Illuminated Manuscripts

I

Introduction

Illuminated Manuscripts, calligraphic codices, or hand-drawn scrolls and books, enhanced by artists with decorations and paintings. The term is usually applied to medieval illuminated manuscripts that are embellished and illustrated in various ways. Illuminations are also called miniatures; the term is derived from the Latin minium (red lead), the pigment once used to mark the opening words of the text; it does not refer to the diminutive size of the painting.

II

Materials and Techniques

Paints for manuscript illumination were made from pigments of earth substances, such as red, brown, or yellow ochres; or were derived from natural deposits of metals (for orange, red, and brown) or from stones, such as lapis lazuli for blue. Azurite for blue and malachite for green came from metallic ores, but blue was also extracted from woad and indigo plants. White came from lime, lead, or the ashes of burned bird bones; yellow came from orpiment, a sulphide of arsenic, or from saffron. Pigments were ground to a powder and fixed to the parchment with glair—beaten egg whites allowed to stand until sufficiently liquefied to flow easily from a brush.

In Europe, gold leaf was made by hammering gold sheets down to the thickness of a cobweb. The appearance of lumped solid gold was achieved by layers of chalk or gesso, covered by bole, a pinkish earth substance, which further enhanced the gold. Gold leaf was then fixed to the parchment with glair, size (animal gelatin), honey, or sugar as a binder. The illuminator burnished the gold with an animal tooth and often tooled geometric or floral designs on it.

Treatises on the manufacture of paints were written in medieval Europe and the Middle East. During the Middle Ages, when manuscript painting was considered a high art, illuminators decorated their codices in several ways. The book frequently opened with a carpet page—so called because its abstract designs resemble an Oriental carpet—or an imaginary portrait of the book's author or its patron. Within the text, initial letters were enlarged and adorned, sometimes containing figures and scenes, and at times shaped into zoomorphic (animal-like) forms. In other manuscripts, columns of text were surrounded by botanical ornamentation, or the margins were filled with playful birds, animals, and imaginary beings. Some biblical, historical, and literary manuscripts contained full-page illustrations, either interspersed within the text or grouped together at the beginning.

III

Egyptian Origins

Manuscript illumination began in dynastic Egypt with the illustrated Book of the Dead. The ancient Egyptians called these papyrus scrolls pert em hru, “coming forth by day”. In the 2nd millennium bc, these were commissioned by royalty, nobility, priests and female temple musicians, and court administrators; eventually, however, ready-made manuscripts, on which the purchaser could fill in a name, were prepared by scribes. The texts consisted of descriptions of ceremonies preceding burial, prayers recited by priests or relatives of the dead, and instructions for the conduct of the deceased in the world beyond the grave. Certain scenes, of important stages in the ritual of Egyptian burial, were frequently depicted: the funeral procession, mummification, weighing of the soul, the deceased in the heavenly fields, and the presentation to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead.

The dry Egyptian climate preserved these buried papyrus scrolls. The finest is the Papyrus of Ani (c. 1570 bc, British Museum, London), from the 18th Dynasty. After the 12th century bc the art declined, but Books of the Dead continued to be made until the Hellenistic period (323-1st century bc).

When the scribes of Alexandria copied manuscripts for the city's great library, it is believed that they were inspired by illustrated Egyptian literature and that they continued the practice for Greek literary and scientific works. Only fragments of such illustrated texts remain, principally from the early centuries of Christianity. Because themes from Classical literature were depicted in Hellenistic and Roman mosaics and wall paintings, however, it is assumed that illustrated scrolls existed and that they were the prototypes, or models, for painting and sculpture as well as for later Byzantine and European illuminated manuscripts. It is even possible that the Old Testament, translated from Hebrew into Greek in Alexandria, was illuminated; a Bible written with gold letters is mentioned in Hellenistic Jewish sources.

IV

Classical, Early Christian, and Byzantine Manuscripts

Few illuminated manuscripts from the Early Christian and Byzantine period (1st-6th century) survive. The important literary manuscripts are two copies of texts by Virgil in the Vatican Library in Rome and a version of the Iliad by Homer in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The most sumptuous Bibles are the Vienna Genesis (Nationalbibliothek, Vienna), a picture book with stories from the Book of Genesis; the Rossano Gospels (Museo Diocesano, Rossano, Italy)—both transcribed in the 6th century on purple parchment; and the Rabbula Gospels (586, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence). De Materia Medica, a herbal written by the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, in the 1st century ad, was illuminated in about 512 in a famous version called the Vienna Dioscorides and was frequently copied in the Byzantine and Islamic world. The miniatures of this period were painted in illusionistic style, reminiscent of Hellenistic and Roman wall painting. After the Iconoclastic Period (726-843), illuminators at the court of the Macedonian emperors in Constantinople revived illusionistic painting and Classical themes, even though the subjects were biblical. The 10th-century Paris Psalter (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) has several frontispiece illustrations of biblical figures giving thanks for the miracles performed for them, and a portrait of King David, whose iconography was inspired by Classical illustrations depicting Orpheus taming the beasts.