A brief look at Merovingian

#merovingian #script #halfuncial

Merovingian script is NOT one of the high points of European script development and design.

Frankly it looks like some one at one monastic workshop taught his personal script to his students and it spread to other workshops until replaced by the Carolingian scripts. I also suspect whoever initialized this half uncial form was reacting against the ornate layouts and decoration of Irish books?

However I can see  elements or perhaps seeds within Merovingian style that later bloomed into something richer.

Merovingian has almost exaggerated ascenders and descenders compared to uncial or later scripts.

Also a love of "white space" ... king of the franks pippin 4 ...

and geometric grid based layouts

a limited color palette but some playfulness with initials

but that limited palette shows some Irish influence and moments of elegance

finally this delightful"kissing fish"  letter !

Scribes as Apostles and vice versus.

There seems to have been a meme amongst Manuscript Illuminators of depicting St.Mark as a Scribe.

Here's a gallery of some of the images I've found so far

I do wonder if any of these were "selfies" by the scribe / illuminator ?

Mark and Manuscripts

#stmark #illuminedmanuscripts #illustration

Here are three different approaches to depicting #SaintMarkEvangelist in Illumined manuscripts on parchment.

A semi abstract Celtic approach from the Lindisfarne Gospel

yet byzantine manuscripts use other styles

and finally from the Grand Hours of Anne Duchess of Brittany