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.
The first pages of the two last-mentioned Psalters are illustrated by Shaw, The Art of Illumination, London, 1870, pp. 17 to 23.
An example of the most marvellous beauty and perfection was presented by Lady Sadleir to Trinity College library in Cambridge.
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. 10s.
n. d.
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.
A lectionary contained the Gospels and Epistles arranged for use at the celebration of Mass.
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.
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.
In the Brera Catalogue this very beautiful painting is wrongly ascribed to Fra Carnovale, a pupil of Piero della Francesca.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The border from the Grimani Breviary shown on page 168, is an example, though a very beautiful one, of this decadence of taste.
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.
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.
It was sold for £650 at the Perkins sale in June, 1873.
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.
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.
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.
This subject is discussed at greater length in Chapter XIII.
See page 206 on the favourable conditions under which the monastic illuminators did their work.
Books of Hours were the prayer-books of the laity, as the breviary, portiforium, or "portoos" was the prayer-book of the priest.
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.
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.
Perhaps the earliest was one issued in 1486 by Antoine Verard.
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.
They include many different uses, especially that of Paris, Rome, Rouen and Sarum.
Both Verard and Pigouchet produced Horae for the publisher Simon Vostre.
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.
Sold in June, 1873, for £181, with the rest of the Perkins library.
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.
In 1449 Schoeffer was a young illuminator of manuscripts residing in Paris.
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.
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.
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.
Italian books frequently had clasps at the top and bottom as well as two at the side.
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.
Chinese wood engravings of considerably earlier date do exist.
See page 1373; this remarkable manuscript was then (in 1873) priced at £650.
Early wood-cuts were not cut on the cross ends of the grain, but on the "plank side" of a wooden board.
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.
Even before 1400 initial letters in manuscripts had been occasionally printed from wooden stamps covered with red or blue pigment.
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.
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.
See above, page 110, for an English example of wall paintings being copied from manuscript miniatures.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Maximilian's Prayer-book has been described (with copies of the borders) by Stoeger, Vignettes d'Albert Dürer; Munich, 1850.
These minutely rendered ecclesiastical scenes occur frequently in other classes of Teutonic illumination.
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.
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.
See Mon. Germ. Hist. XII. p. 348 seq.; and Agincourt, Hist. d'Art, Pl. 66.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pontificals contain such Services as only Bishops or Archbishops could celebrate, and therefore comparatively few would be required.
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.
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.
Decorative accessories of this sculpturesque kind are largely used in the paintings of Andrea Mantegna of Padua.
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.
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.
See Wattenbach, Schriftwesen, Ed. 2, pp. 411 and 469; and Romer, Les Manuscrits de la Bibl. Corvinienne, in l'Art, Vol. X. 1877.
See Vasari's life of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Ed. Milanesi, Vol. II. p. 522 seq.
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.
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.
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.
See page 200, and compare pages 163 and 175 for examples of similar influence due to the manuscript illuminators of Germany and Italy.
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.
Especially in his magnificently decorative altar-piece of the Adoration of the Magi in the Florentine Academy, dated 1423.
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.
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.
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.
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.
See Montault, Livres de chœur des églises de Rome, Arras, 1874, p. 9.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Poems of Walter Map were edited by Thos. Wright for the Camden Society, 1841.
Walter Map subsequently obtained various degrees of preferment, and in 1197 became Archdeacon of Oxford.
Theophilus, Schedula diversarum Artium, I. 30-33, writes as if every illuminator had to beat out or grind his own gold.
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.
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.
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.
See the plan of the Abbey of St Gallen, published by Prof. Willis, Arch. Jour., Vol. v. page 85 seq.
The Abbey of Westminster is a well preserved example of the typical Benedictine plan.
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.
No monk could borrow a book to read without the express permission of his superiors given in the Chapter House.
The word carrel is probably a corruption of the French carré, from the square form of these little rooms.
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.
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.
The Gloucester cloister and the carrel recesses shown in this woodcut date from the latter part of the fourteenth century.
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.
Dante selected the Apothecaries' and Physicians' Guild.
This phrase was used in the twelfth century by Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccles. Lib. III. p. 77, Ed. Le Prevost.
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.
See Le Beffroi, Bruges, Vol. IV. 1873.