This page featuring the Adoration of the Child features beautiful floral motifs, brilliant colors, and acanthus details. I wish you all the very best of holidays, no matter how or with whom you choose to celebrate.
My amazing husband, who is far more scholarly than I could ever hope to be, sent me a link to some images of the Codex Gigas aka "The Devil's Bible" the other day. Codex Gigas, Latin for "Large book" lives up to its name being 890 mm tall by 490 mm wide, (35.04 Inches by 19.29 inches) and 310 parchment leaves thick. That's nearly 3 feet tall by 1.5 feet wide. Closed! Just imagine how huge this thing is when open. It is probably the biggest European Medieval manuscript to have survived.
There are many interesting stories about it, since it is said to have been created by one single man. There is a legend that it was a monk who sold his soul to the devil and created this piece in one night after doing so. Much of this has to do with the huge page donning an image of the devil.
It's an utterly fascinating book. I urge you to watch this National Geographic piece on it if you are at all interested in manuscript arts. You can also browse images of the manuscript at the National Library of Sweden.
A while back I was asked to do a scroll in a "16th Century Dutch Style," which led me to doing some research to see if such a thing is feasible in the timeline desired. Most peeps in the scribal community are familiar with the Flemish style aka "squashed bug" style of illumination. The technical term is trompe l'eoile. So I had a vague clue, but didn't know a solid time frame on this style. The thing I found interesting is that this style is known as the Ghent-Bruges school. Many students of said school were from Southern Flanders and decided to wander further south, making a living in the fabulosity that is Italy.
The most notable Ghent-Bruges piece I've run across is the Grimani Breviary (yes, Italy, you soak up all that is awesome). (By the way, if any of you have a rich benefactor, please get them to send me a facsimile copy of the Grimani Breviary!)
So, here's the interesting part, for those interested in costuming. Check out fol 228 v. The clothing seems to be an interesting mix of Flemish and Italian... but what is up with the lady on the third row up, on the left? What is that on her head?
I don't have much to report yet on the status of my ACC project, so I thought I'd share this crazy thing that I'm surprised I hadn't seen before.
The Blackbird Archive shared the rumors that this monk automaton, which is a very rare and very early example of European clock technology has a very interesting past:
"Tradition attributes his manufacture to one Juanelo Turriano, mechanician to Emperor Charles V. The story is told that the emperor's son King Philip II, praying at the bedside of a dying son of his own, promised a miracle for a miracle, if his child be spared. And when the child did indeed recover, Philip kept his bargain by having Turriano construct a miniature penitent homunculus."
The little clockwork monk c. 1560-1562 now resides in the Smithsonian (although no longer on display), and you can view him in action here:
Elizabeth King's fascinating Clockwork Prayer article delves into the history of the monk, the story about Emperor Charles V, the attribution of the automaton, and the historians involved, and unearths interesting things about the past and the validity of the story itself. (Go read it. It's long but well worth it.)
Whether Juanelo Turriano aka Gianello Torriano was actually the monk's maker or not (which seems to still be somewhat speculative as there are no recorded monk automatons in a royal inventory), he was known to be a brilliant clock maker and engineer in Charles V's employ. According to King,
"Today we know of the existence, around the world, of two other monk-like automata, and four lady musicians, all sharing the same basic chassis design and body mechanism, and all dated to the second half of the sixteenth century."
While I'm certainly not the person to do it, I think it would be amazing if someone took this concept and turned it in to an Arts and Sciences project in the SCA.
For those of you interested in post-SCA things, like you amazing 18th Century costumers out there, here's a gem for you: an android made for Marie Antoinette:
