John Stracke’s Book Reviews: Calligraphy & Illumination

(Formerly A Scribe’s Bibliography)

Some of these I’ve read and recommend; some are recommended by others. The latter I haven’t read yet, but I’m passing along the information (with proper attribution, of course). Further recomendations are most welcome! Each book is marked with one or two icons: Links to a review of the book. Links to the book’s page at Amazon.com.

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Outline

• General
• Calligraphy
• Illumination
• Bookbinding
• Specific cultures/styles
  • Celtic
  • Hebrew

General

• Medieval Craftsmen SCRIBES AND ILLUMINATORS By Christopher De Hamel. ISBN 0-7141-2049-9.
• Illuminated Manuscripts: The Book Before Gutenberg. By Giulia Bologna. ISBN 1-55584-275-5
• The Illuminated Page. By Janet Backhouse. ISBN 0802043461
• Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art . By Roger S. Wieck. ISBN 0807614181. Recommended by Arianwen ferch Maelgwn.

Calligraphy

• Medieval Calligraphy, by Marc Drogin. The most common calligraphy book in use in the SCA, Drogin will teach you hands for most periods.
• Calligraphy of the Middle Ages and How to Do It, also by Marc Drogin. Formerly released (in a different form?) as Yours Truly, King Arthur.
• English Royal Signatures, ed. R.J.Goulden, HMSO, London, 1973, ISBN 0-11-440052-0. Examples from Richard II (1386) to Elisabeth II (1953), taken from public documents.
• I’ve heard there’s a new calligraphy book out that shows the motions more explicitly in some difficult hands. More info when I have it.
• See also: Celtic Alphabets, Illuminated Letters.

Illumination

• Art in the Making ITALIAN PAINTING BEFORE 1400 ISBN: 0-947645-67-5 randyaf: Mostly about how a panel painting was made,step by step with so many photographs and detailed descriptions that you could make a 100% forgery.
• SKRIPTORIUM Die Buchherstellung im Mittelalter, by Vera Trost ISBN: 3-7630-1212-5 randyaf: Pictures of everything! Do you read German?
• UNDERSTANDING ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS A Guide to Technical Terms. By Michelle P. Brown ISBN:0-89236-217-0
• Medieval Craftsmen PAINTERS. by Paul Binski ISBN 0-8020-6918-5
• See also: Animal Patterns, Knotwork: The Secret Method of the Scribes, Spiral Patterns, The Dragon and the Griffin: The Viking Impact, The Tree of Life, Maze Patterns.

Bookbinding

• THE MEDIEVAL BOOK. By Barbara Shailor ISBN0-8020-6853-7 randyaf: Photos and discussion about how books were made and what they were made of. Really Good.

Specific cultures/styles

Celtic

• Aidan Meehan’s Celtic Design series is wonderful for teaching techniques, though he’s fairly light on his documentation--no copies of period works, for example, which makes it hard to figure out which pieces go together. The best bet is probably to look to other sources to see period works, and come to Meehan to figure out how to duplicate the elements.
  • A Beginner’s Manual
  • Animal Patterns
  • Illuminated Letters
  • Knotwork: The Secret Method of the Scribes
  • Spiral Patterns
  • The Dragon and the Griffin: The Viking Impact
  • The Tree of Life
  • For Painting and Crafts I haven’t seen this one yet; from the description, it seems to be aimed at non-scribal works (painting on pottery, for example).
  • Maze Patterns
• Celtic Alphabets
• George and Iain Bain (father and son): disrecommended. Stay away from them; their techniques are excessively complicated, and do not produce better results than Meehan’s simpler ones. I have, however, heard the opinion that, once you’ve learned the techniques from Meehan, the Bains make good sources of ideas; for that reason, I list:
  • Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction. By George Bain. ISBN: 0-486-22923-8.

Hebrew

• Hebrew Manuscript Painting. By David Goldstein. ISBN: 0-7123-0054-6.
• Hebrew Manuscript Painting. By Joseph Gutmann. ISBN: 0-8076-0891-2.
• From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress. By Abraham J. Karp. ISBN: 0847814505. Recommended by Arianwen ferch Maelgwn.
• The Golden Haggadah. By Bezalel Narkiss. ISBN: 0-8765-4481-2.
• The Illuminated Haggadah: Featuring Medieval Illuminations from the Haggadah Collection of the British Library. By Michael Shire. ISBN: 1-5567-0800-9 The reviews at Amazon.com on this one are highly favorable.

Compiled by François Thibault