-
Manuscript
Unknown - Enlarge image
Manuscript
- Place of origin:
France (illuminated)
- Date:
12th century (illuminated)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Water-based pigments and ink on parchment
- Museum number:
8984B
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E, case I, shelf 66, box A
This is part of a page from a copy of Moralia in Job. This is a series of lectures on the biblical book of Job written by St Gregory the Great (540–604). Professionally made books used decorative initials, such as the initial B on this fragment, to signal the main divisions of a text. There was usually a hierarchy of initials within any book to designate sections, chapters, paragraphs and other breaks. The initials were added either by the scribe or by a specialist, in spaces left blank by the scribe. The latter was increasingly the practice in the later Middle Ages. The important initials might be historiated (that is, with a figurative picture, istoire being the term for story) or decorated. The lesser initials were made of coloured letters on coloured or gold grounds, often with flourishing in ink of a contrasting colour.
