Illuminated
Manuscripts: The Book Before Gutenberg
by Giulia Bologna
197 pages hardback.
I like the De Hamel book best, but for the money this wins big. Lots
of color photos all through. Historical context. Discussion
of materials. Talks about ancient writing materials and things like wax
tablets, parchment writing tools, inks, pens, different scripts, abreviations,
punctuation, numerals, bindings, book production and commerce, scribe and
scriptorium, index of great libraries and their MSS, list of known
illuminators.
