Illuminated capital cookies, made by the keeper of the Luminarium blog. Via BoingBoing.
A caladrius bird turns away from a doomed patient, in a 12th-century bestiary.
Look at that elegant transitional Gothic hand! Wow. Remarkably readable, and with nice abbreviations.
This is also from UNC’s MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations. What a fun digital collection!
From Henri de Mondeville’s Chirurgia, 1314.
In the MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations at UNC.
Fires of Hell, from Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry; 15th century, with illuminations by the Dutch Limbourg Brothers.
Cookery, from the “Tacuinum Sanitatis,” 14th century, Lombardy
An unusual image of the devil from the 13th-century Codex Gigas, made at the Podlažice monastery (O.S.B.) in Bohemia and currently at the National Library of Sweden.
The Codex Gigas is the largest known book created in the Middle Ages: over 36 inches high and nearly 20 inches wide. It is the work of a single author, known as Herman the Recluse.
Browse the entire digitized manuscript here: the initials are particularly lovely.
David, the Musician: from the 8th-century Cassiodorus Commentary on the Psalms, held at Durham Cathedral.
I have actually held this 1200-year-old book in my hands, on a visit to Durham in 1991. The image above, and the one below, are the only two illuminations in the book: David the King and David the Psalmist. I was able to look at the reverse of the page and see the pinprick where the illuminator stuck his compass, in order to form the circle of the haloes.
Searching Google for that Aratea manuscript folio, I came across this stunning image: Perseus (with a dripping Medusa head) in a 9th-century French manuscript of Cicero’s translation of the Aratea.
The dots on Perseus’ body indicate the placement of the stars in the Perseus constellation. His body itself is made up of the text of the Aratea, a design motif that is not uncommon in manuscripts of this era. The text is written in scriptura continua, continuous letters without word breaks, and in what looks like the rustic capitals common in late-Roman scribal hands.
Here’s the page with MY constellation, Sagittarius:
Great example of banderoles, the dialogue-covered scrolls that I consider the antecedent of speech balloons in comics. Well, if not antecedent, at least a distant relative.
Annunciation to Mary, The
This scene of the Annunciation from the Beaufort Hours (probably belonging to Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII) is a revealing example of the crisp, flat and colourful style that was standard in commercial workshops in London in the mid 15th century. The figure drawing is competent and the colouring bright, but note how the Virgin gazes down to meet the upward look of the patroness of the book, depicted in the initial below, rather than at the angel of the Annunciation. The patroness is probably Margaret Beauchamp, Duchess of Somerset, mother of Margaret Beaufort.
(Source: phassa)
Folio from the Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari; Syria, 1315 (A.H. 715).
I have no idea what is going on there, but that is one docile elephant.
Hmmm. The king is marked “Mithridates,” but there were several Mithridates in the Hellenic kingdoms. The men being executed have a label as well, but the scan is not large or clear enough for me to read it (plus it has elided letters, as the two horizontal suspension marks indicate).
I’m guessing this is Mithridates IV of Pontus, though, as he is the one associated with the Mithridatic Wars.
(Source: phassa)
Wheel of Life, Eastern Tibet, 1700 - 1799 (Rubin Museum of Art)
Christ Geometer, from a Bible moralisée, showing God as architect of the world.
In Codex Vindobonensis, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 2554; French, ca. 1250.
