En senantik initialhandskrift

Abstract

Summary “A Late Antique Manuscript with Initials” by C. Nordenfalk. In order to gain a correct idea of the origin and characteristics of mediaeval initial ornamentation it is necessary to acquire an intimate knowledge of the principles on which it was practised in the art of book production in late antiquity. Only a small number of Late Antique manuscripts illuminated with initials have been preserved. Attention has been drawn to some of these by E. H. Zimmermann in his Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, Berlin 1916, but many important ones have been overlooked. Perhaps the most important one of all is the MS of Paulus Orosius’ Historiae; adversam paganos in Florence, Biblioteca Laurentiana, Plut. LXV, 1 which the paper here summarized first introduces into art‐historical discussion. The illumination of the MS consists—apart from a large number of initials (figs. 3–6, 8–12, 14–16)—of decorative borders surrounding the colophons (figs. 1–2). A strong Greek influence is discernible in the design of one of these bo...