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Browse All : books and manuscript (documents) and manuscript (documents) of Flanders
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Title
Psalterium : fragment
Creator
Catholic Church
Summary
[Ms. This manuscript leaf is part of a collection of medieval manuscript leaves selected to illustrate the art of the manuscript during the period of its greatest development and influence. They have been taken from books written in various European scriptoria by Benedictine, Franciscan, Carthusian, Dominican, and other orders of monks. Many are enriched with handsome borders, initial letters, and line-endings rendered in color. Twenty-five are illuminated with burnished gold or silver. The texts include the Bible, various church service books, the writings of the Church fathers, and some of the Classics., In angular gothic script., This small Psalter leaf illustrates the fact that, although skilled scribes were available in many monasteries in the 13th century, some of the monks who attempted to apply and burnish the gold leaf were still struggling with many problems of illumination. The famous treatise De Arte illuminandi and Cennino Cennini's Trattato were both of later date. These works gave directions on how to prepare and use the glair of egg, Armenian bole, stag-horn glue, and hare's foot, and on how to burnish the gold with a suitable wolf's tooth. These books might not have been too helpful, however, for the}author of the De Arte Illuminandi adds, "Since experience is worth more in all this than written documents, I am not taking any special pains to explain what I mean." This vellum leaf was created in Flanders.]
Title
Psalterium: fragment
Creator
Catholic Church
Summary
[Ms. This manuscript leaf is part of a collection of medieval manuscript leaves selected to illustrate the art of the manuscript during the period of its greatest development and influence. They have been taken from books written in various European scriptoria by Benedictine, Franciscan, Carthusian, Dominican, and other orders of monks. Many are enriched with handsome borders, initial letters, and line-endings rendered in color. Twenty-five are illuminated with burnished gold or silver. The texts include the Bible, various church service books, the writings of the Church fathers, and some of the Classics., In angular gothic script., Small Psalters of this period are comparatively rare, since Psalters were used primarily in the church services and not by the layman. Here, the letters and ornament still retain all the rigidity of the previous century and give no indication of the rounder type of letter or any beginning of the interest in nature that characterized the work of the scribes in France. The filigree decoration, as well as the line-finishing elements, show, however, more creative freedom than either the initial or the text letters. The small burnished gold letters display considerable skill on the part of the illuminator, for it is difficult to control small designs in the gesso used as a base for the raised gold leaf. This vellum leaf was created in Flanders.]
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