Manuscript

About

Before printing, every book was copied by hand, and many were decorated as lavishly as any altarpiece. Monks at Lindisfarne in the early 8th century filled whole carpet pages with interlaced birds and knotwork. Later medieval books of hours, often made by lay workshops in Paris and Bruges, served private prayer; the Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures for the Duke of Berry (c. 1412–16) sets the labours of each month beneath arcs of gold and blue.

The art was never only European. Qur'ans were copied in monumental kufic and later in flowing naskh, Persian painters illustrated the Shahnameh, and Mughal workshops produced the Akbarnama for their emperor. From Peru, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala addressed an illustrated chronicle of Andean life to the Spanish king, completed around 1615. Look for ruled lines, prick marks, gold laid over raised gesso and changes of script where one scribe handed over to another.