The appearance of the script-whether rounded or angular, dense or open-was partly dependent upon the shape and the angle of the nib.įind out more about the methods illuminators used in this video. A slit cut into the middle of the nib allowed the ink to flow smoothly to the tip of the pen. The end of the feather was cut to form the writing nib. The scribe wrote with a quill pen made from the feather of a goose or swan. Ruling lines helped the scribe to write evenly and were part of the design of the page. In this prayer book, you can see the ruling in red ink. Here, the skin of a stillborn goat, prized for its smoothness, is stretched on a modern frame to illustrate the parchment making process.įind out more about the art of writing in illuminated manuscripts in this video.Īfter the surface had been prepared, the parchment was ruled, usually with leadpoint or colored ink. This cycle of scraping and stretching was repeated over several days until the desired thinness had been achieved. As the skin dried, the parchment maker adjusted the tension so that the skin remained taut. While wet on a stretcher, the skin was scraped using a knife with a curved blade. The pelts were first soaked in a lime solution to loosen the fur, which was then removed. Most medieval manuscripts were written on specially treated animal skins, called parchment or vellum (paper did not become common in Europe until around 1450). The exhibition complements Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, a major international exhibition on view from June 17 through September 7, 2003.įind out more about parchment making in this video. The Making of a Medieval Book is part of the Getty's "Making of" series, which explores the historical techniques behind various art forms. The exhibition examines the four stages involved in the making of a medieval book: parchment making, writing, illumination, and binding. The images in these handwritten texts are called illuminations because of the radiant glow created by the gold, silver, and other colors. It was a pleasure to have been able to make it happen and to have been part of it.The Making of a Medieval Book explores the materials and techniques used to create the lavishly illuminated manuscripts produced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. “One of those occasions when many people, not least the owners of the book, were working together towards a common purpose for the cause of pure learning. “The discovery and digitisation of the text was a scholarly adventure,” said Ó Macháin. It can now be seen on the Irish Script on Screen website. The book’s owners agreed that the binding should be removed, opened out and digitised. Books like these were destroyed, and others were damaged and cut up, and it’s in that wider context you have to see whoever owned this book clearly came into possession of some such manuscript and thought nothing of trimming it and making a binding of it,” he said. “Early universities in Ireland, supported by the Gaelic lordships, that all fell asunder as the Elizabethan conquest proceeded. It would have been cut up, he said, following the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland, which put an end to the old Gaelic society. “The reason was translated was that Irish was the language of learning in medieval Ireland, whereas Latin fulfilled that role everywhere else,” he said. Ó Macháin said that medical scholarship in medieval Gaelic Ireland was on a par with that practised on the continent, with evidence of Irish scholars travelling to European medical schools and bringing their learning back to Ireland. And it is for that reason that we have called the bones that are in the nose … a helping instrument, for it is through them that the superfluities are expelled, like the blowing of a bellows.” It details in particular the “three uses” of the bones of the nose: “to retain the air in its vacuum to strengthen the brain constantly”, to help “to articulate the sound of every letter”, and “the third use: the superfluities that are expelled from the brain, part of them nourish the nose and the remainder is expelled from it as a superfluity. The Irish fragment includes parts of the opening chapters, tackling the physiology of the jaw, the nose and the back, with the section on the nose the least fragmentary. Sīna’s Canon of Medicine was a medical encyclopaedia which was seen as the standard medical text in the Islamic world and across Europe for more than six centuries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |