Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Chapter 3

by J. Henry Middleton

CHAPTER III.

Classical illuminated Manuscripts.

Illumination.The mediaeval phrase illuminated manuscript means a manuscript which is "lighted up" with coloured decoration in the form of ornamental initial-letters or painted miniatures. Dante speaks of "The art which in Paris is called illuminating,"

⁠... quell' arte
Che alluminare è chiamata in Parisi; Purg. XI. 80.

Use of minium.The important use that was made of red paint (minium) in the decoration of manuscripts led to the painter being called a miniator, whence the pictures that he executed in manuscripts were called miniature or miniatures. Finally the word miniature was extended in meaning to imply any painting on a minute scale^[1]. Originally, however, it was only applied to the painted decorations of manuscripts.

Egyptian miniatures.The Egyptian manuscript "Books of the Dead" are very copiously illuminated with painted miniatures, both in the form of ornamental borders along the edge of the papyrus, and also with larger compositions which occupy the whole depth of the roll.

It is difficult to say to what extent illuminated manuscripts were known to the ancient Greeks, but they were certainly not uncommon in Rome towards the close of the Republic; and it may fairly be assumed that it was from the Greeks that the very inartistic Romans derived the custom of decorating manuscripts with painted miniatures.

Illustrations in Roman MSS.Pliny tells us (Hist. Nat. XXXV. 11) that a number of manuscripts in the library of M. Varro in the first century B.C. contained no less than 700 portraits of illustrious personages.

That the original manuscript of Vitruvius' work on Architecture was illustrated with explanatory pictures is shown by the frequent reference in the text to these lost illustrations which are mentioned as being at the end of the work; e.g. see III., Praef., 4.

A manuscript written in letters of gold is mentioned by Suetonius (Nero, 10); this was a copy of Nero's own poem which was publicly read aloud to an audience on the Capitol, and was then deposited in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Writing in gold.Again, two centuries later the mother of Maximus, who was titular Caesar from 235 to 238 A.D., is said to have given him a manuscript of Homer's poems written in gold letters on purple vellum; see Jul. Capit., Max. Vita.

There is, in short, abundant evidence to show that illuminated manuscripts were common among the Romans of the Imperial period; and there is a very strong probability that manuscripts decorated with miniatures were no less frequent in the great libraries of the Ptolemies and of the Attalid kings, in fact throughout the Greek world from the time of Alexander the Great downwards, if not earlier still.

Greek miniatures.Some notion of the great beauty of the illustrations in Greek manuscripts may perhaps be gathered from an examination of the masterly and delicately graceful drawings incised in outline which decorate the finest of the Greek bronze cistae. Nothing could surpass the perfect beauty of the outline engravings on the so-called Ficoronian cista, which is now preserved in the Museo del Collegio Romano in Rome. Part of this series representing scenes from the adventures of the Argonauts is shown on fig. 1.

Two sources of knowledge.With regard to the general scheme of decoration in classical manuscripts, we have the evidence of a few existing examples dating from about the time of Constantine, and also a large number of copies of Roman manuscript-pictures of earlier date than the third century A.D., which are to be seen in various Italian and Byzantine manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Figure 1

Fig. 1. Part of the drawing engraved on the bronze cista of Ficoroni, dating from the early part of the fourth century B.C. A beautiful example of Greek drawing.

Isolated pictures.The evidence derived from these two sources leads to the conclusion that as a rule the illuminations in classical manuscripts were treated as separate pictures, each surrounded with a simple painted frame, and not closely linked to the text in the characteristic mediaeval fashion. The mediaeval method, by often introducing miniature paintings within the boundary of large initial letters, and by surrounding the page with borders of foliage which grow out of the chief initials of the text, makes the decoration an essential part of the whole and creates a close union between the literary and the ornamental parts of the book, Mediaeval method.which is very unlike the usual ancient system of having a plainly written text with isolated miniature paintings introduced at intervals throughout the pages of the book.

Iliad of the 4th century.Manuscript of the Iliad at Milan; of all existing Greek or Latin manuscripts none gives a better notion of the style of illuminations used in manuscripts of the best Graeco-Roman period than the fragments of Homer's Iliad which are preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrogiana in Milan.

These fragments consist of fifty-eight miniature paintings, which have been cut out of a folio manuscript on vellum of Homer's Iliad, dating probably from the latter part of the fourth century A.D. The mutilator of this codex seems only to have cared to preserve the pictures, and the only portion of the text which still exists is about eight hundred not consecutive lines which happen to be written on the backs of the paintings. Great additional interest is given to this priceless fragment by the fact that the miniatures are much older in style than the date of the manuscript itself, and have evidently been copied from a much earlier Greek original.

Older Greek style.And more than that; these paintings take one back further still; their rhythmical composition, the dignity of their motives, the simplicity of the planes, and the general largeness of style which is specially noticeable in some of the miniatures representing fighting armies of gods and heroes, all suggest that we have here a record, weakened and debased though it may be, of some grand series of mural decorations on a large scale, dating possibly from the best period of Greek art.

Hellenic models.As is naturally the case with copies of noble designs executed at a period of extreme decadence these paintings are very unequal in style, combining feebleness of touch and coarseness of detail with great spirit in the action of the figures and great dignity in the compositions, which have numerous figures crowded without confusion of line, thus suggesting large scale though the paintings are actually miniatures only five or six inches long. The treatment of gods and heroes, especially Zeus, Apollo, Achilles and others, has much that recalls fine Hellenic models. And some of the personifications, such as Night and the river Scamander, possess a gracefulness of pose and beauty of form which was far beyond the conception of any fourth century artist.

It should, however, be observed that a fine Hellenic origin is not suggested by all the fifty-eight pictures from this Iliad. Some of them are obviously of later and inferior style, with weak scattered compositions, very unlike the nobility and decorative completeness of the best among the miniatures.

Scheme of colour.With regard to the arrangement of these pictures, each is surrounded by a simple frame formed of bands of blue and red; in most cases the miniatures reach across the whole width of the page. The colouring is heavy, painted in opaque tempera pigments with an undue preponderance of minium or red lead. White lead, yellow, brown and red ochres are largely used, together with a variety of vegetable colours and the purple-red of the kermes beetle (coccus), but no gold is used, a bright yellow ochre being employed as a substitute^[2].

The costumes are partly ancient Greek and partly of later Roman fashion. A nimbus encircles each deity's head, and different colours are used to distinguish them. The nimbus of Zeus is purple, that of Venus is green; those of the other gods are mostly blue. To a large extent the backgrounds of the pictures are not painted, but the creamy white of the vellum is left exposed^[3].

The Vatican Virgil.The Virgil of the Vatican; next in importance to the Ambrosian Iliad, among the existing examples of classical illuminated manuscripts, comes the manuscript of Virgil's poems (Vat. No. 3225) which is supposed to have been written in the third or more probably the fourth century A.D. The text is written in large handsome capitals, well formed except that all the cross lines are too short, T, for example being written thus .

The whole manuscript, but especially the Aeneid, is decorated with pictures, fifty in all, each framed by a simple border of coloured bands. The style of these miniatures is very different and artistically very inferior to that of the Ambrosian Iliad.

Miniatures of the 5th century.The whole of the designs, in composition and drawing and in the costumes of the figures, are those of the fourth century. The details are coarse, the attitudes devoid of spirit, and the figures clumsy. The backgrounds are painted in and the colouring is dull in tone and heavy in texture, put in with a considerable body of pigment (impasto). Gold, not in leaf but as a fluid pigment, is largely used for high lights on trees, mountains, roofs of buildings, and for the folds of drapery, especially where the stuff is red or purple. The male figures have flesh of a reddish-brown tint like many of the Pompeian wall paintings; they wear short tunics with cloaks thrown over the shoulders. Other figures wear a long dalmatica or tunic, ornamented with two vertical purple stripes, closely resembling the tunics which have recently been found in such abundance in the late Roman tombs of the Fayoum in Upper Egypt.

Period of decadence.On the whole the miniatures are neither graceful nor highly decorative; they were executed at about the low water mark of classical artistic decadence shortly before the Byzantine revival under Justinian. Much that has been written in their praise must be attributed to antiquarian enthusiasm rather than to just criticism^[4].

Figure 2

Fig. 2. Miniature of classical design from a twelfth century Psalter in the Vatican library.

Before passing on to another class of manuscripts it should be noted that there is in existence one manuscript of the fourth or fifth century A.D. which is of special interest on account of its being ornamented, not only with miniature pictures, but also with some decorative designs of a stiff conventional character. This is a Roman Kalendar, which forms part of a manuscript in the Imperial library in Vienna. The ornaments have but little decorative merit, but they are of interest as showing that the illuminations in classical manuscripts were not always confined to the subject pictures.

Copies of lost originals.It has not as a rule been sufficiently noticed that the style of miniature paintings in manuscripts of a considerably earlier date than either the Ambrosian Iliad or the Vatican Virgil is very fairly represented in various manuscripts of the tenth to the twelfth century, the illuminators of which have evidently copied, as accurately as they were able, miniatures in manuscripts of the first or second century A.D.

The originals of these early Roman manuscripts do not now exist, and therefore the information as to their style and composition, which is given in the mediaeval copies, is of great interest.

Classical design.A Greek twelfth century Psalter in the Vatican library (No. 381) has one special picture which is obviously a careful copy of a miniature painting of the first century A.D. or even earlier: see fig. 2. The subject is Orpheus seated on a rock playing to a circle of listening beasts together with two nymphs and a youthful Faun or shepherd. These figures are arranged so as to form a very graceful composition in a landscape with hills and trees. The figures are extremely graceful both in outline and in pose, showing a considerable trace of Greek influence. The whole design closely resembles in style some of the wall paintings in the so-called "House of Livia" on the Palatine Hill in Rome, of which fig. 3 shows the scene of Io watched by Argus, and those in the now destroyed villa which was discovered by the Tiber bank in the Farnesina Gardens^[5], and many of the better class of paintings on the walls of the houses of Pompeii. Graeco-Roman design.Of the latter a good example is shown in fig. 4, a painting the design of which has much fine Hellenic feeling in the grace of its form and the simplicity of the composition.

Figure 3

Fig. 3. Painting in the "House of Livia" on the Palatine Hill in Rome.

Orpheus made into David.Returning now to the above mentioned Psalter of the Vatican, the scribe, probably a Greek monk, who in the twelfth century painted this miniature^[6], converted it into quite a different subject, that of David playing on the harp, by the simple device of ticketing each figure with a newly devised name. Orpheus is called "David," one of the Nymphs who sits affectionately close to Orpheus, probably meant for his wife Eurydice, is labelled "Sophia", "wisdom"; while the other two figures are converted into local personifications to indicate the locality of the scene.

It is not often that a mediaeval copyist has thus preserved unaltered the composition of a whole subject of classical and pre-Christian date, but it is not uncommon to find single figures or parts of pictorial designs of equally early date among the illuminations of the ninth to the twelfth centuries.

Graeco-Roman personifications.As an example of this we may mention one painting in a Greek Psalter of the tenth century in the Paris library (Bibl. Nat. No. 139). This represents the Prophet Isaiah standing, gazing up to heaven, in a very beautiful landscape with trees growing from a richly flower-spangled sward. The somewhat stiff figure of the Prophet is Byzantine^[7] rather than Classical in style, but the other two figures which are introduced are purely Graeco-Roman in design. On one side is a personification of Night (ΝΥΞ), a very graceful standing female figure with part of her drapery floating in the wind, forming a sort of curved canopy over her head, such as is so often represented above the heads of goddesses or nymphs on the reliefs of fine Graeco-Roman sarcophagi.

On the other side of the Prophet is a winged boy, like a youthful Eros, bearing a torch to symbolize the dawn.

Figure 4

Fig. 4. A Pompeian painting of Hellenic style, as an example of Greek drawing and composition.

Classical style.The bold and very decorative, yet almost realistic treatment of the foliage of the trees and of the flowers which are sprinkled among the grass is purely classical in style, and the whole miniature shows that the tenth century illuminator had before him some very fine manuscript of early Imperial date. From this he has selected a picture which might by omissions and modifications be adapted to his subject; and for the figure of the Prophet he has fallen back on another less ancient original, but still one which must have been several centuries older than his own time.

This is the explanation of what at first seems so strange a union in the same painting of very graceful single figures by the side of others which are rigid and awkward; and again, great skill shown in the drawing of the individual figures combined with a feeble and clumsy arrangement of the whole composition.

Byzantine style.Fig. 5 shows a miniature of very similar style representing the Prophet Ezechiel in the Valley of dry bones. It is taken from a manuscript of the Sermons of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, which was written for the Byzantine Emperor Basil who reigned from 867 to 886. This figure chiefly illustrates the Byzantine, not the Classical element in the miniatures of this mixed style of art, though there is also a clear trace of Graeco-Roman influence in the finely designed drapery of the Prophet.

The curious union of two utterly different styles is well exemplified in another of the miniatures in the last mentioned Psalter. Here David is represented like a Byzantine Emperor crowned and wearing the richly embroidered toga picta, and holding an open book. The figure might well pass for a representation of the Emperor Justinian, and the original painting was probably of that date, of the early part of the sixth century.

Graeco-Roman figures.On each side of the Byzantine David is a female figure draped with most gracefully designed folds of pure Graeco-Roman style, a most striking contrast to the central figure. Who these ladies represented in the original manuscript it is impossible to say, but the painter who in the tenth century illuminated the Psalter called them Wisdom and Prophecy, writing by them the names Sophia and Prophetia.

Figure 5

Fig. 5. The Prophet Ezechiel from a Byzantine manuscript of the ninth century A.D.

Value of late copies.Many other examples might be given to show that a truer notion of classical illuminated manuscripts of the best Graeco-Roman style can be gained from a study of the works of mediaeval copyists than from manuscripts which, though older, are of late and debased style like the famous illuminated Virgil of the Vatican^[8].

After Rome had ceased to be the seat of government, Constantinople became the chief centre for the production of illuminated manuscripts^[9], but nevertheless the older classical style of drawing to some extent did survive in Italy, though in a very debased form, down to the thirteenth century, when Cimabue and his pupil Giotto inaugurated the brilliant Renaissance of Italian painting.

Classical survival.The Gospels, for example, which St Augustine is said to have brought with him to Britain in 597 A.D., have paintings, enthroned figures of the Evangelists, which in design and colour are purely of late Roman style, unchanged by the then wide-spread influence of Byzantine art.

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1. There is, of course, no etymological connection between the words miniature and minute; the latter being derived from the Latin minutus, minus.
2. Further details with regard to these pigments are given below, see pages 239 to 249.
3. Reproductions of these miniatures were published by Cardinal Mai, Picturae antiquissimae bellum Iliacum repraesentantes, Milan, 1819. Far more accurate copies of some of the miniatures, but without colour, are given by Palaeo. Soc., Plates 39, 40, 50 and 51.
4. Some fairly accurate reproductions of these miniatures were published by Bartoli, Antiquissimi Virgiliani Codicis fragmenta Bibl. Vat., Roma, 1741 and 1782. Examples from this and two other ancient but un-illuminated codices of Virgil in the Vatican library are given by the Palaeo. Soc., Plates 113 to 117.
5. The chief of these paintings were cut off the walls of the villa, and are now placed in the Museo delle Terme in Rome. The painting shown in fig. 3 is still in situ; that given in fig. 4 is now in the Museum at Naples.
6. See above, fig. 2.
7. The term Byzantine as applied to art is commonly used to denote the style which was developed in the Eastern empire soon after Constantine had transferred the seat of government from Old to "New Rome," or Constantinople as it was also called instead of Byzantium, which was the ancient name.
8. Several manuscripts of this class are described by H. Bordier, Manuscrits Grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1883.
9. A great public library was founded by Constantine in New Rome and partially stocked by manuscripts transferred from the old Capital. This library was rapidly enlarged by his sons and successors, and it was rebuilt on a grander scale by the Emperor Zeno after the building had been injured by fire about the year 488 A.D.