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Introduction - Illuminati

Brief History

Eras and Books

Decorative Elements

Marco Polo Book Images from 1400

Books  &  Links

Introduction - Illuminati

Illuminati is where the English word 'luminaries' comes from.  Illuminati, the illustrious luminaries of their time, were the artists who decorated texts in Medieval and Renaissance Italy.  During their day, these painters were just as famous as the artists who painted on gesso on wood, and on soft plaster on walls.  But today, only artists such as Michelangelo and DaVinci are household names.

Ironically, today the work of the illuminati can be seen by more people than ever before.  The texts they illuminated, are no longer in the hands of popes, princes, and wealthy merchants.  Today, their work is displayed in museums, with usually one paged turned each day to reward the frequent visitor with a look at all the splendid artistry.  

Luckily for us, many museums have photographed the pages and put them on-line, so the Internet visitor can view many pages at one go!  I provide images on this page when copyright restrictions allow, and link to the museum sites where you can view lots more images. A full list of links is at the bottom of this page.  Browse at your leisure.

This image is an illuminated page from 1487 from the WebGallery of Art. This is the best link where you can view illustrated manuscript pages from 1150 to 1550 from many countries.

I'll eliminate my use of words like 'stunning', 'amazing', 'gorgeous', 'mini-masterpiece' and so forth on this page, but just assume I mean that for every example I offer up to you, because it's what I think!  Appreciate that the they must have used magnifying glasses to help paint them and to enjoy them, because some are truly miniscule.

Brief History

These artists worked from roughly the year 1200 to the 1500s.  This corresponds, not coincidentally, with the advent of primitive book-making techniques through to advanced book-printing techniques.  The earliest technique was the hand-lettered book.

This example is from 1400s Northern Italy of Cicero's writings now at the British Museum.

The labor intensive steps were usually these:

• The Cartolai or paper makers would make the paper from parchment or vellum (Middle Ages) or wood fiber (Renaissance)
• A Cutter would fold the paper into the page size desired and cut the edges
• A Stitcher would sew one edge of the paper to bind the pages together 
• A Cover artist would create thin wooden boards for the front and back covers for the book, then gum on a sheet of leather, which was attached to the spine of the book with more gum/resin
• A Cover artist would then decorate the cover, usually tooling it and painting it with gold leaf or ink
• A Calligrapher would pen the text on charcoal drawn lines in the area designated for the text, early texts were cursive scripts but later block printing was used so they could write even smaller and still be legible
• An Illuminato would paint in the desired images and initial letters of the major paragraphs, the earliest decorations were in gold and silver thought to illuminate the page and cover, which is how they got their name, large designs were traced from designs first done on a wax tablet to avoid mistakes

This example of a tooled leather book cover  is of a 1470 Venetian Bible now at the Bodleian Library.

Scriptoria made way for wood carvers who carved text and crude images in reverse into a flat piece of wood:  woodcuts.  The wood was then rolled with ink and stamped onto a page.  The pages were then assembled as described above, and the hand painting was done as before. 

When fixed and moveable type was invented, the text was assembled into a frame, rolled with ink, and pressed onto the paper.  The binding and decoration was then done by hand.  But even at this point in time, woodcut images were still stamped onto pages after the text printing.

Only when color printing and the printing of drawings advanced, did the illuminati find their work dwindle to the rare contract with a rich merchant for a customized family book, or with the church for a special text.  Some illuminati found work decorating documents like:

• marriage certificates, 
• treaties, 
• invitations, 
• announcements and 
• awards.  

Even today, you can hire a calligrapher do this kind of work.  They are the inheritors of this ancient art form.

Eras and Books

The Middle Ages is considered by connoisseurs as the high-point of illuminative arts perhaps because it is a time when both the text and artwork were done by hand, and these texts are the major source of Middle Age paintings.  During the Renaissance, Italian illuminati broke away from the dominant Flemish school and developed their own style. 

• thicker pigments
• a hard, polished surface
• a sharp outline around figures
• depth of field
• rich colors
• complex decorative designs similar in density to Islamic art (called Arabesque)

The earliest examples of illuminated texts are:

• Song texts for sung masses (antiphonal) decorated for the churches, convents and monasteries (the initial 'S' to the right is from an antiphonal from Pisa 1300s now at the Bodleian Library)
• There were many books with liturgical texts such as sermons that were illuminated (1439 Parma now at the Bodleian Library)
• Bibles for the alters in churches were very commonly illuminated, and other church prayer books (1470 Venice Bible, and 1450 Padua Bible now at the Bodleian Library)).
• Books of Hours were the prayer books used by the rich for their periodic prayers during the day.  Similar to how those of the Islamic faith pray 5 times a day, the faithful of the Middle Ages were required to pray 8 times a day (canonical hours), and the prayers were about the life of the Virgin (the scene below is an Historiated initial D from an Italian Book of Hours from 1450 now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, this is my favorite link on this page!)

Historiated initial D from an Italian Book of Hours from 1450 now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, this is my favorite link because they let you 'page through' 15 pages of this book, I enjoy especially the accurate paintings of the flowers and plants, and the calligraphy, and because books are generally closed, the colors are not damaged by sunlight so they are as vibrant today as when they were first painted

(The U.S. Library of Congress has an entire French Book of Hours from 1524 available for page by page viewing.  It is text machine printed on parchment with some pages illuminated with the life of Mary.)

During the Renaissance, Venice was the center for printing in Italy and the world, and the types of books that were illuminated widened to include:

• Science books such as medical texts for universities, and books of maps for travelers, traders and the wealthy, and architectural texts
• Greek and Roman texts recovered from antiquity (1400s examples now at the Bodleian Library)  like Juvenal, Cicero (1400s N.Italy examples at the British Museum), Livy
• Entertainments like Boccaccio's Decameron (Dyonio and Fiammetta from The Decameron, 1467 Ferrara now at the Bodleian Library), Ariosto's comedies, and of course Dante's Divine Comedy (1300s Northern Italy now at the Bodleian Library Hell, Purgatory, Heaven)
• Histories and Biographies about Italian city-states and leaders
• Poetry like that by Petrarch and Dante, and Erotic poems provided Venetian publishers with lucrative Europe-wide bestsellers

One book that was a best-seller was one for a very special reason:  it was an early reader.  Aesop's Fables was used throughout Italy as a book to teach people how to read .  The Greek fables were almost always illustrated with woodcuts to help the new-reader figure out the texts.  

Decorative Elements

There were a limited number of elements possible for the illuminato to decorate.  Each element has a specific name, and some have different names for each part of an element.  There are also names for every type of decoration!  (If you are interested in all this ephemera, here's a link to an on-line illumination dictionary from the British Museum.)

Generally speaking, the main decorative elements are (many illustrated below in a 1458 Florence Prayer Book that belonged to Lorenzo de Medici as seen in the WebGallery of Art):

• Decorated initial - small decoration on a starting initial letter
• Flourished initial - large decoration and surrounding decoration in a starting initial letter
• Historiated (or Inhabited) initial - a human figure or figures painted inside a starting initial letter
• Borders - these can include all four borders around the text (top, bottom, left, right) or only some of them, they can be Inhabited by figures or just decorative with putti, florals, plants, jewels, animals, places
• Coats of arms - wealthy families hired illuminati to paint their coats of arms into their books (the one to the right is from 1490 Venice in the WebGallery of Art's collection )
• Full page images - these were to help illuminate the text nearby, often depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin, Jesus or the Apostles, and some of Old-Testament stories, or locations

1458 Florence Prayer Book that belonged to Lorenzo de Medici as seen in the WebGallery of Art