Notes on the form and colouring than any other old illumination that I
Plates have seen (see reference to Plate XVI, p. 169).

The foliage is a delicate green, the berries are dark
purple, the single fruits plain and pale orange-red; the two
beetles in crimson and brown are made darker and too
prominent in the photograph. The bands of small
“Lombardie” Capitals are in burnished gold.

Note how skilfully and naturally the upper corners of
the border are managed, and also the beautiful way in
which the branches run into and among the text (see
p. 179).

PLATE XVII.—French Fifteenth-century Writing, with
Illuminated Borders. Ex libris E. Johnston.

THE PAGE 9I inches by inches: MARGINS,
approx.: Inner inch, Head if inch, Side 2f inches,
Foot г\ inches (lie edges have been slightly cut down).
The marginal lines (from head to foot of the page) and
the writing lines are RULED in faint red.

THE WRITING is a late formal “Gothic”—the
thin strokes have evidently been added (p. 13). The
written Capitals are blotted with yellow (see p. 106).
The ILLUMINATED INITIAL Q is in blue, white
lined, on a gold ground, contains a blue flower and five
ornaments in “lake.” The LINE-FILLINGS are in
blue and “lake,” separated by a gold circle, triangle, or
lozenge.

THE FILIGREE ILLUMINATION springs from
the initial in the narrow margin, and from a centre
ornament (see “knot,” fig. 127) in the wide side margin.
The side margins are treated similarly on either page
(see p. 179); the inner margins are generally plain.
This repetition gives to the pages a certain sameness—
which is a characteristic rather than a fault of the
treatment.

The border on the recto of the vellum leaf shows
through on the verso or back of the leaf. The main*
lines of the first border, however, are freely traced and

414

followed on the verso (and so nearly hidden) by the Notes on the
second border. This is also suggestive of the more rapid Plates
methods of book production in the 15 th century.

COLOURS—

Stems, tendrils, &c.: black.

Leave 1ivy-shaped )burnished gold, out-\plain.
( lanceolate:

Flowers, buds, centre
ornaments, See.:
(See p, 148.)

Ì lined black (p. 153)Л furred.

blue, “lake,” ox green tempered
with white, and shaded with
pure colour; white markings;
the forms not outlined.

This type of illumination is discussed in pp. 163—8.
Its chief points are its simplicity and rapidity. A penman
or a novice in illuminating can, by taking a little pains,
beautify his MSS. easily and quickly; and he may perhaps
pass on from this to “higher” types of illumination.

PLATE XVIII.—Italian Fifteenth-century Writing and
Illumination. {Perotti’s translation of Polybius) Ex
libris H. Tates Thompson.

THE VOLUME consists of 174 leaves (13^ inches
by 9 inches); 35 lines to the page. The plate shows a
portion of the upper part of the Initial (redo) page.

THE WRITING.—The Capitals are simple-written,
slanted-pen “Roman”—slightly ornamental—forms.
They are freely copied on a large scale in fig. 168: see
p. 261. The Small-letters match the Capitals—they are
“Roman” forms with a slight “Gothic” tendency. Both
these and the Capitals would make very good models for
free Roman hands.

THE INITIAL is a “Roman” A in burnished gold.
Note the exceedingly graceful shaping of the limbs, the
ornamental, V-shaped cross-bar, and the absence of serifs
(see fig. 116).

415