Earlier this year, fellow book conservator Renee Wolcott and I attended an illumination workshop with calligrapher and iconographer Susan Kelly von Medicus at the Biggs Museum in Dover, DE. The focus of the class was the creation of “historiated initials,” the enlarged letter beginning a paragraph of text which was often illustrated with fantastical beasts, or other pictorial whimsy, in illuminated manuscripts. The Cathach of St. Columba of Iona, an illuminated manuscript dating to the 6th or 7th century, is arguably the earliest extant manuscript to use historiated initials. Susan brought examples of lettering styles from the Celtic, Roman, and Gothic traditions from which to choose.
A Few Words about Terminology
Historiated initials are sometimes called versal letters, although the latter term technically means any enlarged capital letter beginning a paragraph of text, whether illustrated or not. In medieval manuscripts, the term illumination specifically refers to the use of gold to reflect light, thus "illuminating" the text. However, in modern, vernacular usage, illuminated manuscript has become a catch-all term for any manuscript with colorful embellishments. Most surviving medieval illuminated manuscripts are liturgical books such as breviaries, antiphonaries, and psalters; and a type of Christian devotional book (dating to about the 13th century) known as a book of hours.
A Few Words about Terminology
Historiated initials are sometimes called versal letters, although the latter term technically means any enlarged capital letter beginning a paragraph of text, whether illustrated or not. In medieval manuscripts, the term illumination specifically refers to the use of gold to reflect light, thus "illuminating" the text. However, in modern, vernacular usage, illuminated manuscript has become a catch-all term for any manuscript with colorful embellishments. Most surviving medieval illuminated manuscripts are liturgical books such as breviaries, antiphonaries, and psalters; and a type of Christian devotional book (dating to about the 13th century) known as a book of hours.
Working next to a bright window in the second-floor foyer to the galleries, our small group of participants copied letter forms from Susan’s printed sources onto tracing paper. We then used carbon paper to transfer our traced initials onto manuscript parchment. While the parchment or vellum available in most craft supply stores today is a cellulose-based paper (often called “vegetable parchment”), true parchment was prepared from animal skins, and is still available from specialty shops. Parchment for calligraphy is also prepared differently from parchment for bookbinding. The grain pattern is usually clearly visible on one side of bookbinding parchment, while the other side often retains the slight fuzziness of the flesh side of the animal skin, similar to suede. Manuscript parchment, by contrast, has been scraped thin and smooth on both sides of the skin, then buffed and coated with a thin layer of chalk to create a smooth writing surface.
We used a mix of traditional and modern materials during the workshop. While the calfskin parchment provided a traditional substrate, Susan opted for us to use a more beginner-friendly, modern, synthetic sizing fluid called “Instacoll” to prepare the parchment for illumination. We painted on the Instacoll with small, heavily loaded brushes. By “flooding” defined areas of our letters with Instacoll, we created a glassy-smooth, slightly domed surface to take the illumination. Once the Instacoll had dried and set, we applied delicate 23 karat gold leaf, gently brushing and burnishing through a piece of thin applicator paper to adhere the gold to the Instacoll. This may not sound like a lot of work, but each step in the process was painstaking and time-consuming. While most of the workshop participants finished illuminating their letters by the end of the day, none of us had time to move on to the next step of applying color with the traditional egg tempera paint Susan had prepared. Susan assured us we could finish the work on our own using any high-quality watercolors mixed to the consistency of gouache.
Fast-forward seven busy months… and I finally found myself with a little free time on a sunny Saturday morning to sit down and finish my historiated letter using my long-neglected set of Windsor-Newton pan watercolors. Watercolor has never been my medium, but I am fairly satisfied with the result of my first-ever attempt at parchment illumination. I certainly had fun, and look forward to someday exploring these techniques further. Participating in this workshop also developed my connoisseurship skills and deepened my appreciation for the amount of labor that went into creating medieval illuminated manuscripts. While such manuscripts were functional books made to be used, they are also truly magnificent works of art.
Resources:
- Brown, Michelle. Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms. Looking At Series. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1994.
- De Hamel, Christopher. The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2001.
- Tanis, James. Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2006.
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