Illuminated Manuscripts

The illuminated manuscripts are the manuscript wherein the text is   added with several decorations such as miniature illustrations, marginalia (borders) and decorated initials. The illuminated manuscripts are the manuscripts decorated with silver or gold, however in modern scholarship and common usage the term is now used to describe to any illustrated or decorated manuscripts from the Western traditions. The Islamic manuscripts are generally referred to as illuminated manuscripts however could also be categorized as painted. The most primitive surviving substantive   decorated or illuminated manuscripts are from the time of AD 400 to 600, originally made in the Eastern Roman Empire and Italy. The importance of these artworks lies not only in their intrinsic art history value, but also in the maintenance of the link of the literacy provided by the non-illuminated texts also.

The very existence of the illuminated manuscripts as a way of providing commemoration and stature to the ancient documents might have been mainly responsible for their preservation in a period when the barbarian hordes had flooded continental Europe and ruling classes were no longer literate. The majority of the existing illuminated manuscripts are mainly from the Middle Ages; even though several illuminated manuscripts exist from the Renaissance period, along with a very less number from the Late Antiquity.  Most of these illuminated manuscripts are generally of religious in their nature. But, particularly from the thirteenth century onwards, a growing number of secular texts were actually illuminated. Many of the illuminated manuscripts were made as codices that had archaic scrolls. Only some illuminated manuscript parts exist on papyrus that doesn’t last nearly as long as parchment or vellum. Many of the medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were actually written on the parchment (sheep, goat or calf skin), however most manuscripts significant enough to illuminate were written on the high quality of the parchment, known as vellum.

Questionnaire:

• What are illuminated manuscripts?
• Exsplain more about the illuminated manuscripts?
• Give an example of illuminated manuscript?