Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts
1 primary work
Volume 21
In the Middle Ages, writing conveyed far more than information. In
contradistinction to the modern separation of image and text and, by
implication, form and content, which was reified with the invention of
printing, illuminated manuscripts made images out of words. In
consonance with Christian doctrine, which declared that the Word had
become flesh, letters painted on parchment assumed bodily presence to
create effects of power and persuasion. Painted letters elicited modes
of performance, oral recitation and ritual action. Far from calligraphic
ornament or a medium with prescribed boundaries, medieval lettering
reveals itself as a flexible instrument in which various categories of
human experience and expression -- the audible, the visible, the
symbolic and the figurative -- come together. Among the topics touched
on by this book are display scripts, monograms, nomina sacra and carmina
figurata, epigraphic inscriptions, chrysography and color, speech
scrolls, relationships among author, scribe and artist as expressed
through scripts, the anthropomorphic dimensions of abstract lettering,
and the impact of iconic scripts on the reader.
contradistinction to the modern separation of image and text and, by
implication, form and content, which was reified with the invention of
printing, illuminated manuscripts made images out of words. In
consonance with Christian doctrine, which declared that the Word had
become flesh, letters painted on parchment assumed bodily presence to
create effects of power and persuasion. Painted letters elicited modes
of performance, oral recitation and ritual action. Far from calligraphic
ornament or a medium with prescribed boundaries, medieval lettering
reveals itself as a flexible instrument in which various categories of
human experience and expression -- the audible, the visible, the
symbolic and the figurative -- come together. Among the topics touched
on by this book are display scripts, monograms, nomina sacra and carmina
figurata, epigraphic inscriptions, chrysography and color, speech
scrolls, relationships among author, scribe and artist as expressed
through scripts, the anthropomorphic dimensions of abstract lettering,
and the impact of iconic scripts on the reader.