About Medieval Illuminations

Today, we take it for granted that we can have books with lovely illustrations. Long ago, all books were created by hand. It wasn't until the 15th century and the printing press with moveable type (Gutenberg Homepage English version) that things started to change. EVEN in the famous Gutenberg Bible, beautiful initials were added by an illuminator.

      Why don't we take a walk back into history and see how Medieval manuscripts were made by going to Medieval Manuscript Manual.
       The Book of Kells is perhaps one of the most famous illuminated manuscripts in the World. It contains the four Gospels of New Testament, St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John, written in Latin. There are 340 leaves or pages made of vellum or parchment. Today the pages measure 13” by 9 ½” but were cut down from a larger size (most likely 15” x 11”). The Book of Kells is not complete having missing pages in the beginning and end. The Book of Kells is believed to have been created in the eighth or early ninth century at the Monastery of Kells. For the nearly three hundred years it has been in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
            The handwriting is bold, well-rounded and regular. The style of writing is ‘Irish majuscule’. The ink is brownish-black but in some places it is red, bluish-black and purple.
            There is color illumination on all but two of the pages. Most is just the initial letters of paragraphs or sentences. The colors used for the illuminations are bright red, reddish purple, emerald green (malachite), deep blue (lapis lazuli) and yellow.
            It is felt that four artists created the illuminations. Each specialized in parts of the decoration. One did the intricate whorls, discs and dot, key-patterns, and many of the animals that are woven into the designs. The second artist is the ‘portraitist’ that did the three full page portraits. The third artist was the ‘illustrator’ who drawings are cruder than others. The final artist is noted for his animals, birds, fish and human figures and initial letters that are formed from such twisted into odd shapes to form the letters.
Information taken and condensed from from Books of Kells, Simms, G. O., Colin Smythe Limited, 2003.
      To see some of the Books of Kells go to:
The Book of Kells and the Art of Illumination or Book of Kells Images -- Thumbnails .

Now that you have idea of what went into making manuscripts and a very famous one, take a look at the websites below for more pictures.

Cleveland Museum of Art - Our Collections

Various illuminated manuscripts (1450-1500)