Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 1
Inside the Scriptorium Cupboard:
The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Manuscript Illumination
My journey as a medievalist began when I was a little kid, when Disney released the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). The opening credits were done in the style of early Gothic manuscript illumination. I was fascinated--I could not imagine how they ever 1 found a medieval manuscript that already had all the cast and crews names printed, in nice Lombardic capitals, and which depicted, in that wonderful 12th c. style, images from the film: of witches and wizards, and even of Nazi soldiers in a submarine! It simply did not occur to me that a modern artist could create a work in an older periods style. This experience prompted me to explore the Middle Ages more deeply, through books and other films, and to try my hand at medieval calligraphy. This was the beginning of what has become a rather practical study of the artistic culture of the Middle Ages.
When I first began to imitate medieval art I was nave. I used colored inks to fill in my pen lines, resulting in messy, blotchy work. It didnt look like medieval manuscripts at all. When I became a more serious artist I worked with readily available modern materials, but in a medieval style. I used modern gouaches available from the local art store, and traced and painted designs on fine watercolor paper. As I explored this style more deeply I learned that I was not using the same materials and techniques medieval scribes used, and as a result my work was inferior to theirs. So I began to experiment.
The first technique I attempted was to ditch the gold-colored gouache and try to lay fake gold leaf on a ground of dried Elmers glue. While appropriately tedious and medievalish, the results were not exactly what I had hoped. My gilding did not resemble the sumptuous stuff I saw in the Getty and Huntington Library, or even the photos of modern illumination I had collected in my many books. Incrementally I began to research, experiment with and add to my repertoire proper period materials and techniques: real parchment, 24K gold leaf, handmade gesso, pure ground pigments, various home made tempera, etc. Each of these materials produced finer and more authentic-looking reproductions. Each was vastly superior to its modern, fake counterpart, both in the look of the finished product and in the more alchemical, indescribable, experiential aspects of the creative process. Paint floats magically on 2 the surface of real parchment differently than it behaves on paper. Theres a satisfying scratchy sound when using a quill pen. White lead is simply better than modern titanium Apparently for my convenience, some kind soul has uploaded the opening credits on YouTube: http:// 1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM5kqyXW2mE This indescribable quality of artist as alchemist is discussed at length in James Elkins, What Painting Is, 2 (New York: Routledge, 1999). He argues that artists learns the feel of materials, rather than their scientific properties: Long years spent in the studio can make a person into a treasury of nearly incommunicable knowledge about the powderiness of pastels, or the woody feel of different marbles, or the infinitesimally different iridescences of ceramic glazes. (22) Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 2 white. Real vermillion tempered with egg yolk is about as silky and sumptuous a paint as is possible to be. I even arranged for private apprenticeships with two master artists in this style. The apprenticeship experience expanded my skills and understanding of the uses of these materials a hundred-fold. I began to incorporate presentations and mini- workshops in illumination into my history and art history courses. I expanded out to offer workshops for adults, and have had a great time sharing this passion of mine all over the country.
Shared below for the Colloquium is a much more annotated version of the packet I provide to my workshop participants. It includes descriptions of materials and techniques, the ancient recipes I have used and adapted, and resources useful to the modern scribe/illuminator. I must admit that I am not a stay-in-period fanatic. There are some ancient ingredients, like the toxic, alchemical pigments, to which we have understandably limited access. There are others for which the modern manufacture is superior to its period counterpart, like plaster of Paris. In my workshops I use ancient materials and recipes when practical, and take advantage of being a 21st century artist at other times. You'll be happy to know that I leave out the toxic ingredients, the materials that take forever to make and, of course, the recipes that call for dung. I leave in, however, the use of gall, ear wax, facial oils and other useful ingredients. My workshop students have fun and end up producing small works which, because of the purity of the materials used, will be as brilliant and colorful a thousand years from now as they are today.
The Sources
Of course, one source for the materials and techniques of medieval illuminators are the manuscripts themselves. Simple visual observation of a manuscript can yield much useful information. To enhance visual examination, scholars and scientists have developed a dizzying array of machines and procedures to analyze the composition of pigments, and to view microscopically the various layers applied by the illuminator to discern their techniques. In addition, there survive many treatises from the period which 3 describe, in varying levels of useful detail, the scribe/illuminators craft, offering advice from how to make vermillion to how to render flesh and sky, from choosing between the yolks of eggs from city hens or country hens, to choosing pretty girls rather than old Clarke describes several increasingly sensitive, reliable, unambiguous and non-invasive techniques 3 including visual examination, UV-visible spectroscopy, near-infrared imaging (NIR), and micro-Raman spectroscopy (RS). Mark Clarke, Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Pigments in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2004), 231-244, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487700, accessed April 3, 2010 Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 3 women as servants. Vinas has identified no less than 22 edited medieval treatises written 4 by and for manuscript illuminators. The most widely known (and most useful to the 5 modern illuminator) of these sources are the following works:
MAPPAE CLAVICULA (ca. 900) 6 The Clavicula is an early treatise containing almost 300 chapters describing recipes and techniques (with variations) for a huge number of medieval crafts, ranging from the manufacture of pigments, glues and tempera to almost a hundred gilding recipes, to how to poison arrows and construct battering rams. It is the basis for many subsequent MSS which contain copies and even more variations of its recipes. This is the earliest extant Summa on diverse crafts.
SCHEDULA DIVERSARUM ARTIUM (or DE DIVERSIS ARTIBUS) (ca. 1100) 7 Written by the artist/monk Theophilus Rugerus, the Schedula provides an extensive array of recipes, descriptions, and instructions for a variety of medieval arts and crafts. The arts of glassmaking and metallurgy are particularly well-represented, but there is also much information on painting, pigments, gilding, and other crafts associated with manuscript illumination, esp. in Book 1 and the Addenda.
IL LIBRO DELLARTE (ca. 1395) 8 Cennino Cenninis invaluable treatise, by far the best known and most widely used recipe book, contains a wealth of information about late medieval painting techniques and even, as we have seen, a bit of useful lifestyle advice as well.
Cennino Cennini, Il libro dellarte, The Craftsmans Handbook, (New York: Dover, 1954), 39. Regarding 4 the secret recipe for the manufacture of of a usable pigment from an inferior piece of lapis lazuli, Cennini writes that making [this pigment] is an occupation for pretty girls rather than for men; for they are always at home, and reliable, and they have more dainty hands. Just beware of old women. Of course, pretty workshop apprentices work out so much better than the homelier ones... Salvador Munoz Vinas, Original Written Sources for the History of Mediaeval Painting Techniques and 5 Materials: A List of Published Texts, Studies in Conservation, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1998), 115-120, http:// www.jstor.org/stable/1506648, accessed April 22, 2010. Cyril Stanley Smith and John G. Hawthorne, Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval 6 Techniques, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 64, No. 4 (1974), pp. 1-128, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006317, accessed April 2, 2010. This source contains the entire text of the Mappae Clavicula in the authors Latin edition, English translation, and in facsimile of one of the important extant MSS. Theophilus Rugerus, De diversis artibus (c. 1100), trans. Robert Hendrie (London: John Murray, 1847), 7 http://books.google.com/books?id=wo4EAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=twopage&q&f=false, accessed October 11, 2010. A Google web reprint which contains the entire MS and addenda in Latin and English. Cennino dAndrea Cennini, Il libro dellarte, The Craftsmans Handbook, trans. Daniel V. Thompson 8 (New York: Dover, 1954). Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 4 Making an Illuminated Manuscript
A medieval illuminated page is made of parchment, ink, gold and paint, used in that order. A book was written first, then gilded (or illuminated), then embellished with color, then sewn and bound. This order of work was important to minimize errors and facilitate easier work. The scribe worked first, writing the entire text of the book on every unbound page, carefully noting the pagination and orientation of the pages. Scribes work first because the chance of an error is highest at this point of a books production. Sitting all day at a work desk, a scribe copying from an exemplar is bound to grow fatigued, misspelling words, omitting words, or transposing or dropping entire lines. These errors can sometimes be corrected, sometimes not. If a grievous scribal error was made on a page already gilded and painted, the entire page (and all those hours of work and costly materials) would be wasted.
It is interesting to note that the scribal arts do not have a patron saint; but they do have a patron demon, Titivillus. Titivillus is charged with filling his sack with errors a thousand times a day. He ascends daily from Hell to cause and collect scribal errors, slips of the tongue during services, or other misdeeds to fill his sack; and these he hauled to the Devil below where each sin was duly recorded in a book against the name of the monk who had committed it, there to be read out on the Day of Judgement. Titivillus became a patron 9 by providing errant scribes with an excuse for their errors: the Devil made me do it!
The materials pertinent to the scribes task are the parchment ground on which the text is written, the lead or silver styli with which the pages were ruled, the iron-gall ink and the quill pens with which the text was written.
PARCHMENT Parchment is the carefully prepared skin of an animal. There are many types of parchment, which can have a wondrous variety of colors and textures. Any mammal will do, although the most commonly used animals are calves, sheep, goats, deer and reindeer. The word "parchment" has come to mean any prepared skin, and the word "vellum" denotes calfskin only. The finest form of vellum is made from the skin of stillborn Marc Drogin, Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique (New York: Dover, 1980) 18. Drogin 9 goes on to report, ironically, that for the past half-century every edition of [the Oxford English Dictionary] has listed an incorrect page reference for, of all things, a footnote on the earliest mention of Titivillus. 20. Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 5 calves. This uterine vellum or slunk vellum is the softest, whitest, thinnest surface available for the scribal arts.
The fresh skin is placed to soak in a bath of water for several days, and then in water and lime, to soften the flesh and dissolve fat and oil and hair. It's then rinsed again. The skin is then stretched on a special pegged frame to be scraped clean using a moon-shaped knife called a lunellarium. This scraping removes the hair, fat, and any sinewy residue that remains. The skin is then dried, scraped with pumice, remoistened, then stretched and dried again. 10
To prepare the surface to accept ink or paint it must be lightly sanded with powdered pumice to raise a suede-like nap. This process is called "pouncing." I have used fine sandpapers as well. If a particularly fine ink line is desired, a final sizing with ground gum sandarac is necessary to act as a resist, but only on the portion of the page to be written on, otherwise it makes painting difficult.
RULING There is no mention in the early treatises of methods of ruling manuscript pages. Comparison of MSS reveal that unbound manuscript pages were ruled for text in several ways. One way was to score the parchment with a hard-point stylus, creating a visible 11 furrow. Another way was to fold the pages of a signature, line the top page carefully, then to prick through all the pages at the endpoints of each line with an awl. These prickings could then be joined up with a ruler and stylus. Some scribes used pricking wheels as well to work more quickly. Another method, first observed in manuscripts dating from the 11th-12th centuries, was to use a stylus made of graphite, lead or silver. 12 A scribe also could rule the pages with a pen and ink, usually red or brown, but other colors were used as well. There was no fixed standard for ruling a medieval page, but one does observe several patterns: no attempt was usually made to hide ruled lines, the lined portion of the page was usually just as long as the page was wide, and border lines usually extended to the edges of the page. Here is some video of portions of this process at PERGAMENA, the only remaining commercial 10 manufacturer of parchment in North America, Jesse Meyer. His workshop was featured on the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs in 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivmq4D4wp4s&NR=1 and http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2BWc1N9Cqo. These methods are described in Christopher de Hamel, Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators, 11 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1994) 23-26. Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work, (New Haven: Yale Univ. 12 Press, 1992) 38. Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 6
INK The ink of the Middle Ages was a hand-made mixture often called iron-gall ink. The scribe begins by collecting from oak trees the little gall nuts, marble-sized (or larger) nodules which form on the branches after the gall wasp has laid its eggs on a bud. The tree forms a blister around the site, which becomes the gall nut. When the wasps inside mature the larvae excrete an acidic fluid which enables them to bore a tiny hole in the nut and escape. The empty gall nut is crushed up and an infusion is made with distilled water. The scribe then strains this infusion and adds to it copperas (ferrous sulfate, or iron salts, made by pouring sulfuric acid into a pit filled with iron filings, not recommended for home!) and some gum arabic (as a thickener) to create a purply-black acidic ink perfect for etching itself into parchment. Iron-gall ink tends to fade to a sepia-brown color over time, which is the color we most associate with medieval manuscript inks. Erasures were made by surgically scraping the letter off the surface of the parchment with a pen knife, a small, curved blade like a scalpel. Indeed, most depictions of scribes from the period show him holding a quill in his right hand, and a small knife in his left--the knife for sharpening his quill and for erasing mistakes.
QUILLS The making of pens was such common knowledge in the scriptorium that no mention of it is made in the early technical manuscripts. There are many visual depictions of 13 scribes holding and using their pens, however. Books of Hours are full of images of the four Evangelists, St. Jerome, St. John of Patmos and other scribe-saints. We can learn much from these depictions, from what the pens looked like to how they were held, what was the angle of writing, etc. Pens were made from the last five or so wing feathers of geese or swans. A right-handed scribe would use the feathers of the left wing, and vice- versa. The feathers were hardened by letting them sit for a few months, or by curing them in a pot of heated sand. Once a feather was hard, the scribe cut off the very tip, removed the pith, and carefully cut the nib. The nib would have to be recut many times Indeed, Christopher de Hamel notes, The cutting of a quill must have been entirely obvious and so 13 familiar to every educated person from ancient Egypt to nineteenth-century England that it was not thought worthy of mention. 27-29. Cennini does, however, give us an entire early chapter in which the cutting of quills is described (p. 8) and discusses the use of quill barbs as an eraser for a charcoal drawing (p. 75). Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 7 throughout the day to retain its crisp ink line.
The next part of the process is the actual illumination, the laying of gold which catches the light bouncing off its raised, curved surface. Laying gold onto parchment requires both the gold itself as well as something to which the gold can adhere. The gilding must be done at this stage, before the painting, because the excess gold swept off will adhere to paint and mar a finished illustration or decoration.
GOLD
In the Middle Ages, gold beaters would place a Florentine florin or Venetian ducat or other gold coin (or slug) between two pieces of hide, and whack away at it, spreading it out thinner and thinner. Cennini reveals in an extensive section covering all types of gilding that a goldbeater can produce between 100 and 145 leaves from one ducat. 14 Today, gold comes in the same 3X3 leaves, usually in books of 25. This gold is perfect for large areas where you can lay entire sheets at a time, like a panel background; but for small applications it is tedious. It is often called "surface" gold. Thankfully, modern gold also comes adhered to a tissue-like backing paper, a handy convenience for small work. This more convenient form is commonly called "patent" gold. In either case, because modern gold leaf is so much thinner than medieval gold , it is necessary to lay 15 many layers of gold to reach the level of reflectivity and brilliance our medieval counterparts were able to obtain.
Gold also comes in powdered form, like a pigment, and it is mixed with gum arabic and painted with a brush. This is called "shell" gold after the mussel shells used to store it in the scriptorium. An illuminator can save the flakes of gold leaf left over after gilding and Cennini, , p. 84. 14 Thompson, in a note on Cenninis description of how to buy fine gold, provides comparative weight 15 measurements of medieval vs. modern gold leaf: The Venetian ducat weighed 54 troy grains, so Cenninis best leaf weighed something like a half a grain, and his thin leaf, about a third. The best trade leaf nowadays seldom weighs over a fifth of a grain, which equates to about 270 leaves per ducat. p. 84-85n. Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 8 make his own shell gold. Theophilus and Cennini both give recipes for shell gold (although Theophilus recipe is extremely complex). The Mappae Clavicula presents a 16 dizzying array of recipes (over 80!) for all types of manipulated gold--for painting, drawing, lettering, solder, scores of chapters on gilding on various surfaces scattered throughout its 294 chapters.
To adhere the gold to the surface of the parchment, one can use garlic juice (yes) or rabbit skin glue, or gum ammoniac for a matte, flat effect; or burnished gesso for a brilliant, raised and polished effect (with more work, of course!).
RABBIT SKIN GLUE RSG is a gelatin glue made from boiling hides, especially those of rabbits. It comes in sheets or tiny grains. The grains are easiest to use. (See recipe below.) Other hides can also be used to make glue which is slightly stronger than that made from rabbit hides. Theophilus provides three glue recipes: one made from skins and stag horns, and another made from soft cheese (yes), and a third made from a mixture of parchment fragments, eel-skin and fish heads. Cennini gives a recipe for goat hide glue, and mentions the 17 suitability of fish glue in certain applications. Modern fish glue is made from sturgeon 18 and is tackier than RSG, useful in dryer climates or when a stronger adhesive is needed. It is a tricky thing to learn just how much glue and of what type works best for each type of gilding. I have tried rabbit skin glue in my gilding and experienced problems getting the gold to adhere; I have tried fish glue, which is too tacky, and which stays tacky seemingly forever, but which guarantees adhesion of the gold; and I have tried commercially available cow hide glue, which seems to be somewhere in the middle. The trick is to have a gesso which dries hard enough to be polished, but which retains enough hygroscopic tack for the gold leaf to adhere.
GUM AMMONIAC Gum ammoniac is a resin from the herb Dorema ammoniacum. It hardens into amber- colored tears (mixed with branches, grit and other detritus), which can be softened in heated distilled water and strained to give a sticky liquid which, when tinted, can be used for flat, matte gilding. Although I can find no reference to gum ammoniac alone as a gilding mordant, modern scribes and illuminators refer to it as such. 19
Theophilus, XXX, p. 36-39; Cennini, p. 102. 16 Theophilus, XVII and XVIII, pp. 20-23, and XXXIII, pp. 42-43 The Mappae Clavicula also mentions 17 parchment, ox, fish and cheese glues.. Cennini, p. 10, 14, 66-67. 18 Daniel V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting (New York: Dover, 1956) 209. 19 Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 9 GESSO "Gesso" is a word used to describe so many different substances it can get a bit confusing. Usually it is a generic term to describe a plaster-based ground used for priming or preparing surfaces to be painted. Here's a Gesso-101 course:
GESSO = Bologna chalk (calcium carbonate) mixed with rabbit skin glue, used as a priming surface for panel painting
GESSO GROSSO = ground, roasted gypsum or alabaster dust, commonly called "Plaster of Paris," which sets up hard like concrete when mixed with water.
GESSO SOTTILE = "slaked plaster" = gesso grosso which has been rendered inert by rinsing and rinsing with distilled water. This process used to take at least 30 days, but modern plaster of Paris is so finely produced it can be done in one day. Gesso sottile is a silky, soft and extremely fine powder, feeling a lot like cornstarch or talc. It's worth making some yourself--1) it's fun; 2) it's not sold ANYWHERE that I know of, and 3) one batch 20 will last you for years and years of gilding.
GILDER'S GESSO = a mixture of gesso sottile, pigment, clay/bole, and glue used as a raised, polished ground for laying gold leaf. (See Recipe below.)
PIGMENTS The Medieval palette consisted of natural earth colors, ground minerals, vegetable and insect dyes, and artificial colors manufactured in arcane alchemical processes. Here is a sampling of the basic palette:
EARTH COLORS Ochre - natural yellow earth. Ochres come in a huge array of colors, from whites, yellows, reds, greens, purples, even black. They can also be roasted to alter their colors. Cennini calls ochre an all-around color suitable for flesh colors, for draperies, for painted mountains, and buildings and horses, and in general for many purposes.(27-8) 21 Terre Verte - natural green earths, used as a pigment and as a mordant for gilding. Cennini calls terre verte a fat color (30), by which he means it does not want to take much water. This green is an olive color, used primarily for flesh undertones.
I suppose if you had access to a scientific supply catalog, you could get calcium sulphate dihydrate 20 (CaSO4 2H2O), which is the modern chemical equivalent of slaked plaster. Of course being industrially made it would be superior to the homemade variety... I looked into it--I found a single manufacturer-- Yulan Plaster in Hubei, China--but the minimum order is 24 metric tons. It's best to just get out the plastic bucket and the wooden spoon! In the interest of brevity I have put in parentheses the page references in Cennini corresponding to what 21 would have been a cumbersome series of footnotes in this section. Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 10 MINERAL COLORS Malachite - a green carbonate of copper, is rarely mentioned in the medieval treatises, in spite of its widespread use. Cennini calls it blue-green rather than malachite.(31-2) Azurite - mineral salt, a blue carbonate of copper. Ultramarine - pure ground lapis lazuli. There was only one source in the medieval world for the purest lapis lazuli: Badakhshan, Afghanistan. This blue mineral had to make the journey to Europe all that way, and is thus called ultramarine. Cennini gushes, Ultramarine blue is a color illustrious, beautiful, and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would not still surpass... Let some of that color, combined with gold, which adorns all the works of our profession, whether on wall or panel, shine forth in every object.(36) Orpiment or Auripigmentum () - a yellow trisulphide of arsenic, a naturally occurring mineral salt which can also be alchemically manufactured. Cennini calls it a handsome yellow more closely resembling gold than any other color.(29) He also reveals, quite emphatically, that orpiment is very toxic, and warns the artist to beware of soiling your mouth with it, lest you suffer personal injury. The natural mineral is reported to be non- toxic, although I would not put it in my mouth. It is primarily a color for panel 22 painting, as it reacts adversely to parchment, and with other pigments, especially those containing copper or lead. Realgar () - another yellow mineral salt, a disulphide of arsenic. Like its cousin, orpiment, realgar can be manufactured. Cinnabar - natural red sulphide of mercury. This mineral is used to extract pure mercury, which is then alchemically combined with sulphur to form vermilion, a pigment exactly the same as cinnabar (?). I guess vermilion is a purer color than cinnabar...
VEGETABLE/ANIMAL COLORS Woad/Indigo - a blue dye, extracted from plant matter. Indigo is native to India, but woad is native to Europe. Both were used for cloth dye and for a blue pigment useful especially as an ingredient in compound pigments. Thompson makes much of the difficulty and the horrible effects of woad manufacture: farms ravished, countrysides laid waste, city wards made intolerable by the reek of the woad works, waters poisoned, to produce the blue cloths, and incidentally a blue pigment, that the Middle Ages loved and admired. 23 Turnsole or Folium- a dark, transparent blue made from the seeds of the Crozophora plant. This color was used in illumination as an ink for flourishes on capital letters, and as a glaze to deepen other blues. Dragonsblood - a brownish red color made from the sap of a shrub. It was primarily used as a glaze, or as an ingredient in compound colors. Its name comes from the belief, perpetuated and elaborated by medieval writers, that this color was a product of a titanic Ralph Mayer, The Artists Handbook of Materials and Techniques (New York: Viking, 1985) 48. 22 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 139. 23 Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 11 battle between the dragon and the elephant which ended in the mingling of the blood of the two combatants. 24 Crimson - a red dye, made from the insect kermes. All of these vegetable and insect colors are transparent and used as glazes or in compound colors.
ALCHEMICAL COLORS Vermilion () - a red sulphide of mercury. Cennini chose to omit a description of the manufacture of vermilion (24), but the older MSS do contain the recipe (not to try at home!). The Mappae Clavicula begins with a recipe for vermilion which calls for the heating of pure sulphur and mercury in a clay-coated flask, then collecting the results after red vapor is visible. Theophilus says to 25 wait until you hear a noise inside the flask. 26 Ceruse, or Lead white or Flake white () - white acetate of lead roasted to an oxide. This recipe is consistent across all sources. To make white lead one suspends a thin sheet of lead in a pot containing strong vinegar. Seal up this pot and bury it in dung for a length of time (several weeks) and then send your apprentice to collect the crusty white flakes on the lead sheet. These flakes are then ground into lead white. There is no mention in the the Mappae Clavicula or in Theophilus of the dangers of toxic lead pigments. Cennini offers advice to the artist on how to purchase the good ceruse from the apothecary (34), perhaps as a way to avoid its dangerous manufacture. Thompson reports, Medieval writers warn against the dangers of apoplexy, epilepsy, and paralysis which attend the manufacture of white lead, although he tantalizingly does not cite his sources. 27 Minium () - an orange tetroxide of lead made in the same way as ceruse, except that after the white flakes are collected they are roasted, first to a white color, then yellow, then to orange. Verdigris - alchemical, a blue-green acetate of copper. Manufactured in the same way as white lead, only a sheet of copper is suspended over the vinegar. The copper in this pigment is incompatible with lead, so, as Cennini warns, Take care never to get it near any white lead, for they are mortal enemies in every respect.(33) Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 124. 24 Smith and Hawthorne, Mappae Clavicula i, 26. 25 Theophilus, 45. 26 Thompson, Materials and Techniques, 92. 27 Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 12 Lamp Black - the collected soot from burning a candle or oil lamp Charcoal Black - made from burning vines, esp. willow
BINDERS/TEMPERA Medieval illuminators used several different binders to temper their pigments for work on parchment:
1. GUM ARABIC is the hardened sap of the acacia tree (or any fruit tree, really). It is soaked overnight, heated in a double boiler, and will remain liquid for a long time. It is often mixed with honey or glycerin. Gum arabic is the most durable and shiny of the binders.
2. EGG GLAIR is a fluid made from the white of an egg. Whip an egg white to a stiff peak meringue, cover it, and let it sit overnight. In the morning you will find a watery, colored liquid at the bottom of the bowl. This is glair. It will stay OK in the fridge for a couple of days, but then needs to be thrown out and remade. Glair is an extremely common ingredient in many of the recipes from the treatises. Some Medieval and Renaissance artists preferred using distemper--spoiled, putrefied glair--but it smells bad. Some say to put a clove in it, or a drop of clove oil, or just to buck up and use it, stink and all. Glair is a delicate and silky binder.
3. EGG YOLK (TEMPERA) is another common temper for illumination. Separate an egg, carefully dry the yolk by rolling it across a paper towel, pick it up between two fingers and pierce it into a bowl, careful not to get any of the membrane in it. Dilute it with some distilled water and a drop of white vinegar and you have a wonderful painting tempera. Yolk yields a very velvety and rich effect with your pigments. This is also the preferred temper for panel painting.
Various Recipes
These recipes are those that I have adapted over the years for my illumination workshop students. They are based on the ancient recipes, but adapted somewhat to modern working conditions.
Recipe for PAINT
pure pigment distilled water liquid gum arabic or glair honey/sugar/glycerin (optional-see * below)
Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 13 Combine pigment and water to make a paste the consistency of toothpaste, or oil paint from a tube--not too watery. Add drops of gum arabic (or glair or yolk) equal to the volume of paste, and you have basic watercolor paint. Once the paint is made up, it can be left to dry out. To reconstitute, simply put in a few drops of distilled water, let it soak in, then mix and go.
*If you are painting paper or parchment to be bound into a book, add a little sugar or honey or glycerin to the mixture to keep it flexible. If painting for a framed piece, this ingredient is not necessary.
Aim for a consistency somewhere between heavy cream and half-and-half--not too watery, which will be weakly colored and buckle your parchment, but not too thick, which will go on goopy or lumpy--most objectionable.
If you wish, the pigment/water paste can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container. Float a little bit of distilled water over the top to keep it from drying out.
Recipe for GILDING GESSO
4 parts gesso sottile (slaked plaster)=mordant 1 part white pigment (like titanium or lead white)=strengthener 1 part bole=colorant 5-7 parts rabbit skin glue size, or 3-5 parts fish glue*=binder a few drops honey=humectant distilled water as needed for consistency
SAFETY NOTE: If using lead white, wear a dust mask and wear surgical gloves or a finger cot. Never touch a lead or mercury based pigment with bare fingers!!
Mix the gesso sottile and white pigment in a mortar/pestle. Add the bole and mix for quite a while. It will be a crumbly, pasty mess, and then it will turn smooth and pinkish. Add the honey and glue binder starting with 5 parts RSG/3 parts fish, and adding more if needed and diluting with distilled water. The consistency should be like Elmer's white glue, maybe a little thinner. The trick is to apply it in many thin layers rather than in a blob.
*The glue added to the gesso mixture is tricky, and much depends on the relative humidity of the day on which you are gilding. In a humid place RSG works fine. But in dryer climates (like Kansas in Autumn, Winter or Spring) use hide or fish glue. Gesso made with rabbit glue (or pure hide glue) will gel up after a time, so it must be kept warm. There are several ways to do this, the safest and easiest of which is one of those electric coffee cup warmers. The fish glue/liquid hide glue recipe does not need heating.
Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 14 A note on BUBBLES--avoid them at all costs! With respects to Don Ho, nothing ruins hard gilding work like tiny bubbles. Stir the gesso very carefully to avoid whipping it up and introducing bubbles. If they do appear (and they will) try to gently coax them to the side of the vessel you are using and remove them. Prick them with a pin. Use an eyelash (no makeup) that you have rubbed with a little oil from the side of your nose, or from behind your ear. The oil will pop the bubble. Another method handed down to us from the Middle Ages, and which really works is to stick the heel of your brush into your ear and collect a tiny bit of earwax, and use this blob to break the bubbles. They burst immediately! Something about surface tension--I don't understand why, but it works.
You can gild with this gesso immediately, but you certainly won't need all that you've made, so you can store the excess for later. To store it tape some plastic wrap onto a rigid card board. Carefully stir the gesso and pour it onto the plastic wrap in little buttons about the size of a dime/nickel. Make sure to stir the gesso before pouring each button, to ensure an even mixture in each button. When no more gesso will pour out, put a few drops of distilled water in the mortar, stir gently, and make a few last buttons. Allow these to dry fully (overnight). In the morning slit the plastic wrap, pop the buttons off and store them in a film canister, plastic container, jar or anything dust and moisture free. They will last indefinitely.
To reconstitute one of the dried buttons, crumble one up into a shot glass or palette cup and add 1 or 2 drops distilled water and wait five minutes. Mix it gently with your finger (protected if using lead white using a finger cot or surgical glove). Cover the mass with 1/8 inch of distilled water and wait 10 more minutes. Then very gently stir the gesso with your finger, being careful not to introduce bubbles. You're now ready to gild. If its a nice humid day...
Recipe for RABBIT SKIN GLUE
1 part rabbit skin glue crystals 14 parts distilled water
Soak the RSG grains overnight in the water. In the morning you will find a gamey- smelling gelatinous goo. Put this in a double boiler and heat gently (do NOT boil!) until liquefied. After a little while it will have to be heated up again to re-liquefy. RSG should keep about a week in the fridge in an airtight container.
Recipe to make GESSO SOTTILE (Slaked Plaster)
1-cup gesso grosso (plaster of Paris) 1 gallon distilled water 4-5 pieces litmus paper Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 15
Traditionally, GESSO GROSSO was stirred for 30 minutes straight, then soaked in a bucket for a period of 1 month. During the tedious process, old water was drawn off daily, new water added and the mixture was stirred well and often. The plaster was considered slaked when the water remained clear, usually after about 30 days. This process not only cleans impurities from the plaster, but also adds an extra water molecule, or slakes it, so that it does not want to bind to itself. After reading and retranslating Cenninis original text Jerry Tresser has made this process a bit easier for modern scribes. He did many tests and found that plaster can be slaked in 30 minutes rather than 30 days (Larger amounts of plaster require more time, but 4-5 cups of plaster can be slaked in a couple of hours. That amount of slaked plaster will last most scribes several years.). Part of the time saved by using the modern process of slaking plaster has to do with starting out with a product that is more pure than its period counterpart. The rest has to do with realizing that unslaked plaster is acidic, slaked plaster is pH neutral. To slake plaster in 30 minutes: Test the distilled water with the litmus paper to make sure it is pH neutral. Place the Plaster of Paris in the bowl and cover with 3-4 cups of water. Stir well for 5 minutes then let the plaster settle to the bottom of the bowl. (Do not let the plaster sit in the bottom of the bowl without stirring for long periods of time. If the plaster is not completely slaked it will harden.) As soon as the plaster has settled, drain off the water, add fresh water, stir well and let settle again. Repeat this 2-3 times then test the water. If the litmus paper reads neutral, you are done. If not, repeat the process until the litmus paper gives the expected response. Once the water/plaster becomes pH neutral it is slaked. No matter how many times the mixture is stirred, the water is changed or how long the plaster soaks, it never gets any more slaked. Drain off as much water as possible, let the plaster dry in the bowl. You can store the dried plaster as a cake or grind it up and put it in a jar or small plastic container to store.
This amount of GESSO SOTTILE should last you many years.
Techniques
GILDING Its great to gild on a muggy day. The humidity helps the gold to adhere. Some modern illuminators put humidifiers in their scriptoria to increase the ambient humidity. This is especially necessary if you are using rabbit skin glue. Fish glue is much stickier and does not require the higher moisture.
Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 16 1. Outline the area to be gilded with waterproof ink, according to the design. 2. Paint on your size - one layer if using garlic juice or gum ammoniac - many thin layers if using gesso, depending on the height desired, stirring gently all the time - "spooning" method - for small areas like a leaf or other form - place a blob of gesso in the center of the form and then push it, spooning it with the brush, into the edges of the form, creating the illusion of embossing - attend to bubbles immediately 3. Let the size dry completely (even between layers) 4. Cut a piece of gold larger than the size you need for an area-don't be stingy 5. Lean over the gesso (or use a paper tube) and breathe slowly on the size 2-3 times, moistening it 6. Place the gold onto the moistened size immediately and press firmly through glassine, or using a finger wrapped in a piece of silk, for about 10 seconds. 7. With the burnisher, run around the edges of the gold through the glassine, and then across the top and sloped shoulders of the form. 8. Just leave it to dry thoroughly (overnight is best). 9. Lay one or two more layers onto the first, using the breathing method above if some of the gesso base shows through. 10. Clean up with a soft brush and Xacto scalpel knife, saving gold flakes in a film canister for making shell gold later. 11. Burnish directly onto the gold with agate or hematite burnisher. 12. If you need to restore the black outline by painting onto gold, you'll need to mix up some egg yolk tempera for your black to cover the gold. 13. Finish ALL gilding BEFORE applying paint, as gold will stick to paint.
PAINTING 1. Outline your design with a pigment pen, or with waterproof ink, or leave it penciled only, as you prefer. I find it easier to work within thin pen lines which can be touched up later with black paint. 2. Paint in several thin layers rather than in goopy globs. 3. Mix up three values of each color: the basic pigment alone, the pigment with some white added, and that second pigment with more white added. 4. Lay the middle value first, then shadow and highlight, then deepest shadow and highest highlight. 5. Blue is highlighted in lighter blue, gold or white; green in gold or yellow; brown in gold or yellow; red in pink or gold or white. 6. Using a pen or fine brush, make all the finish details, touch-up corrections and little embellishments to richen up the piece. Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 17
Supplies and Resources
SUPPLIES For PIGMENTS, GUMS & RESINS, RABBIT SKIN GLUE, GILDING SUPPLIES and all sorts of supplies:
KREMER PIGMENTS 247 West 29th Street New York, NY 10001 (212) 219-2394 www.kremerpigments.com
Dr. Kremer has stores in New York City and in Germany. They produce a very informative catalog and have a comprehensive website. Order by catalog or online. They also have brushes, containers, books, inks and other supplies for historical materials/techniques like oil, encaustic and fresco.
NATURAL PIGMENTS PO Box 112 Willits, CA 95490 (888) 361-5900 www.naturalpigments.com
Another comprehensive catalog offering many of the same items as Kremer, with pigments sold under the name Rublev.
PAPER & INK ARTS 3 North Second Street Woodsboro, MD 21798 (800) 736-7772 www.paperinkarts.com
Parchment can be purchased in small sizes through this catalogue. They're very nice and helpful folks. Their catalog also sells a HUGE array of calligraphy supplies and books
Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 18 Full skins, more economical than the smaller pieces but requiring cutting, can come directly from the last manufacturer in North America, Jesse Meyer, at PERGAMENA in New York.
For BRUSHES, PALETTES, RULERS, GLASSINE, PAPERS, MUSEUM BOARDS, etc, I just go to MICHAEL'S, HOBBY LOBBY or the UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE.
RESOURCES Here are some websites that might be useful to you as you explore the world of the modern medieval scriptorium.
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES PAGES
www.pergamena.net Jesse Meyer's website, with lots of useful information about the manufacture of various kinds of parchment.
www.medievalscript.com A wonderful resource for all things scriptorial, a scholarly website examining many important historical manuscripts. A great resource for visual images of medieval books.
http://www.jcsparks.com/painted/index2.html Recipes for gilding, painting and inks from Julie Sparks, and a nice chronicle of two projects she did, one Greek and one Latin.
Check out also the websites for the famous libraries and collections of original manuscripts, like the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Getty, Pierpont Morgan Library, the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, the Vatican Library, etc.
ARTISTS PAGES
http://illuminations.ca/index.html Canadian artist Kathryn Finter does beautiful illumination work, as well as tempera on panel..
www.reggieezell.com Look at Reggie's gallery for some ideas on more modern illumination.
There's so much out there to explore! Faculty Colloquium: The BOOK (Fall 2010) Tony Silvestri 19 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Jonathan J.G. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1992.
Cennini, Cennino dAndrea. Il libro dellarte (The Craftsmans Handbook). Translated by Daniel V. Thompson. New York: Dover Publications, 1960.
Clarke, Mark. Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Pigments. Studies in Conservation Vol. 49, No. 4 (2004) 231-244, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487700 (accessed April 3, 2010).
deHamel, Christopher. Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1994.
Drogin, Marc. Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique. New York: Dover, 1980.
Elkins, James. What Painting Is. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Mayer, Ralph. The Artists Handbook of Materials and Techniques. New York: Viking, 1985.
Smith, Cyril Stanley and John G. Hawthorne. Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval Techniques. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 64, No. 4 (1974), 1-128, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006317 (accessed April 2, 2010).
Theophilus Rugerus, De diversis artibus. (c. 1100) Translated by Robert Hendrie. London: John Murray, 1847. http://books.google.com/books? id=wo4EAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=twopage&q&f=false (accessed October 11, 2010).
Thompson, Daniel V. The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting. New York: Dover, 1956.
Vellum Maker. By Mike Rowe. Dirty Jobs. Discovery Channel. November 25, 2008.
Vinas, Salvador Munoz. Original Written Sources for the HIstory of Medieval Painting Techniques and Materials: A List of Published Texts. Studies in Conservation Vol. 43, No. 2 (1998) 114-124, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1506648 (accessed April 4, 2010).
Lehmann, Sophie-Ann - Esner, Rachel - Kisters, Sandra - Hiding Making - Showing Creation - The Studio From Turner To Tacita Dean-Amsterdam University Press (2013)