Reason of Illustration

Among all of the storage devices of history, books are the most important. The authors of the manuscripts realized this, and went to great lengths to ensure the longevity of their works and the doings of man. In time, the scrolls of the ancients gave way to massive illustrated and from there to mass produced paper volumes. Of all of the types of books, past or present, the illustrated (illuminated is incorrect, referring to the very few books that had burnished gold pages) manuscript hold the most fascination with the public eye, continuing to draw the public interest and eyes, as well as wallets, even after 1800 or more years of their first creation (Codices 11). Without doubt, it is the painstaking attention to detail to the illustration itself that grabs people’s attention. The beauty of the miniature paintings, scripted letters, gold covered pages, minute animals, and beautifully written calligraphy all work together to impress people. What drove the people who created these works in the first place to decorate their works? Was there some purpose to their painstaking efforts? Why were they illuminated?

The illuminated book itself – typically thought of as a large bible, and in most cases dating between 800 and 1500 – is essentially just a book. The only major difference between it and any other book today is that it is handcrafted, and executed with quite an eye for detail. The process to making the book itself is quite laborious and time consuming. A sense of pride contributed to some of the reason as to why the people who made them went to great lengths to beautify their work. In some cases, manuscripts have even been signed by their creators (History 116, 124). The term bible comes from biblion, meaning book roll. Book rolls, or rotulus, gave way to books as we think of them, rather slowly at first, but then around 4th century, they suddenly gave way to the diptych (Codice 12, 17). This was two wooden tablets with wax and a stylus for writing. This was instantly seen as more practical, not requiring the unrolling the entire rotulus to find a scripture. Miniaturist painters who decorated the scrolls saw the advantage of not having their work rolled into a tube, and quickly seized the new book form (Codice 17-18).

Having been created to last, the books were written on vellum. Vellum is the skin of sheep, goats, or cows (usually calves) that is soaked in a lime-water solution for a period of time, and then stretched on a rack. The hide is then scraped with a large half moon shaped scraper to thickness, and dried. The average size of a sheep or goat dictated the largest size of a book, around 16”x 14” (Leaves 14 - 20). The average large bible used some 500 head of sheep to be created, and took 36 scribes around 2-4 years to make, depending on how intensive the decoration .Vellum eventually gave way to paper in terms of sheer cost as approximately 100 sheets of linen paper could be bought for the cost of one sheer of velum. With the invention of the printing press, vellum basically faded away, with the exception of being used for some fine printed books (Codice 18). At the initial creation, a book was first carefully laid out, necessitated by the method used in creating it. Each page (a 16x14 skin) was folded in half to create a total of 4 total pages (pagination), called a folio. The side which was the hair side was coarser and called verso, and the smoother flesh facing side called recto. The folio containing pages 1 and 2 would also contain pages 14 and 15, creating a 4 page set. A scribe would use a ruler to prick down the inside and outside edges of his page the height of each line. Then a connect-the-two-dots process was used to score lines across each page to create the medieval equivalent of ruled paper. From here, the decorations and script would be added (Codice 15, Leaves 16-18). Against common perception, monks and scribes only created and copied the books up until 1300. Afterwards, the load was carried by professional miniaturists, scribes, and binders, to satisfy the large demand generated by the blooming student population (Codice 20).

There was an interesting variation to the white vellum used almost exclusively, and that was the black book. This variation used an iron and copper solution to soak the vellum in, in order to turn it a black color. The only inks that could be used on the dark pages were silver or gold based inks, hence making them very rare and very costly. In all, there exist seven remaining examples, all of which are from the same workshop in Bruges. The reason thought to have stopped this practice from becoming widespread (for the clients where money was no option) is that the iron copper mixture oxides and as such, eats the vellum into nothingness. The seven remaining books have been taken apart and were stabilized to prevent further decay (Codices 362, 372).

Once all of the