Vintage Typography and Design: A look at the Story behind Illuminated Manuscripts
Before the invention of the printing press, books were made by hand. Laboriously worked on by skilled scribes, calligraphists, artists and book binders. The last handmade books before the printing press evolved artistically to the point of magnificence. Illuminated Books were a luxury everyone wanted to own in the Middle Ages. It’s not surprising seeing how beautiful these books could be.
Photo source. Public Domain Archive from The Metropolitan Museum
Brief History of Bookmaking
The first ever books were made of natural materials like palm leaves and papyrus. Sheets of Papyrus paper were widely used in Egypt and then Europe to the point where the overuse of papyrus took a toll on natural production. According to bookmaking legends, King Eumenes II from Pergamum invented the first parchment made of sheepskin. Vellum, which is made of cow skin was developed quickly after.
Parchment and Vellum were used for centuries thereafter to make manuscripts and books. The process to turn raw animal skin into parchment and vellum was long and tedious and involved a lot of work. The skins were soaked in brine to preserve them and also to remove the hairs. After all the remaining hairs were taken off, the skins were then stretched taught on a frame to scrape thin.
Once the skin was thin and flat enough, it was taken off the frame and brushed and sanded in order to prepare it for the ink. The final step was to cut the parchment into page. The book could then start being written on. Scribes used metal pointers to indent lines into the parchment, creating a base for the letters and words to be meticulously crafted.
After the calligraphy was done, it was time to illuminate the manuscripts and books with gold leaf and natural paints. The evolution of books from simple written manuscripts to wonderful illuminated books starts with Medieval monks and their scriptoriums.
From Monks to Artists
When a new monastery or church was built, a scriptorium was usually included in the premises. A scriptorium was a sacred place where monks would copy religious scriptures. Ancient history books, bibles and journals and annals were copied meticulously by hand to include in the monastery libraries. The monks worked from dusk to dawn copying texts, usually not even knowing what they were copying.
The first books copied by monks were mostly text. On the sides of the text they sometimes included little notes about the weather, the quality of the tools they were using, or even about their personal feelings in regards to their work. These small notes were called “marginalia”. Little by little the monks in the scriptoriums started incorporating decorations on the edges of the pages as well.
By the Middle Ages, books were being decorated on a regular basis and scribes and monks started “signing” their work by including little illustrations of themselves in the designs. The Illuminated Manuscripts and Books took so much dedication that the craftsmanship roles became more defined. Different people would prepare the parchment, make the paints, do the calligraphy and the illuminations.
Through greater production the illuminators started becoming famous and the copying of books moved from religious texts in monasteries to Books of Hours commissioned by wealthy patrons. By the Middle Ages, famous Illuminators like the Limbourg Brothers had made a name for themselves through their art.
The Book of Hours
The best preserved and most common type of Illuminated Books that have survived since the MIddle Ages are the Books of Hours. In the early Medieval era, more and more people could read and so therefore wanted books of their own. The art of the Illuminated manuscript started leaving the clergy with the increasing popularity of the Books of Hours.
The Book of Hours is a Christian Devotional text written in Latin mean to be used by lay people to pray at certain times of the day. Every Book of Hours followed an order of prayers to the Virgin Mary, along with other important psalms and a calendar depicting saint days.
Every section of the Hours of the Virgin was meant to be read and prayed upon at certain times of day and each one depicted a moment in the life of the Virgin Mary from the Annunciation to the story of the Birth of Christ.
Every single page on a Book of Hours included some level of decoration. From calendar pages with simple black and white sketches of animals and vines to elaborately decorated initials and even full page illustrations depicting moments in the life of the Virgin Mary. Depending on the wealth of the client, a Book of Hours could be quite simple or extremely ornate.
The Book of Kells
Just as the Books of Hours became a famous part of European history, so did the Book of Kells in Celtic and Insular History. The extremely ornate and quite beautiful Book of Kells is the Irish national treasure and with good reason. The celtic intertwined cross designs are ever present in the Book of Kells, making it unique in its kind. It was reproduced by hand from the 6th to the 9th centuries throughout the monasteries of Ancient Ireland.
It is believed that the Book of Kells was first created in the 6th century and many myths are told around it. There is even an animated film about it that you might enjoy.
Photo source. Public Domain of the Book of Kells
Illumination Tools and Techniques
The techniques and tools of master illuminators have thankfully been kept alive by artists who pride themselves in using ancient techniques to their art. Unfortunately these skills are also very well mastered by forgers of ancient art and documents.
We already discussed how the parchment was made, but was about the ink and quills? The most common materials used for creating the predominantly black ink used by the calligraphists was lamp black, coal and oak galls mixed with honey, gum arabic, egg tempera and even ear wax.
The colors for paint used in illuminations was sourced from plants and minerals. For example; blue was made from lapis lazuli, red from toasted lead, yellow from trisulphide of arsenic and green from verdigris. These and other color techniques were used to produce the paint that was then used in the illuminations.
More ornate and fancy illuminations included gold leaf and sometimes silver in the decorative elements of the initials and illustrations. To apply the goldleaf it had to be done first, before any of the colors. The artist would apply a layer of pinkish gesso and would breathe on it to make it tacky enough to catch the gold leaf. The excess was then brushed off, the gold burnished and finally the colors applied from light to dark with very small brushes to preserve details.
Illuminated Quran and more at The Met
Europe was not the only part of the world where scribes and artists decorated their religious manuscripts. Islamic illuminators also created their own versions of beautifully decorated parchment manuscripts.
If you would like to see a wonderful collection of Islamic illumination alongside European Books of Hours, visit the The Met Gallery Archives and feast your eyes!
Photo source, public domain archives, The Met
How Illuminated Manuscripts shaped modern graphic design
The scribes and monks in the scriptoriums were technically the first modern graphic designers, typographists and illustrators. Out of their creativity we gained the art of calligraphy, columned layouts, illustrated initials and the evolution of bookmaking and layout design.
We still use typefaces reminiscent of the writing in illuminated manuscripts, serif typefaces and especially gothic and roman style typefaces are a direct inspiration from these decorated works of art.
When at first the monks would use the entire page to write the text, the evolution in the illuminated manuscripts saw the development of columns and margins. The spacing of the text into specific columns with perfect edges was the handmade version of the justified text layout.
Decorated initials are still used in some children’s books or modern versions of the classic illuminated letters. Novelty typefaces are sometimes inspired by these ancient relics and bare resemblance to the not so lost art of illumination.
