Book contents
- Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages
- Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology
- Additional material
- Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 The New Medieval Book and Its Heritage
- 2 The St. Petersburg Gregory Manuscript and Its Ornament
- 3 Seeing and Reading
- 4 Decorated Words in Late Antiquity
- 5 Illuminated Manuscripts from Luxeuil and Bobbio
- 6 Early Insular Manuscripts in Relation to the Beginnings of Book Illumination
- 7 The Beginnings of Book Illumination and the Ethnic Paradigm in Modern Historiography
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Manuscript Index
- Subject Index
4 - Decorated Words in Late Antiquity
Roots of Illumination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2023
- Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages
- Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology
- Additional material
- Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 The New Medieval Book and Its Heritage
- 2 The St. Petersburg Gregory Manuscript and Its Ornament
- 3 Seeing and Reading
- 4 Decorated Words in Late Antiquity
- 5 Illuminated Manuscripts from Luxeuil and Bobbio
- 6 Early Insular Manuscripts in Relation to the Beginnings of Book Illumination
- 7 The Beginnings of Book Illumination and the Ethnic Paradigm in Modern Historiography
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Manuscript Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The sophisticated book decoration with color and ornament visible in the St. Petersburg Gregory manuscript accords well with the changes in reading and educational practices discussed in the preceding chapters, with the conception of composition in prose and verse demonstrably current in the monasteries in Francia and to some extent in Italy, especially those associated with the mission of Columbanus, the world in which the new art of manuscript illumination emerges in the later seventh century. However, even if one accepts that the changes in reading practice are a helpful or even necessary means of understanding the manuscript’s novel decoration, they are certainly not a sufficient means of understanding it. The St. Petersburg Gregory manuscript is a visual work, not a disembodied text. Its decoration may be analogous to verbal ornament and syntax, as I have suggested, but it is built around entirely different elements, forms rather than sounds. Those forms have their own history, and so does the context in which they appear in the St. Petersburg Gregory, namely the parchment codex.
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- Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages , pp. 147 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023