
[82] This very decorative class of ornament not only survived till the
thirteenth century but was again revived in Italy at the close of the
fifteenth century; see below, page 193.
[83] It is mentioned above, see page 62, how Alcuin of York in the reign
of Charles the Great created the Anglo-Carolingian style of
illumination by introducing in the eighth century into the kingdom of
the Franks manuscripts and manuscript illuminators from the
monasteries of Northumbria.
[84] Canon G. F. Browne tells me that it is very doubtful whether Wilfrid
ever received the _pall_ from Rome. It may therefore be more correct
to speak of him as Bishop rather than Archbishop of York.
[85] The word "Anglo-Saxon" is a convenient one to use, and is supported
by various ancient authorities; for example in a manuscript
_Benedictional_ (in the library of Corpus College, Cambridge) England
is called "Regnum Anglo-Saxonum," and the English king is entitled
"Rex Anglorum vel Saxonum."
[86] This splendid manuscript is in the possession of the Duke of
Devonshire; a good description of it, with engravings of all its
miniatures, is published in _Archæologia_, Vol. XXIV. 1832, pp. 1 to
117, and a coloured copy of one of the miniatures is given by
Westwood, _Irish Manuscripts_, Plate 45.
The library of Trinity College, Cambridge, possesses a book of the
_Gospels_ which in style is very similar to the _Benedictional_ of
Aethelwold.
[87] The Gospels of Lothaire are in Paris, _Bibl. Nat. Lat._ 266.
[88] This is one of the latest examples of the use of vellum dyed with the
_murex_ purple; the purple grounds occasionally used in fifteenth
century manuscripts are usually produced by laying on a coat of
opaque purple pigment.
[89] Now preserved in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
[90] The celebrated "Utrecht Psalter" is the best known example of a fine
manuscript of this date with outline drawings of the revived
classical style. Some northern influence is shown in the interlaced
ornaments of the large initials. Facsimiles of some pages have been
published by W. G. Birch, London, 1876.
[91] This beautiful roll is now in the British Museum, _Harl._, Roll Y, 6;
two of the miniatures are photographically illustrated by Birch and
Jenner, _Early Drawings and Illuminations_, London, 1879, p. 142.
[92] This _Psalter_, which is now in the public library at Utrecht, may
possibly be one of the very manuscripts which Canute brought from
abroad. It was certainly in England for many centuries before it
passed into the possession of Sir Robert Cotton, from whose library
it must have been stolen, else it would have passed into the library
of the British Museum along with the rest of the great Cotton
collection of manuscripts.
The _Utrecht Psalter_ has been thought to be the work of an
Anglo-Saxon artist, but, most probably, it is the work of a French
scribe, though the miniatures are mainly of the debased classical
style of Rome, and the character of the writing is even more
distinctly classical, differing very little in fact from that of the
fourth century Virgil of the Vatican written several centuries
earlier.
[93] Good examples of this curious style of miniature are to be seen in a
manuscript in the British Museum, _Cotton, Tib._ C. VI.
[94] Indeed it was not very long before the tables were turned and
Normandy was reconquered by an English army under a king, who, though
of Norman blood, was distinctly an English king. The victory of Henry
I. over Robert, Duke of Normandy, at Tenchebray in 1105, went far to
wipe out any feeling on the part of the English that they were a
nation under the rule of a conqueror.
[95] _Chronicles_ of Robert of Gloucester, Hearne's edition, 1724
(reprinted in 1810), Vol. I. p. 363.
[96] An interesting example of this revived study from the life is
afforded by the Sketch-book of Villard de Honecourt, which is
mentioned above at page 72.
[97] See below, page 193, on the revival of this class of ornament in
Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.
[98] This beautiful manuscript is now in the possession of Mr Quaritch,
who prices it at £800 in his catalogue of December, 1891. It appears
once to have belonged to Sir Roger Huntingfield, who died about 1337
A.D.
[99] It is noticeable that even the earliest miniatures of Saint Thomas'
death represent him in Mass vestments, officiating at the High Altar,
whereas he was really killed late in the afternoon, and on the north
side of the church.
[100] See _Vetusta Monumenta_, Vol. VI. pp. 1 to 37, and Plates 26 to 39;
illustrations are given here of "the Painted Chamber" and its
decorations before the fire of 1834, and a number of interesting
extracts are quoted from the accounts now preserved in the Record
Office.
[101] _The Gestes of Antioch_ probably means the capture of Antioch in 1098
under the Crusader leaders Tancred and Godfrey of Bouillon. In the
same way the "Jerusalem" and "Jericho chambers" in the house of the
Abbot of Westminster were so called from the paintings on their
walls. The curious "archaism" of these paintings, with figures of
knights in the armour of the eleventh century, is explained below;
see page 128.
[102] See, for example, that wonderful frontal, covered with miniature
paintings, from the High Altar of Westminster Abbey, which is now
preserved in the south ambulatory of the Sanctuary.
[103] Various attempts have been made to show that Torell was an Italian,
and that the painted retable at Westminster was the work of a foreign
artist, but there is not the slightest foundation for either of these
theories.
[104] As examples of this I may mention the famous "Lateran Cope" in Rome,
the "Piccolomini Cope" at Pienza, and two others of similar date and
style in the Museums of Florence and Bologna. On many occasions we
find that the Popes of this period, on sending the Pall to a newly
elected English Archbishop, suggested that they would like in return
embroidered vestments of English work, _opus Anglicanum_. It should
be observed that in almost all published works on the subject the
above mentioned copes are wrongly described as being of Italian
workmanship.
[105] Both before and after this period manuscripts of the _Vulgate_ were
comparatively rare, but between 1250 and about 1330 many thousands of
manuscript Bibles must have been produced, all closely similar in
style, design, choice of subject and character of writing. There is
no other large class of manuscripts in which such remarkable
uniformity of style is to be seen.
[106] As an example of the wonderful thinness of this uterine vellum, I may
mention a Bible of about 1260 in my own possession which consists of
646 leaves, and yet measures barely an inch and a half in thickness.
In spite of its extreme thinness this vellum is sufficiently opaque
to prevent the writing on one side from showing through to the other.
[107] For example a Bible of this class in the Cambridge University
library, dating from about 1280, has from thirteen to seventeen lines
to an inch!
[108] This method of painting the shadows in pure colour, and using the
same pigment mixed with white for the rest, was employed on a large
scale by many of the Sienese painters in the fourteenth century, and
by the Florentine Fra Angelico in the fifteenth. Fra Angelico's
earliest works were manuscript illuminations, executed about the year
1407 in the Dominican Convent at Fiesole.
[109] The Bodleian library (_Douce_, 366) possesses a specially beautiful
manuscript _Psalter_, which belonged to Robert of Ormsby, a monk of
Norwich Abbey.
[110] In all periods the Benedictines were the chief monastic scribes and
miniaturists; the Mother House at Monte Cassino was one of the chief
centres in Italy for the production of manuscripts, and wherever the
Benedictines settled they brought with them the art of manuscript
illumination; see page 211.
[111] This is specially noticeable in the development of the architectural
styles; not only general forms, but details of mouldings and the like
seem to spring up all over England almost simultaneously.
[112] See below, fig. 25, page 133.
[113] The first pages of the two last-mentioned _Psalters_ are illustrated
by Shaw, _The Art of Illumination_, London, 1870, pp. 17 to 23.
[114] An example of the most marvellous beauty and perfection was presented
by Lady Sadleir to Trinity College library in Cambridge.
[115] The _Victoria Psalter_ is however frequently described in
booksellers' catalogues, not only in polite, but in enthusiastic
language. As an example I may quote the following,
THE BEAUTIFUL VICTORIA PSALTER:
PSALMS OF DAVID ILLUMINATED BY OWEN JONES, _beautifully printed in
large type, on thin cardboards, on 104 pages, each of which is
surrounded by_ SUMPTUOUS BORDERS _in_ GOLD _and_ COLOURS, _with
the_ CAPITALS ILLUMINATED, _and some of the pages consisting of
large and most beautifully illuminated texts_, columbier 4to.
_elegantly bound in morocco, the sides elaborately carved, leathern
joints, and gilt edges_ (A VERY HANDSOME VOLUME), £4. 10_s._
_n. d._
[116] These same characteristics of face are very noticeable in the
beautiful carved ivory diptychs and statuettes of the Virgin and
Child made during the fourteenth century in France and England.
[117] A _lectionary_ contained the _Gospels_ and _Epistles_ arranged for
use at the celebration of Mass.
[118] Especially for the Canon of the Mass. The famous _Mentz Psalter_ of
1459 is printed in characters of this size and style; see below, page
149.
[119] The pine-apple was not known in Europe before the discovery of
America, and this very decorative form, which occurs so largely on
the fine woven velvets of Florence and Northern Italy, was probably
suggested by the artichoke plant, largely assisted by the decorative
invention of the designer.
[120] In the Brera Catalogue this very beautiful painting is wrongly
ascribed to Fra Carnovale, a pupil of Piero della Francesca.
[121] This very important English manuscript was bought by Mr Quaritch and
priced at £1600 in his catalogue, No. 291, 1873. It was written in or
soon after 1420 when Lydgate completed writing his work; it may
possibly have been written and illuminated by the author himself.
[122] Caxton appears to have begun to use woodcut initials in the year 1484
or 1485, but most Continental printers continued to use hand-painted
capitals many years later than that.
[123] This scene and the name of Saint Thomas, wherever it occurs, are
frequently obliterated in English manuscripts. This was done by the
special order of Henry VIII., who, after his quarrel with the Pope,
appears to have regarded Thomas à Becket as a sort of personal enemy.
[124] See page 187 for a fine Italian example of this subject. It is
interesting to note that the popular legend of Saint George and the
dragon is simply a mediaeval version of the old classical myth of
Perseus and Andromeda. In the more genuine Oriental lives of Saint
George this episode is not introduced.
[125] It should be remembered that Norman-French continued to be the Court
language of England till late in the fifteenth century, and for
certain legal purposes even later. Its use still survives in the
Law-Courts of Quebec and Montreal.
[126] Dante, _Purg._ XI. 80; see above, p. 31.
[127] In the magnificent English embroideries of the thirteenth century,
such as the Lateran and Pienza copes, mentioned at page 112, we see
birds of exactly similar style and kinds introduced among the
scroll-work of the grounds and borders.
[128] The phrase _ivy pattern_ is a convenient one to use, as it expresses
a very common and well-defined type of ornament, but the leaf is too
conventionally treated to be recognized as that of the ivy or any
other plant: and the pattern is varied with blossoms of different
forms and colours.
[129] See Laborde, _Les Ducs de Bourgogne_, Vol. II. p. 1, and note to p.
121.
[130] The manner in which this splendid effect is produced is described
below, see page 234.
[131] Shown, for example, in fig. 25, page 134.
[132] The border from the Grimani Breviary shown on page 168, is an
example, though a very beautiful one, of this decadence of taste.
[133] Now in Paris, _Bibl. Nat. Lat._ 17, 294. John, Duke of Bedford, was a
son of Henry IV.; he married in 1423 Anne, daughter of the Duke of
Burgundy. Very fine portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford
occur in the _Bedford Missal_ mentioned below.
[134] The Italians call it _chiaro-scuro_ or "light and shade" painting;
its use in manuscripts may have been suggested by the _grisaille_
stained glass windows which were introduced by the Cistercian monks,
whose Rule prohibited the use of brightly coloured figure subjects
either in their windows, on their walls, or in their books.
[135] It was sold for £650 at the Perkins sale in June, 1873.
[136] Christina was one of the most famous authors of her time; she
produced thirteen different works; one of which, _The Fayts of Armes
and Chivalry_, was translated and printed by Caxton about a century
after it was written, in 1489.
[137] A fine manuscript of Christina's _Romance_ is mentioned above, see
page 138.
[138] These chivalrous romances were no less popular in England; Dan
Lydgate's _Boke of the siege of Troy_, adapted and translated from
Guido de' Colonna's romance, was one of the most popular English
books in the fifteenth century; see page 123.
[139] See Muntz, _Les Peintres d'Avignon_, 1342-1352, Tours, 1885; and _Les
peintures de Simone Martini à Avignon_, Paris, 1885. Many of these
paintings still exist in a good state of preservation, especially
those on the vault of the small private chapel of the Popes.
[140] This subject is discussed at greater length in Chapter XIII.
[141] See page 206 on the favourable conditions under which the monastic
illuminators did their work.
[142] _Books of Hours_ were the prayer-books of the laity, as the
_breviary_, _portiforium_, or "_portoos_" was the prayer-book of the
priest.
[143] See below, page 230, for an explanation of the difference between
"mat" gold applied as a fluid pigment with a brush, and burnished
gold leaf laid over a raised "mordant" or enamel-like ground.
[144] In point of technique these beautiful miniatures are exactly like
very delicate wood-cuts, though in most cases they appear to have
been cut (in relief) on blocks of soft metal, treated just as if it
had been wood.
[145] Perhaps the earliest was one issued in 1486 by Antoine Verard.
[146] In these earliest Parisian printed _Horae_ the backgrounds of the
borders are left plain white; unlike the later ones, in which the
borders have dotted or _criblée_ backgrounds.
[147] They include many different _uses_, especially that of Paris, Rome,
Rouen and Sarum.
[148] Both Verard and Pigouchet produced _Horae_ for the publisher Simon
Vostre.
[149] It is incorrect to speak of _editions_ of these _Books of Hours_;
hardly any two copies appear to have been quite the same; fresh
arrangements and combinations of a large stock of engraved blocks
were made for the printing of almost every copy, and thus the long
list given by Brunet is very incomplete; see the last volume of
Brunet's _Manuel du libraire_, Paris, 1865.
[150] Sold in June, 1873, for £181, with the rest of the Perkins library.
[151] A copy of this glory of the printer's art in Mr Quaritch's possession
is priced in his catalogue of 1891 at £5250; only eight copies are
known to exist.
[152] In 1449 Schoeffer was a young illuminator of manuscripts residing in
Paris.
[153] Mentelin was enrolled as an illuminator in the Painters' Guild at
Strasburg in 1447; and Colard Mansion, Caxton's master in the art of
typography, belonged, as a scribe and illuminator, to the Guild of St
John and St Luke at Bruges. In 1471 he was elected Warden or _Doyen_
of his Guild.
[154] In some cases goldsmiths and engravers of coin-dies became printers
owing to their knowledge of the technical process necessary for
cutting the punches for type. The great French printer Nicolas
Jenson, who produced the most magnificent printed books in Venice,
was, until the year 1462, Master of the Mint at Tours. And Bernardo
Neri, the printer of the Florentine _Editio Princeps_ of Homer, was
originally a goldsmith, and had assisted Ghiberti in his work on the
famous bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery.
[155] The glorious copy on vellum of the _Mazarine Bible_ in the British
Museum has illuminated borders and initial miniatures of the finest
style and execution. This earliest of printed books is commonly
called after the copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin which
contains the illuminator's note that his work was finished in 1456.
Sir John Thorold's copy on paper was sold in 1884 for £3900.
[156] Italian books frequently had clasps at the top and bottom as well as
two at the side.
[157] The first or almost the first book printed by Aldus was the _Hero and
Leander_ of Musaeus of 1494 in small 4to. The Virgil of 1501 was
followed rapidly by a Juvenal and a Martial, issued in the same year.
[158] Chinese wood engravings of considerably earlier date do exist.
[159] See page 1373; this remarkable manuscript was then (in 1873) priced
at £650.
[160] Early wood-cuts were not cut on the cross ends of the grain, but on
the "plank side" of a wooden board.
[161] The _Cantica Canticorum_ of about 1435 has most lovely designs, and
the _Apocalypse_, the _Ars Moriendi_, the _Speculum Humanae
Salvationis_, and the _Biblia Pauperum_ all have wood-cut
illustrations of great vigour and spirit, produced between about 1420
and 1450.
[162] Even before 1400 initial letters in manuscripts had been occasionally
printed from wooden stamps covered with red or blue pigment.
[163] Much of the German bronze-work of this period is extremely fine and
skilful in execution, such as the fonts and doors of churches at
Hildesheim, Augsburg and other places. The bronze font at Liége, cast
about 1112 by a sculptor of the German school, is a work of most
wonderful grace and beauty.
[164] Till the thirteenth century the art of the Netherlands and Flanders
was German in character; after that Flanders was, artistically, as
well as politically, partly Teutonic and partly French.
[165] See above, page 110, for an English example of wall paintings being
copied from manuscript miniatures.
[166] The National Gallery in London possesses a magnificent panel by
Gérard David, a kneeling Canon with three standing figures of Saints,
and an exquisitely painted landscape background. This is one wing of
an altar triptych which was painted for St Donatian at Bruges. It is
numbered 1045 in the Catalogue. Paintings by Gérard David's wife are
mentioned below, see page 218.
[167] The whole of this gorgeous manuscript was published in fairly good
"facsimile" by Curmer, _Le livre d'Heures de la Reine Anne de
Bretagne_, 2 Vols. Imp. 410., Paris, 1861; see also Laborde, _Ducs de
Bourgogne_, Vol. 1. p. xxiv.
[168] A very interesting account of the Flemish illuminators of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is given by Weale, _Le Beffroi_,
Vol. iv. 1873, in which he publishes the accounts of the Guild of St
John and St Luke between the years 1454 and 1500.
[169] Gérard David of Bruges was a notable example of skill in both
branches of art; see above, page 165. Gérard's wife also practised
both these arts, and produced manuscript illuminations and panel
paintings of almost equal beauty to those of her husband; see below,
page 218.
[170] Maximilian's Prayer-book has been described (with copies of the
borders) by Stoeger, _Vignettes d'Albert Dürer_; Munich, 1850.
[171] These minutely rendered ecclesiastical scenes occur frequently in
other classes of Teutonic illumination.
[172] The Fitzwilliam Library possesses a beautiful example of this class
of pen illumination in a large folio volume of the _Summa_ of Aquinas
printed by Mentelin about 1465 or 1466.
Mentelin in his youth was an illuminator of manuscripts in Paris at
the same time that he was a student in the University; see page 150.
[173] Such work as the Pisan Baptistery pulpit of Niccola Pisano, executed
in about 1260, was an almost isolated phenomenon, and it was not till
about half a century later that Giotto and his pupils produced
paintings of equal merit to those of France and England during the
second half of the thirteenth century.
[174] See _Mon. Germ. Hist._ XII. p. 348 seq.; and Agincourt, _Hist.
d'Art_, Pl. 66.
[175] Partly owing to the necessarily decorative beauty of the glass
_tesserae_, Byzantine mosaics, even of a degraded period, are usually
fine and rich in effect.
[176] See Vasari, _Vite dei pittori_, Edition of 1568, Parte I. p. 229
seq.; and _ib._ Milanesi's edition, 1878, Vol. II. pp. 17 to 29.
[177] This enshrined hand, and another, said to be that of a later
_miniatore_ of the same Monastery, Don Lorenzo, still exist in the
Sacristy of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
[178] These magnificent miniatures were sold with the rest of the Hailstone
Collection in 1891; one of them, in the possession of the present
writer, is a magnificent initial O, measuring eight by nine inches,
enclosing a very beautiful seated figure of Saint Stephen in a violet
dalmatic with richly decorated gold _apparels_.
[179] See Vasari, Milanesi Ed. Vol. II. p. 15. Vasari also mentions a monk
of the same monastery named Don Jacopo, a contemporary of Don
Silvestro, who illuminated twenty large choir-books of extraordinary
beauty.
[180] He appears to have abstained from purchasing these choir-books
because they were of the special Camaldolese _Use_, and could not
therefore be used in the Vatican Basilica.
[181] Fra Angelico's works were executed throughout the first half of the
fifteenth century. Vasari mentions some magnificent manuscripts
illuminated by him for the Cathedral of Florence, but they are not
now known to exist.
[182] This is very doubtful. Fra Angelico's brother Fra Benedetto da
Fiesole was a scribe rather than a miniaturist, and probably only
wrote the fine large text; the illuminations were probably added by a
pupil of Fra Angelico, named Zanobi Strozzi, who died in 1468.
[183] As an example of this I may mention Fra Angelico's system of painting
the shadows of drapery in pure colour, using the same colour mixed
with white for the rest of the folds. To some extent this method was
used by the Sienese school of painting, which in other respects
resembles in style the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts; see
above, p. 114.
[184] Taking it all round, in painting, sculpture, the medallist's art and
other branches of the fine arts, no country and no period except
Athens in the time of Pericles can ever have quite equalled the
artistic glories of Florence under Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo de'
Medici.
[185] _Pontificals_ contain such Services as only Bishops or Archbishops
could celebrate, and therefore comparatively few would be required.
[186] A beautiful manuscript of about 1460 in the Fitzwilliam Museum has
its first page surrounded with a border of this class of design, the
interest of which is much increased by the minutely written
signature, "Jacopo da Fabriano," introduced among the leavy ornaments
of the margin.
[187] This kind of design, with a blank space for the owner's arms, is used
for many of the beautiful wood-cut borders in the early printed books
of Florence and Venice.
[188] Decorative accessories of this sculpturesque kind are largely used in
the paintings of Andrea Mantegna of Padua.
[189] And to some extent for manuscripts of religious works as well. This
archaic form of letter was also used by Sweynheim and Pannartz and
other prototypographers at Subiaco and in Rome; hence it got the name
of _Roman_ as opposed to _Gothic_ letter.
[190] One of the finest examples of this style of illumination is in a
volume of the Italian translation of Pliny's _Natural History_,
printed on vellum by Nicolas Jenson in Venice in 1476; now in the
Bodleian at Oxford.
[191] See Wattenbach, _Schriftwesen_, Ed. 2, pp. 411 and 469; and Romer,
_Les Manuscrits de la Bibl. Corvinienne_, in _l'Art_, Vol. X. 1877.
[192] See Vasari's life of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Ed. Milanesi, Vol. II.
p. 522 seq.
[193] The National Gallery in London possesses (No. 748 in the Catalogue) a
good example of Girolamo's work, a Madonna altar-piece, signed
_Hieronymus a libris f._ No. 1134 in the same collection is an
example of a panel picture by Liberale da Verona. The Bodleian
contains an exquisite _Book of Hours_ illuminated by Girolamo dai
Libri for the Duke of Urbino.
[194] The _Antiphonals_ which Liberale illuminated at Monte Oliveto are now
preserved in the Chapter library at Chiusi. Those which he painted at
Siena are now in the Cathedral library. Records of money paid to
Liberale for these choir-books are published by Milanesi, _Documenti
per la Storia dell' Arte Sanese_, Vol. II. pp. 384-386; and
Milanesi's edition of Vasari, Vol. V. pp. 326-334.
[195] Examples of Attavante's and Liberale's miniatures are illustrated by
Eug. Müntz, _La Renaissance en Italie et en France_, Paris, 1885, p.
188 seq.
[196] See page 200, and compare pages 163 and 175 for examples of similar
influence due to the manuscript illuminators of Germany and Italy.
[197] For examples of this see above, page 175.
[198] Each of these painters (in some pictures) also signs himself
_Alamanus_, meaning not necessarily that they were Germans, but
possibly natives of Lombardy, who were often called _Alamani_ by
their Italian neighbours.
[199] Especially in his magnificently decorative altar-piece of the
Adoration of the Magi in the Florentine Academy, dated 1423.
[200] Clovio is the Italianized form of a harsh Croatian name; the artist
adopted the name Giulio as a compliment to his friend and teacher
Giulio Romano, Raphael's favourite pupil.
J. W. Bradley, _Life of Giulio Clovio_, London, 1891, gives an
interesting account of him and of his times; see also Vasari, Ed.
Milanesi, Vol. VII. p. 557.
[201] The ex-king of Naples' library possesses a _Book of Hours_, on the
illuminations of which (Vasari tells us) Giulio Clovio spent nine
years. It certainly is a marvel of human patience and misdirected
skill; the text was written by a famous scribe named Monterchi, who
was specially renowned for the beauty of his writing.
[202] An interesting little volume on this subject has been published by
Eug. Müntz, _La Bibliothèque du Vatican_, Paris, 1886; it deals
chiefly with the growth of the library during the sixteenth century.
[203] Fra Sebastiano was called "del Piombo" from his office as
superintendant of the pendant lead seals, _piombi_ or _bullae_, which
were attached to Papal Briefs and other documents, one class of which
were called _Bulls_ from their lead _bullae_.
[204] See Montault, _Livres de choeur des églises de Rome_, Arras, 1874, p.
9.
[205] The Fitzwilliam Museum possesses two noble vellum choir-books of this
class dated 1604 and 1605. Though the miniatures are poor, the
writing of the text and the music might well pass for the work of a
fifteenth century scribe.
[206] A valuable but by no means exhaustive list of manuscript illuminators
is given by J. W. Bradley, _Dictionary of Miniaturists, Illuminators
and Caligraphers_, London, 1887. The names of Italian miniaturists
are specially numerous, partly because Italian manuscripts are more
frequently signed by their illuminators than the manuscripts of other
countries. See also Bernasconi, _Studj sopra la storia della pittura
Italiana dei secoli xiv e xv_, Verona, 1864.
[207] J. R. Green, in his _Short History of the English People_, chap.
III., gives an interesting sketch of the development of literature
and the art of the scribe in the great Monasteries of England,
especially from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.
[208] The carvings on the _misericords_ (or turn-up seats) of choir-stalls
were frequently a vent for the pent-up humour and even spite of many
a monastic carver.
[209] The Poems of Walter Map were edited by Thos. Wright for the Camden
Society, 1841.
[210] Walter Map subsequently obtained various degrees of preferment, and
in 1197 became Archdeacon of Oxford.
[211] Theophilus, _Schedula diversarum Artium_, I. 30-33, writes as if
every illuminator had to beat out or grind his own gold.
[212] In this respect, as is noted above at page 33, the manuscripts of
classical date appear to have been inferior to those of the mediaeval
period.
[213] Monte Cassino the first and chief of the Benedictine monasteries,
founded by Saint Benedict himself, was for many centuries one of the
chief centres in Italy for the writing and illumination of
manuscripts.
[214] According to the severe Cistercian Rule richly illuminated
manuscripts were not allowed to be written or even used in Houses of
that Order, which in England from the end of the twelfth century came
next in size and importance to the monasteries of the parent
Benedictine Order.
[215] See the plan of the Abbey of St Gallen, published by Prof. Willis,
_Arch. Jour._, Vol. v. page 85 seq.
[216] The Abbey of Westminster is a well preserved example of the typical
Benedictine plan.
[217] One walk of the Benedictine cloister, usually that on the west, was
used as the school-room where the novices repeated their "Donats" and
other lessons. Hence in many cloisters one sees the stone benches cut
with marks for numerous "go-bang" boards--a favourite monastic game.
[218] No monk could borrow a book to read without the express permission of
his superiors given in the Chapter House.
[219] The word _carrel_ is probably a corruption of the French _carré_,
from the _square_ form of these little rooms.
[220] When the great Benedictine Abbey of Gloucester was suppressed, Henry
VIII. made the Church into a Cathedral by creating a new See; and so,
happily, the very beautiful cloister was saved from destruction.
[221] Gloucester is exceptional in having the cloister on the north side of
the Church; and also in having these stone recesses in the
_scriptorium_ alley.
[222] The Gloucester cloister and the carrel recesses shown in this woodcut
date from the latter part of the fourteenth century.
[223] Published by the Surtees Society, London, 1842; see p. 70.
[224] Frequently in the Linen-armourers' Guild, that of makers of defensive
armour of linen padded and quilted, a very important protection
against assassination, which was used till the seventeenth century.
[225] Dante selected the Apothecaries' and Physicians' Guild.
[226] This phrase was used in the twelfth century by Ordericus Vitalis,
_Hist. Eccles._ Lib. III. p. 77, Ed. Le Prevost.
[227] Mediaeval saddlery, with its cut, gilt and stamped leather (_cuir
bouillé_), rich and elaborate in design, was a decorative art of no
mean character; and in technique was akin to that of the bookbinder,
which in most places was included in the same Guild.
[228] See _Le Beffroi_, Bruges, Vol. IV. 1873.
[229] In poetic beauty, however, they cannot be compared to the glory of
the French _Apocalypses_ such as that in the library of Trinity
College, Cambridge.
[230] Gérard David is mentioned above as one of the illuminators of the
famous Grimani _Breviary_; see page 165.
[231] See pages 117 and 122 for examples of this.
[232] That is, for noting or writing the plain song of certain parts of the
service which were sung at Christmas and during Holy Week. This
explanation I owe to my friend Mr J. T. Micklethwaite.
[233] Evidently mis-spelt for _psalterio_; and again in the next item.
[234] The _quaternion_ was a gathering of four sheets of vellum, each
folded once; thus forming sixteen pages.
[235] This book was partly written on sheets of vellum which were _in
stauro_ (in stock), and therefore do not come into the accounts.
[236] Twelve quires of vellum which were in stock were also used for this
_Antiphonale_.
[237] See _Trans. Bristol and Glouces. Arch. Soc._ Vol. XV. 1891, pp. 257
and 260.
[238] See Peignot, _Essai sur l'histoire du parchemin et du vélin_, Paris,
1812.
[239] Strictly speaking the word _vellum_ should denote parchment made from
calfskin, but the word is commonly used for any of the finer
qualities of parchment which were used for manuscripts.
[240] Quoted by Hook, _Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury_, Vol. III. p.
353; the Rev. Canon G. F. Browne kindly called my attention to this
passage. Other examples of the cost of vellum are given in the
preceding chapter.
[241] The same arrangement is to be seen in books printed on vellum.
[242] For example, the mere vellum required to print a small thick folio,
such as Caxton's _Golden Legend_, would now cost about £40.
[243] I owe many of the facts in the following account of early paper to
the excellent article on that subject in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, ninth edition, Vol. XVIII. by Mr E. Maunde Thompson. See
also E. Egger, _Le papier dans l'antiquité et dans les temps
modernes_, Paris, 1866.
[244] A good illustrated account of early water-marks is given by Sotheby,
_Principia Typographia_, London, 1858.
[245] Some fifteenth century paper has a special maker's mark, but more
usually a general town or district mark was used, such as the
cross-keys, a Cardinal's hat, an Imperial crown or double-eagle.
[246] What is now called "foolscap paper" originally took its name from a
paper-mark in the form of a _fool's cap and bells_, a device which
was frequently used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[247] Some of Caxton's books, printed in Westminster, bear many different
paper-marks of Germany and Flanders, even in the same volume.
[248] Paper was also made at an early date in Constantinople, through its
intimate relationship with the East. Hence the Monk Theophilus,
writing in the eleventh century, calls linen-paper "Greek vellum,"
_pergamena Graeca_; see I. 24.
[249] This old paper is almost as stout, tough and durable as
parchment--very unlike modern machine-made paper.
[250] The size was made by boiling down shreds of vellum. Blotting-paper is
paper that has not been sized. A coarse grey variety was used as
early as the fifteenth century, though, as a rule, fine sand was used
for this purpose till about the middle of the present century,
especially on the Continent.
[251] Modern "shell gold" is practically the same thing as the fluid gold
of the mediaeval illuminators, except that it is not made with the
pure, unalloyed metal.
[252] The following are the most useful and easily accessible books on the
technical processes of the illuminator; Theophilus, _Schedula
diversarum Artium_, Hendrie's edition with a translation, London,
1847; Cennino Cennini, _Trattato della pittura_, 1437, edited, with a
translation, by Mrs Merrifield, London, 1844; and a large and
valuable collection of early manuscripts on the same subject, edited
and translated by Mrs Merrifield under the title of _Original
Treatises on the Arts of Painting_, 2 Vols., London, 1849.
[253] See page 144.
[254] That is to say, it looks as if the whole substance, mordant and all,
were one solid mass of gold, nearly as thick as a modern
half-sovereign; see Theophilus, I. 24 and 25.
[255] So when William Torell was about to gild the bronze effigy of Queen
Eleanor in Westminster Abbey he procured a large number of gold
florins from Lucca.
[256] Not even the smallest admixture of alloy was permitted in the gold
coinages of the Middle Ages. Dante (_Inf._ XXX. 73) mentions the
coiner Maestro Adamo who had been burnt at Romena in 1280 for issuing
florins which had scarcely more alloy than a modern sovereign.
[257] The gold penny of Henry III. and the florin and its parts of Edward
III. were only struck as patterns. The gold noble was first issued in
1341; its value was 6_s._ 8_d._ or half a _mark_. So many nobles were
destroyed to make gold leaf for illuminating, and for other purposes,
that an Act was passed prohibiting, under severe penalties, the use
of the gold coinage for any except monetary purposes.
[258] In the same way the gold leaf used by the Greeks was comparatively
thick. The famous Erechtheum inscription of 404 B.C. gives one
drachma as the cost of each leaf ([Greek: petalon]) used for gilding
the marble enrichments; see _Cor. Ins. Att._ I. 324, fragment C, col.
ii. lines 35 and 42. Eighteen-pence will now buy 100 leaves of gold.
[259] The best account of the way to make the mordant was given about 1398
by a Lombard illuminator called Johannes Archerius; see Mrs
Merrifield's interesting collection of _Treatises on Painting_, Vol.
I. page 259 seq.
[260] See Theophilus, I. 25.
[261] See Mrs Merrifield, _op. cit._ Vol. I. p. 154.
[262] In Cennino's time, the early part of the fourteenth century, in
Europe, sugar was sold by the ounce as a costly drug. Apothecaries,
not grocers, dealt in it. In Persia, Syria and some other Moslem
countries cane sugar was made and used in comparatively large
quantities throughout the mediaeval period; but in Europe it did not
come into use as an article of food till the 16th century, and even
then it was very expensive.
[263] The date of this receipt is about 1410; it is quoted in Jehan de
Begue's manuscript published by Mrs Merrifield, Vol. I. pp. 9, 95,
and 154; see also Theophilus, I. 31, who speaks of burnishing fluid
gold laid on a mordant of red lead and cinnabar.
[264] See Theophilus, I. 33 and 34; he recommends white of egg as a medium
for ceruse, minium and carmine, and for most other pigments, ordinary
vellum _size_.
Jehan le Begue's manuscript gives the same advice as to the use of
white of egg, but advises the use of gum Arabic with other pigments;
see § 197.
[265] The British Museum possesses an interesting manuscript on pigments,
entitled _De coloribus Illuminatorum_ (Sloane manuscripts, 1754); see
also Eraclius, _De artibus Romanorum_, published by Raspe, London,
1783 and 1801; and the twelfth century _Mappae Clavicula_ printed in
_Archæologia_, Vol. XXXII. pp. 183 to 244. The first book of
Theophilus, _Diversarum artium schedula_, written in the eleventh
century, contains much interesting matter on this subject; see also
the works mentioned above at page 230.
[266] _The Journal of the Society of Arts_, Dec. 25, 1891, and Jan. 8 and
15, 1892, has a valuable series of papers on "The pigments and
vehicles of the Old Masters" by Mr A. P. Laurie, who throws new light
on the treatises edited by Mrs Merrifield with the help of his own
chemical investigations.
[267] This word is spelt in many different ways.
[268] In mediaeval times this was done by first embedding the powdered
stone in a lump of wax and resin, from which the blue particles were
laboriously extracted by long-continued kneading and washing. The
theory of this apparently was that the wax held the colourless
particles and allowed the blue to be washed out; see Mrs Merrifield,
_Treatises on Painting_, Vol. I. pp. 49, and 97 to 111.
[269] The modern value of ultramarine is about equal to its weight in gold.
Sir Peter Lely, in the time of Charles II., paid £4. 10_s._ an ounce
for it.
[270] The Prior in question was the Superior of the Convent of the Frati
Gesuati in Florence.
[271] The German blue was also liable to turn to a bright emerald green if
exposed to damp air. This change has taken place in a great part of
the painted ceilings of the Villa Madama, which Raphael designed for
Cardinal de' Medici (afterwards Clement VII.) on the slopes of Monte
Mario, a little distance outside the walls of Rome.
[272] Because it was used by goldsmiths in _soldering gold_.
[273] _Minium_ was largely used in the manuscripts of classical times; this
is mentioned by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ XXXIII. 122) who says _minium in
voluminum quoque scriptura usurpatur_.
[274] All natural earthy pigments owe their colours to the various metals,
which in combinations with different substances give a great variety
of tints. Thus, _iron_ gives red, brown, yellow and black; _copper_
gives many shades of brilliant blues and greens; and _manganese_
gives a quiet purple, especially in combination with an alcaline
silicate.
[275] Plutarch (_De defec. Or._ § 41) mentions flour made from beans as
being used with _murex_ purple and _kermes_ crimson to give them
sufficient body for the painter's purpose.
[276] Kermes is the Arabic name for this insect.
[277] It should be remembered that a large number of the mediaeval receipts
and processes were not based on any reasonable principle, and endless
complications were often introduced quite needlessly; this is well
shown in a very interesting paper by Prof. John Ferguson of Glasgow
on _Some Early Treatises on Technological Chemistry_, read before the
Philos. Soc. Glasgow, Jan. 6, 1886.
[278] The use of litharge as a drier was one of the most important
improvements made in the technique of oil painting by the Van Eycks
of Bruges in the first half of the fifteenth century. Before then,
oil paintings on walls had often been laboriously dried by holding
charcoal braziers close to the surface of the picture. Among the
accounts of the expenses of painting the Royal Palace of Westminster
in the thirteenth century (see above, page 110) charcoal for this
purpose is an important item in the cost. Paintings on panel, being
moveable, were usually dried by being placed in the sun; but, in
every way, a good drier like litharge answers better than heat,
either of the fire or of sunshine.
[279] See Theophilus, I. 39.
[280] See Vitruvius, VII. 10; and Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ XXXV. 41; and
Dioscorides, V. 183.
[281] Sometimes accidentally produced in domestic life by some overdrawn
tea remaining on a steel knife.
[282] The modern "lead-pencil" is wrongly named, being made of _graphite_,
which is pure carbon. This does not appear to have been used in
mediaeval times.
[283] The vellum was not prepared in any way to receive the silver-point
drawing; but when an artist wanted to make a finished study in
silver-point he covered his vellum or paper with a priming of fine
_gesso_, powdered marble, or wood-ashes; this gave a more biting
surface to the paper, and made the silver rub off more easily and
mark much more strongly. In the case of manuscript illuminations a
strongly marked line was not needed, as the outline was only intended
as a guide to the painter.
[284] See above, pages 29 and 30, on the pens and inkstands of the
classical scribes.
[285] Usually meant for Saint Jerome translating or revising the Latin
edition of the Bible.
[286] Again, the first miniature in the French and Flemish _Horae_ usually
represents _Saint John in Patmos_ writing his Gospel. The eagle
stands by patiently holding the Evangelist's inkhorn. In some
manuscripts the Devil, evidently in much awe of the eagle's beak,
makes a feeble attempt to upset the ink. In the latest manuscript
_Horae_ this scene is replaced by the one of _Saint John at the Latin
Gate._
[287] A two-columned page of text had, of course, two sets of framing
lines, one for each patch of writing.
[288] In some manuscripts lines are ruled in blue or purple, but much less
frequently than in the more decorative vermilion.
[289] In certain classes of books, such as large Bibles and Prayer-books,
the custom of ruling red lines lasted till the present century.
[290] These guiding letters were used in all the early printed books which
had initials painted in by an illuminator.
[291] As a rule these manuscript signatures in printed books were written
close to the edge of the page, and so have been cut off by the
binder; in some tall copies, however, they still exist.
[292] The next stage was the numbering of each _folio_ or leaf, and the
last system was to number each page. Folios appear to have been first
numbered in books printed at Cologne about the year 1470. A further
modification has recently been introduced, namely, in two column
pages, to number each column separately.
[293] The _Lectionary_ mentioned on p. 120 was written and signed by a
monastic scribe called Sifer Was.
[294] Some fine examples of magnificently bound manuscripts are illustrated
by Libri, _Monumens inédits_; _Hist. Ornam._ Paris, 1862-1864.
[295] In Geyler's _Fatuorum Navicula_, of which many editions, copiously
illustrated with woodcuts, were published shortly before and after
the year 1500, the cut showing the first fool of the series, the
Bibliomaniac, represents him surrounded with books, all of which are
bound after this design.
[296] A complete sixteenth century Venetian library, consisting of a
hundred and seventy volumes, all with painted illuminations on their
edges, is now in the library of Mr Thos. Brooke, at Armitage Bridge,
near Huddersfield. The whole collection forms a beautiful array of
delicately painted miniatures, mostly the work of Cesare Vecellio, a
Venetian illuminator of the latter part of the sixteenth century; see
_Catalogue of Mr Brooke's library_, London, 1891, Vol. II., pp. 663
to 681.
[297] An analogous change took place in the reign of Elizabeth in England
when coins, which up to that time had always been made by hammering,
were first struck by the "mill and screw."
[298] In the miniature pictures in manuscripts of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries one often sees ladies represented with their
_Horae_ suspended in this way from their girdle.
[299] See page 167.
[300] See page 167.
[301] The same want of appreciation extends to bindings. As a rule a book
in a fine mediaeval binding sells for no more than if it were in a
modern binding by Bedford. It is only the sixteenth century bindings
of so-called "Grolier style" and the like which add largely to the
value of a book.
[302] This library is now deposited in the Guildhall; the press-mark is
probably that of an old monastic library.
[303] Probably a blundered version of Pliny's statement (_Hist. Nat._
XXXVII. 119) that azure blue (_cyanus_) was invented by a king of
Egypt.
[304] This is evidently a different thing from the _epicausterium_ or
brazier for hot coals mentioned below. My friend Mr J. T.
Micklethwaite suggests that it was a board covered with leather on
which to stretch and dry vellum before writing on it.
[305] An explanation of the nature and constitution of the Breviary will be
found in the preface to the Psalter-volume of the Cambridge
University Press edition of the Sarum Breviary, lately published.