8/11/2023 0 Comments Oldest illuminated manuscript![]() Carpet Page The Biting Animalsĭetail of Biting Animals. The 7th Century Book of Durrow gives us our first glimpse of this new style of fusion between pagan and christian art. The illustrations in the Book of Durrow show how the celtic use of curvilinear la Tene forms could be merged with art from other cultures to produce a new art style – Early Chrisitan Art (also called Insular Art). Whereas in the Cathach, traces of early Christian Coptic influence could be found in the decoration of letters, a century later when the Book of Durrow was being produced, the scribes were demonstrably being influenced by their pagan neighbours. This page demonstates an influence from Saxon or Germanic Art from either Britain or the continent. One of the carpet pages called “ The Biting Animals” shows the first example of interlace animals in Irish manuscripts. Each gospel begins with two full page illustrations a large evangelist symbol on one page and another full page illustration of abstract decoration called a carpet page. Illustration The Book of Durrow far exceeds the Cathach in its use of full page illustrations. ![]() Initial of Mark Detail of Initial of Mark Book of Durrow There is a much greater use of the Diminuendo than in the Cathach. ![]() The Diminuendo is used in these parts to make the large capitals integrate with the normal body size script. On the body of the text, large Initial Capital letters are used to mark the start of the sentence. In the first three lines of text the scribe uses large letters to mark the start of the text of the new gospel. Like in the Cathach, dots are also used to decoate the letter,but now the whole letter is outlined with dots. Firstly the very large “N” which starts off the Gospel of St Mark text dominates the page and is decorated using spirals and interlace in colored inks of yellow, red and brown. In the page shown below- the beginning of the gospel of St Mark, you will see there are different ways in which the scribe used capital letters. The manuscript is written in Latin Vulgate.Ĭalligraphy The calligraphy in the book of Durrow develops the techniques of using large initial capital letters and the “Diminuendo” which was began a century earlier in the Cathach manuscript. It is a gospel book containing the four Gospels ( Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) together with the Canon Tables and some prefatory pages. It is the oldest illustrated manuscript in Ireland. The Book of Durrow dates from the 7th Century AD. Image -courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy. The letters that come after it gradually decrease in size until the script returns to normal size. You can see the use of Diminuendo – the initial ” G” is very large. Image -courtesy if the Royal Irish Academy. This indicates that these early scribes had contact with lands as far away as Egypt. ![]() In this you can see the Initial letters shows a fish or dolphin bearing a cross, a motif familiar in Coptic Egypt. In this detail you can see the use of red ink in the script and to decorate the Initial Letter ” D”, ( Please click image to make larger) You can also see the use of diminuendo ( the letters gradually getting smaller) Courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy Initial letter ” g”. Detail of Script from the Cathach Courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy. The capital “I” is made into an elaborate scroll. The “d” is decorated with a fish-tail and a double spiral. Some of the script is written in red ink and red dots are used to decorate some of the Initial Letters. This technique of calligraphy is called ” Diminuendo”. The Initial letter is drawn or scripted a very large size and the letters that follow gradually become smaller until they reach normal size again. Decoration in the manuscript is limited to the Initial Letter at the start of each psalm. It is a Psalter or book of Psalms and is written by one scribe in the “Early Majascule” script. Columba himself but this is no longer believed to be so. It was traditionally attributed to the hand of St. The title Cathach comes from the word battle in the Irish language and legend has it that the book was carried into battle. It is a copy of the psalms in Latin Vulgate ( a type of Latin) and is the oldest Irish manuscript. ![]() The Cathach dates from the 6th century AD. In many cases these books were illustrated with images and patterns, these type of books are called Illuminated Manuscripts. The Irish monastries became famous for producing beautiful handwritten books called Manuscripts. New bibles needed to be produced for the new monasteries and churches that were springing up all over the island of Ireland. Christianity is a religion of the book and the Irish who became monks learned how to read and write. The arrival of Christianity during the fifth century AD began a process of change in Ireland. ![]()
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