I'm fascinated by illuminated manuscripts. So much to love about them, from the sacred texts that are made even more sacred through artistic embellishment, to the archaic secrets behind ink formulas and quills, to the gold leaf and the preparation of the animal skin vellums. And what got me started again with this interest? I’ve recently been reading C.G. Jung’s “Red Book”. It was made public for the first time last month. Jung, of course, touches on some other favorites--mythology and symbolism--which were richly portrayed in medieval times, the peak of production for illuminated manuscript. All of these converging interests of mine, going round and round, circling in toward that which draws me strongly, artistically. Here are some images from Jung's "Red Book"

So I'm prowling the internet again, searching for images of ancient texts, and tonight I hit the mother lode. It seems that palaeographists are so thankfully passionate about their discipline they’ve built enormous (and, best of all, free) online image libraries of historical texts and manuscripts. The sites take some patience to navigate and presume the viewer knows more than a little about the subject, so you have to do some poking around to get to the images. My favorite site is the Digital Scriptorium -- http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/. But unless you happen to know the precise name of a manuscript or the collection it’s held in, it’s easiest to start by clicking “more highlights” on the home page. Initially I gaped at everything without discrimination, but after awhile it got easier to discern the high quality manuscripts from the low. While all are wonderous, a few stand out as true works of art. The Book of Kells is of course familiar to most, but of the hundreds I looked at my favorite by far is a manuscript at Harvard University’s Houghton Library -- the Calderini Pontificale dating from the late 14^th century Italy. It’s undoubtedly one of the most finely executed illuminated manuscripts in existence. Here are some goodies --