MANUSCRIPTS, ILLFMINATION OF, the art of painting manuscripts with miniatures,. and ornaments, an art of the most remote antiquity. The Egyptian papyri of the ritual istic class, as old as the 18th dynasty, are ornamented with vignettes or miniatures, attached to the chapters, either designed in black outlines, or painted in primary colors. in tempera. Except these papyri, no other manuscripts of antiquity were, strictly speaking, illuminated; such Greek and Roman ones of the 1st c. as have reached the present day being written only. Pliny, indeed, mentions from Varro that authors had their portraits painted on their works, and mentions a biographical work, with numerous portraits introduced, but all such have disappeared in the wreck of ages; the oldest illuminated MSS. which have survived being the Dbscorides of Vienna, and the Virgil of the Vatican, both of the 4th c., and ornamented with vignettes or pictures in a Byzantine style of art. St. Jerome, indeed, in the same century, complains of the abuse of the practice, as shown by filling up books with capital letters of preposterous size; but the manuscripts of this and the subsequent century are ornamented with rubrics only, as evidenced by the C'odex Atexandrinus and other manuscripts. Probably the art of illu mination was derived from rubrics, as the emperors in the 5th c., commencing with Leo (470 A.D.), signed in this color, like the Chinese; and this " vermilion reply," adopted by Charles the bold in the 9th, continued down to the 13th century. The art of illuminat ing manuscripts with gold and silver letters is supposed to have been derived from Egypt, but it is remarkable that no papyrus has any gold or silver introduced into it. The artists who painted in gold, called chrysographi, are mentioned as early as the 2d century. One of the oldest manuscripts of this style is the Codex Argenteus of Ulphilas (360 A.D.); and the charter of king Edgar (966 A.D.), six centuries later, shows the use of these letters. Gold letters seem to have been used in the east during the 12th and 13th cen turies. At an early period, the use of illuminated or decorated initial letters commenced, which is to be distinguished from the illuminated or painted pages placed at the head of Byzantine manuscripts. Originally, they were not larger than the text, or more colored; but the Syriac manuscripts of the 7th c. have them with a pattern or border; and they go on increasing in size and splendor from the 8th to the 11th c., when large initial let ters, sometimes decorated with little pictures or miniatures, came into fashion in the Greek and Latin manuscripts The subjects of the figures mixed up with the Arabesque. ornainents often referred to the texts; warriors and warlike groups of figures being intro duced when the text referred to war; symbolical representations of hell, where the ehapters following treated on that region. These initial letters soon increased to a great size, being from 2 to 24 in. long; they were most used in the 8th and 9th centuries, but continued till the 12th c., and degenerated in the 16th to the last decadence of art--the grotesque. The art, which flourished in the eastern and western empires, passed over to Ireland, and there gave rise to a separate school or kind of illumination. This style, which consists in a regular series of interlaced ribbon ornaments, often terminatino. the heads of gryphons and other animals, seems to have been derived from the Cater patterns of Byzantine art, seen on mosaics, mural paintings, and other objects. Some, indeed, have thought that they are of oriental origin. The so-called Durham book, in the British museum, of the 8th c., is a splendid example of the school which was estab lished in Holy island by St. Aldan, and in Kent by St. Dunstan, before the end of the 6th century. A remarkable MS. of the 6th c. is the book of Kells (q.v.), at Dublin. The scriptorium of the monastery at Hyde, near Winchestzr, was celebrated at this period for its illuminations; and the celebrated St. Dunstan of Glastonbury applied in early
youth his talents to this art. The minute size and number of interlacements of the Book of Kell% at Dublin, is quite wonderful ; while the Benedietional of Chatsworth, executed by one Godemann of Hyde for Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester (1100 A.D.), exhibits a bold style of art and ornament. Separate schools prevailed in the Ilth c., the Greek or Byzantine manuscripts of the period exhibiting a fine style of ornament derived from the Byzantine school; while the Latin manuscripts of the period are distinguished by the use of a light blue anci green in titles and pictures. While, however, the ornaments of the Byzantine and Latin schools were of a more purely architectural character, and the Anglo-Hibernian, Saxon, and even Franco-Gallic manuscripts of Charlemagne and his successors exhibit a union of Roman and Gaulish treatrnent; a new kind of work arose in the 10th c. in England, called the Opus Anglicum, resembling more in character the ornaments of Gothic architecture, a remarkable specimen of which is seen the gospels made for Knut or Canute. During the 12th c., there arose a new style, distinguished by the profusion of its ornamentation, intricate mode of illumination, and abundant use of gold and silver. The taste was false, but the art had become more special, blank spaces being left for the limners to fill in. In the 13th c., the art still more deteriorated in western Europe—long-tailed• illuminated initial letters were introduced; the back ground was often of gold, on which the ornaments and subjects were colored in a style resembling oil-painting, from 1190 to 1230; manuals were then prepared to instruct the limner, and the art was formalized. The Gothic style of ornament of this age had superseded the Rotnan or Byzantine of previous centuries. In the 14th c., the art greatly improved ; the border or ornament running all round the page was introduced, and the ornaments were interpolated and enriched with miniature pictures, even by celebrated artists, as Niccolo Pisan°, Cimabue, Giotto, in Italy. Few volumes, however, were illuminated till after the reign of Edward I., when the art took a further development; grotesque figures were introduced, and are alluded to by writers of the period. In the 15th c., continuous borders and fine ininiature pictures were in use, and toward the end of the century, celebrated works of this nature were produced by Giulio Clovio in Italy, and Lucas van Leyden in Flanders, the Van Eycks, and Memling or Hemlink; medallions of exquisite style and finish were inserted in the border. Of this age, the most bmutiful known spechnen is the Book of _flours of Anne of Brittany, wife of Louis XII., with borders of natural plants on a gold ground. The Italian art of the same age was sym metrical rather than picturesque and naturalistic, but on solid backgrounds; the orna ments, although resembling those of preceding centuries, are disting,uished by the introduction of miniatures. In the 16th c., in the reign of Louis XIV., the art became extinct, ending with a style of painting called eamaieu gris, a kind of monochrome, in which the lights are white or gold, and shaded so as to emulate bas-reliefs. Among oriental nations, the Persians, Hindus, and Chinese have illuminated manuscripts of great beauty, none of which, however, can compete with those of the western nations in antiquity. For beauty of design, some of the Arab manuscripts are charming, but their antiquity does not reach beyond the 13th century. The Chinese Buddhists have also illuminated classics, or religious books of their sect, one of which, the Diamond Book as it is called, in the British museum, has a text splendidly printed in silver and gold letters on a blue ground; and the vignettes charmingly painted in tempera, on macerated leaves of the fteus Indica.
Humphrey, H. Noel, Art of illumination (12mo, Loud. 1849); Shaw's illuminated Letters (fol. 1828); Bradley, J. W., Afanual of Illumniation (12mo, Lond. 1860).