Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

uscript painter presented two episodes of the story within a single

frame. In the first episode, at the left, Rebecca leaves the city of Nahor

to fetch water from the well. In the second episode, she offers water to

Eliezer and his camels, while one of them already laps water from the

well. The artist painted Nahor as a walled city seen from above, like

the cityscapes in the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaics (FIG. 11-14) and

innumerable earlier Roman representations of cities in painting

and relief sculpture. Rebecca walks to the well along the colonnaded

avenue of a Roman city. A seminude female personification of a

spring is the source of the well water. These are further reminders of

Luxury Arts 305

R

are as medieval books are, they are far more numerous than

their ancient predecessors. An important invention during

the Early Empire was the codex,which greatly aided the dissemina-

tion of manuscripts as well as their preservation. A codex is much

like a modern book, composed of separate leaves (folios) enclosed

within a cover and bound together at one side. The new format su-

perseded the long manuscript scroll (rotulus) of the Egyptians,

Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. (The Etruscan magistrate Lars

Pulena,FIG. 9-15;the philosophers on Roman and Early Christian

sarcophagi,FIGS. 10-71and 11-6;and Christ himself in his role as

teacher,FIGS. 11-7and 11-8,all hold rotuli in their hands.) Much

more durable vellum (calfskin) and parchment (lambskin), which

provided better surfaces for painting, also replaced the compara-

tively brittle papyrusused for ancient scrolls. As a result, luxurious-

ness of ornament became increasingly typical of sacred books in

the Middle Ages, and at times the material beauty of the pages with

their illustrations overwhelms the spiritual beauty of the text. Art

historians refer to the luxurious painted books produced before

the invention of the printing press as illuminated manuscripts,from

the Latin illuminare,meaning “to adorn, ornament, or brighten.”

The oldest preserved examples (FIGS. 11-19to 11-21) date to the

fifth and sixth centuries.

Illuminated books were costly to produce and involved many

steps. Numerous artisans performed very specialized tasks, begin-

ning with the curing and cutting (and sometimes the dyeing) of the

animal skin, followed by the sketching of lines to guide the scribe

and to set aside spaces for illumination, the lettering of the text, the

addition of paintings, and finally the binding of the pages and at-

tachment of covers, buckles, and clasps. The covers could be even

more sumptuous than the book itself. Many covers survive that are

fashioned of gold and decorated with jewels, ivory carvings, and

repoussé reliefs (FIG. 16-16).

Medieval Manuscript Illumination

MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

11-20Rebecca and Eliezer at the well, folio 7 recto of the Vienna

Genesis,early sixth century. Tempera, gold, and silver on purple vellum,

1  –^14  91 – 4 . Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.

This sumptuously painted book is the oldest well-preserved manuscript

containing biblical scenes. Two episodes of the Rebecca story appear in

a single setting filled with classical motifs.

11-19The old farmer of Corycus, folio 7 verso of the Vatican Vergil,

ca. 400–420. Tempera on parchment, 1^1 – 2  1 . Biblioteca Apostolica

Vaticana, Rome.

The earliest surviving painted Latin manuscript is a collection of the

poet Vergil’s works. This page includes part of the text of the Georgics

and a pastoral scene reminiscent of Roman landscape murals.

1 in. 1 in.