Perfection of Handwriting

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1070, 6 September 1930, Page 17

Perfection of Handwriting

The beauty of an old manuscript has to be seen to be realised. The balance of the pages, the quality of the vellum or parchment, the panelling and the ornamentation, the excel enee in craft exhibited by the old time workers, can be appreciated only by visual examination. Some idea of the immense labour devoted to ornamentation of texts may be gathered

from the famous Book of Kells, described by Prof. Westwood, of Oxford, as “the most elaborately executed MS of so early a date, that is now existing.” The book was written in the Monastery of Kells, Ireland, in 594. It was stolen in 1006 and long afterwards the book and its case, the latter minus its gold trimmings, were found in a bog. The artist is not known but he used purple, sienna, lilac, red, pink, green, blue, yellow and other tints to carry out designs numbering thousands. Gold or silver were not employed, though this was a quite common practice with valuable books. The thousands of initial and terminal letters, and borderings, abound in quaint designs but none is a replica of any other. The consummate skill and taste may be gauged from the fact that under a

microscope there have L>eeu counted, in one square inch of pattern, no less than 150 iuterlaciugs of white ribbon with black border. No reproduction of this work can convey the exquisiteness of the original. Auckland has two reproductions of the book. However, the art of manuscript writing is well illustrated by original specimens in Greek, Latin, Arabic, French, Italian, German, Coptic, Persian and Turkish.