Volume 2

Universal palaeography, or, Fac-similes of writings of all nations and periods, copied from the most celebrated and authentic manuscripts in the libraries and archives of France, Italy, Germany, and England / by M.J.B. Silvestre ; accompanied by an historical and descriptive text and introduction by Champollion-Figeac and Aimé Champollion, fils ; translated from the French and edited, with corrections and notes, by Sir Frederic Maddan ... in two volumes.

Joseph-Balthazar Silvestre

Date:: 1849-1850

Credit: Universal palaeography, or, Fac-similes of writings of all nations and periods, copied from the most celebrated and authentic manuscripts in the libraries and archives of France, Italy, Germany, and England / by M.J.B. Silvestre ; accompanied by an historical and descriptive text and introduction by Champollion-Figeac and Aimé Champollion, fils ; translated from the French and edited, with corrections and notes, by Sir Frederic Maddan ... in two volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

227/458 page 585

The writing is one of the finest specimens of the Gothic style: this minuscule is, indeed, thick and massive, but wrell spaced, very regular, and less angular than it would have been had it been written in France or Germany. Many of the letters are conjoined, both at the end and middle of the words, but the abbreviations are not numerous; the words are divided, and the paragraphs and proper names indicated by small capitals. The open space of the large ornamental initial G is occu¬ pied by the shield of Portugal, surmounted by the helmet, crown, crest, and mantling. The colored ornaments add also greatly to the beauty of this fine volume, which is of the middle of the fifteenth century. PLATE COXI. SPANISH WRITING. OF THE MIDDLE OF THE XVI™ CENTURY. [There is no text descriptive of this Plate, which contains four specimens of Spanish writing thus designated,—Ara- gonesa redonda, Aragonesa tirada, Cancellaresca Cas- tellana, and Cagstellana mas formada.—Ed.]

Licence and re-use

Contents

Volumes