Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1032/1096 (page 1012)
    fined to the purple, violet, or azure MSS.° Many which have but few coloured p.ages are chrysrgraj)hs throughout; as the evangeliaries of Charlemagne (or of St. Martin des Champs), of . St. Martin and St. Medard of Soissons (in Count Bastard’s second volume). The expense of purple vellum seems to have been very great; so much so, that as early as the 4th century the bishop Theonas enjoins on Lucian us, the em- peror’s chamberlain, not to have the MSS. of the imperial library entirely in colour, unless by apecial order (D’Acher}^, Spicilegium, tom. xii.). 'Charlemagne seems to have I’eserved this magni- ficence especially for evangeliaries, the Vienna ppsalter being only gold in part. For chryso- ; graphs on white, in the 9th century, they are I too numerous to allow of more than brief men- ' tion of a few, besides those of St Medard and ■ St. jNIartin already named. The evangeliaries of ; St. Emmerand at Munich, of Lothaire in the .National Library of France, with his psalter; I those of the abbeys of Hautvillers (Bastard, ii.) ; and Lorch (the latter now at the Vatican, with ; fine uncial writing on alternate bands of purple . and azure), and the antiphonary of Goubert, ■ monk of St. Berlin, are named by Dom Gu^ , ranger. Those of Charlemagne, or St. Martin . des Champs (Gothic writing), and of St, Medard, and another very grand one, written for Charle- magne, in fine uncial, with large whole-page illustrations [see Miniatures], the sacramen- tary of Drogo (golden uncial, rustic capitals, and cursive Gothic, with splendid Roman initials), the evangeliaries of Lothaire and Louis le Debon- naire, are all magnificently illustrated by Count Bastard, vol. ii., with that of Hautvillers. He also gives pictures from two magnificent bibles, written for Louis le Debonnaire and Charles the Bold ; and one presented to the latter monarch - by Count Vivien, abbat commendatory of Tours, which shews great progress in miniature paint- ing, and attains something like a climax of splen- dour in ornamental caligraphy. The ceremony -• of its presentation to Charles^ the Bald is illus- trated on its title-page with considerable skill, . and perhaps with some attempts at portraiture. Its writing is a perfect example of what is called ■■ the Caroline uncial and demiuucial. Gueranger goes back to the 7th century for - the first employment of artistic design by the liturgical caligraphers of the Western church. They began naturally with their initial letters, '■ making the illustration a part of the page con- • sidered as a whole, and keeping their art in - equal alliance with their caligraphy. In the Eastern church the Rabula MS. shews how much could be done even in the 6th century, but its • miniatures are inserted in rectangular spaces, and independent of the writing. (See Professor Westwood’s Palaeographia Sacra, Introduction; ■ also Crucifix and Miniature.) The canons of Eusebius of Caesarea were very early added to the sacred text: they are found in the MS. of Rabula, in the 6th century, accom- panied with a free and luxuriant ornament: and o The names of these colours are somewhat vague and must necessarily convey rather different ideas to difler- enl persons. The greater number of purple MSS. are at present of what would be called a puce colour, mostly dark and rich, but occasionally lightened by time, or deadened almost into black. in the western world the evangeliary of Ulfila?, of the same j)eriod, possesses them. The idea of architecturjil decoration of pages struck the cali- graphers at once, as w’as natural. To consider a row of parallel columns as an arcade, separated by pillars, and to lavish wreath-, scroll-, and flower- work, or even birds, on tlieir traceries, was an obvious and pleasing system of decoration. The Colbert evangeliary (Bastard, i.), 7th century, has its columns drawn firmly and beautifully with the pen : and it is most interesting to the artist, in an age of mechanical copying, to observe the extraordinary power and freedom of manual execution in many of these MSS., which in the opinion of the present writer, fully raise the ancient caligraphy to the level of a fine art. The 0 of Giotto was doubtless a fair test of his great executive power; but it is excelled in difficulty and interest by the pen-drawn birds and grotesques of the MSS. See Grotesque, 1. 751 f; Lion, H. 999, for instances of true pen- drawing. It is singular that the la..t relics of the vanished art should be the swans or birds of the modern writing-master’s flourish. The 8th and 9th century MSS. are richest in their decoration of the canons, and those of St. Martin des Champs, St. Mefdard, of the Church of Mans, of Hautvillers, and that written for Lothaire, are models of gorgeous grotesque. Sometimes there are twenty or twenty-five pages of them, worked out with inexhaustible varia- tions and fancies. Gold and silver are lavished everywhere; the horizontal lines end in nonde- script heads, the leaf-work is rich but chaste, and wreaths about the pillars like “the gadding vine;” and a first faint sign of naturalistic imi- tation appears in the very skilful u.se of gold to imitate the wavy cloudings and changing lines of polished marble pillars. Animals and small figures present themselves apparently just where they like, though always in places well adapted to balance of pattern and ordered arrangement. They are in some cases emblematic, as the evan- gelical symbols present themselves constantly, and there are endless nondescripts. A list is appended, taken from the above-mentioned MSS., which differ from the wild grotesques of the Gellone sacramentary of 7th century, by being often drawn with careful attention to natural character.P A decided falling off in colour-power, with .some carelessness of drawing, will be observed in the Hautvillers MS.: the bibles of Charles the Bald are either Franco-Saxon or Gallo-French, showing the serj)entine spirals and endless inter- lacings of the Northern-Gothic work. Count Vivien’s MS. shews equal splendour and higher aim in the artist: the great zodiac illumination is given by Count Bastard (vol. ii.). In the Visigothic work of the Sacramentary of Gellone, 8th century, there is a crucifixion, p List of animals represented in 9th century MSS. of the Western church :— Antelope. Centaur. Cock and hen. Crane. Dove (white). Eagle. Elephant. Hound (and compounded as grifBn). Lion (and compounded). Peacock. Pheasant. Rhinoceros (bull-like), marking the idea of the “Unicorn (MS. Lothaire). Swan. Stag and hind. Stork. Stockdove.