Uncovering the Art of Medieval Calligraphy: Exploring Its History and Crafting Techniques

Amazon Customer: No es lo que esperaba.No tiene algabetos completos ni como ejecutarlos.Esta muy bien en la teoria,tiene mucha informacion,pero para practicar mepareceun poco pobre.

Spain on Nov 29, 2023

K B: Was most interested in medieval writing.

United States on Oct 08, 2023

treviso: Ottimo manuale

Italy on Aug 29, 2023

Elizabeth Pyatt: Whether you are interested in medieval calligraphy or medieval documents, this book is a great place to start. The book provides a chronological presentation of different script families used from the early medieval to just before the printing press is invented. The author Marc Drogin is a practicing calligrapher, so there is a lot of technical information about how to replicate the lettering for modern pieces. But the book does a pretty deep dive into actual medieval documents including lots of photos of real manuscripts in different languages from Old English to Latin and Middle French. This isn't a paleography course, but this does give real insight into the documents containing text from the MIddle Ages from beautiful illuminated letters to tiny snippets of Anglo Saxon 'glosses' inserted between lines of Vulgate Latin in a Bible. I have an even deeper appreciation of the value of these documents and the value the writing centers have for European civilization.

United States on Apr 03, 2023

Luis Gomes: Excelente livro acerca de caligrafia medieval. Uma verdadeira bíblia acerca da caligrafia deste período bem como um excelente começo para quem quer iniciar-se neste tipo.

Spain on Mar 07, 2023

J. W.: If you’re interested in calligraphy- particularly the blocky, angular, medieval variety- this book is fantastic.

The first 40% is history. Extremely interesting to certain types of people, but perhaps a bore to others. There’s ample black&white photographs of examples. It’s a shame they aren’t in color, but that would have significantly increased the price of the book.

The next 40% covers 12 scripts from the 1st to the 13th centuries (and beyond). Again, numerous B&W photographs of samples. Most scripts are presented as one or more plates of all letters with some indication regarding stroke direction and order for more complex letters. Stroke guidance isn’t explicitly provided for every single letter, but you should be able to make a reasonable educated guess.

The last 20% is miscellany: page layout, references, etc.

There are other books that cover a broader spectrum of scripts- with perhaps one or two of the medieval persuasion for good measure. But, I like this focused approach as it gives perspective on how writing changed over time.

United States on Mar 02, 2022

Mary Bedy: I was frustrated with calligraphy books that only contained modern, sometimes not too attractive lettering forms, but I also wanted to know the history of the evolution of the text used in illuminated manuscripts, which I find fascinating and beautiful. This book is perfect for both. If you are looking simply for a lot of older alphabets to copy, this is not the book for you, but if you would like samples of a few alphabets from the middle ages to work with and also know the history of the evolution of the practice and how preferences changed over time, this is a wonderful book. Keep in mind, this is black and white - no color in the book and no "practice pages" to write in, but that wasn't the purpose of the book. I highly recommend this book if you like the history of the illuminated manuscript - this one very much concentrates on the text therein and its evolution.

United States on Jan 31, 2021

Elizabeth: I cannot believe my luck finding this book. I was doing a lot of research on Medieval handwriting and paleography for an art project. I want to create original art using different types of scripts along with some knowledge I have about Old and Middle English. Originally I tried to blow the letters up and trace them, but it didn't work well because the letters varied a bit in size over different pages (had to use different pages because for instance a capital Q isn't found very often).

I decided to try to learn the writing styles myself. I found this book and thought I might as well try it. It is PERFECT. I was expecting it maybe to show different styles, but it actually teaches you how to write them. I'm amazed that this book wasn't written exactly for my project. It even has a picture of the specific manuscript I had used for my tracing attempt.

I also wanted to add that my art will be given to others who may not be well-versed in letters like wynn, a w that looks like a p. I had considered trying to make modern letters for that reason. But lo and behold, this book has modern letters already made for me for scripts with old-fashioned ones.

The author also...

United States on Sep 25, 2018

Heather: certainly a detailed book with guidelines on how the letters are formed, and when they were used and how styles merged. There were lists of unique features of scripts that differentiate them from others that look similar. The spacing on the page was discussed, the widths between lines, the angulation (some are slanted scripts and some are not and if you do it incorrectly, it will look so OFF)... Made me feel educated!! I enjoyed the pages of examples that showed variations used in period, and stylistic things that one might not have noticed but which make a more authentic reproduction or artwork. I got a kick out of learning that Artificial half Uncial would make the second letter after a big one be half size and surrounded by red dots before coming down to the regular font size. And to learn that a little tail would join a big decorative initial letter to the sentence it was belonging to, in a densely packed page. There needed to be more info on how to twist the pen to achieve certain looks, and how to create some of the trickier serifs. There were questions I had after using this to learn two scripts, but it got me most of the way through.

Canada on Jan 30, 2018

Jose R. Valverde Carrillo: Si te interesa la caligrafía, disfrutarás leyendo este libro. La primera parte proporciona una introducción histórica a la evolución de la caligrafía *occidental* desde sus orígenes romanos hasta el final de la Edad Media. La segunda parte muestra cómo escribir (el "ductus") un buen número de alfabetos medievales.

Siempre teniendo en cuenta que el libro está en inglés, el texto es fácil de leer, entretenido e interesante. Las descripciones de los alfabetos son sucintas y sencillas, lo que es muy de agradecer.

La primera parte no tiene parangón en los textos sobre caligrafía: prácticamente casi todos los textos subsiguientes se refieren a éste cuando quieren tratar la historia de la caligrafía medieval. Si uno desea llegar más lejos, tendría que irse ya a tratados sobre paleografía. La segunda parte es también excelente: a fuer de sucinta, no llega a ser dogmática, cosa que se agradece sobremanera. La mayoría de textos suelen describir el "ductus" o proceso de escritura "magistral" exclusivamente, cosa que funciona bien en muchos casos, pero ignoran el proceso de escritura "cursivo" (o rápido). Este libro describe la historia de los alfabetos...

Spain on Oct 03, 2017