The manner of the Byzantine miniatori was naturally imitated by those of the Italian monasteries, who followed very closely the types of their predecessors in their representations of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the Sainte. As late as the 13th century the miniatori of Italy were mere feeble imitators; but by the beginning of the 15th century, they had assumed a higher place than their Greek masters, and works were produced in the Italian monasteries which in their way have never been surpassed for devotional feeling, elevation of sentiment, and the combinatien of a certain mystical grace and tenderness with ascetic, severity. In their technical qualities these Italian miniatures are also of high excellence. The drawing, though still stiff, is pure and noble; the colour brilliant, yet harmonious, and the pencilling angu larly light and nest. Vasari has given a particular account of several painters who distinguished themselves In this line of art, which though still chiefly practised in the monasteries, was, in the 15th and 16th centuries, no longer exclusively so, Cklerigi da Uubbio, Giotto, Giral amo dai Libri, Giulio Clovio, Fra Angelico da 1•Iesole, Attavante, and several other painters, were also celebrated for their miniatures. Not only were illuminated manuscripts prepared for religious establish ments, but the best artists found ample employment in the illumina tion of both secular and religious manuscripts for the chiefs of the princely houses ofItaly. As the painting of larger pictures improved, however, miniatures became less in request, and in Italy as elsewhere, the production of illuminated manuscripts rapidly declined after the invention of printing.
The earliest school of miniature painters in the west of Europe appears to have been that founded at Finial' in Ireland, in the first half of the 6th century, by St,. Columba, who somewhat later founded a still more celebrated monastery at lona, which was transferred a few years after to Lindisfanie. Several illuminated manuscripts, the work of Irish miniatori, are in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; one at least of them, a hook of the Gospels, known as ' the Book of Kelps, being regarded as contemporaneous with Columba, if not the work of his bands. These Irish manuscripts are most remarkable for their borders, and other ornamental work, which are drawn with surprising delicacy and freedom, and are full of a playful and ingenious fancy ; while the drawing of the human figure is ungainly and disproportioned, and the colour crude and conventional. It seems to be agreed that the other schools of the west of Europe derived their first impulse more or less immediately from that of Ireland. The art flourished in England during the Anglo-Saxon period, and the peculiarities of the Irish style of ornamentation are in it unmistakeably evident. The perfection to which the art had arrived at this time in England, is shown in the splendid manuscript of the Latin Gospels, known as the Durham Book,' executed between 698 and 720, and which is now in the British Museum ; and in the no less famous Benedictional of St.
Ethelwold, now the property of the Duke of Devonshire. It was an Anglo-Saxon monk, Alcuiu, who, at the invitation of Charlemagne, established the earliest schools for missal painting in the Frankish empire, the most important being those of St. Martin, at Tours, and Aix-La-Chapelle. Several of the early productions of these schools are extant, and show manifest traces of their origin. One of these, the Bible found in the tomb of Charlemagne, and now in the monastery of San Calisto, at Rome, is one of the most magnificent works of the kind in existence. Later, the art was prosecuted with eminent success in France, and a thoroughly national style was developed which attained its greatest perfection in the latter part of the 13th century.
In Germany and the Low Countries, the art took root somewhat later; but it ultimately attained a high degree of excellence. The museums of Germany and Brussels are rich in illuminated manuscripts of native production. By many, Memmling, the Flemish painter, is regarded as the greatest master of miniature painting, not excepting those of Italy. In England the art was a good deal modified after tho Norman conquest by the prevalence of the French taste introduced by foreign monks ; but the national spirit resumed its predominancy, and the English illuminations of the 13th and 14th centuries will boar comparison with the best contemporary productions of any other country. One of tho finest remaining English manuscripts is the Willoughby, or Queen Mary's Psalter, painted early in the 14th cen tury—a work full of life and spirit, admirable alike iu design, drawing, colour, and execution. The art appears to hope been practised in England down to the reign of henry VII.
In the miniature painting of different ages and countries, there is of course, great diversity, not merely of style, but of modes of execution. Generally, however, it may be said, that the miniatures wore painted on the vellum or paper with colours very finely levigated, and rendered opaque by being, for the shadows as well as the lights, mixed with white—the usual vehicle being gum, glue, or white of egg. D'Agin court notices sonio miniatures, the colours of which are insoluble in water, and Dr. Dibdiu speaks of others which seem to have been mixed with oil; but this is probably a mistake. In some manuscripts the artists appear to have covered their finished miniatures with a transparent wash of glue or varnish, which has materially assisted in their preservation. The colours used were not only selected and pre pared with great care, but of the brightest hues, and applied and combined with much skill. Cold is freely used, gold back-grounds being frequent at most periods.