![]() ![]() Whoever made the manuscript cut a fragment from the pardon and used the blank parchment on its reverse side for writing the first page of the exorcism manual. Importantly, the royal pardon is not a later addition but original to Harley MS 2874. It may be the same pardon of debts owed to the Exchequer that Babington and his monastery are known to have received on 23 December 1451. 1453), who was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk between 14. With the aid of Ultraviolet light it can be identified as a royal pardon from King Henry VI to William Babington (d. This page is not part of the Coniuratio malignorum spirituum, but rather it contains a text in a different script that is both fragmentary and faded. ![]() An important clue to their identity can be found on the manuscript’s first page. But why did they do this? For an answer to this question, we need to look into the scribe’s background. Since none of the Italian versions contains secret writing, the Harley manuscript was almost certainly encrypted by the scribe who copied it. Each of the four Masters made specific choices in the use of some of these materials the technical analysis therefore supports the stylistic attribution of hands and helps characterise each artist’s palette.‘Mfmfntp lxckffr’ (Memento lucifer): Harley MS 2874, f. No less than four different yellow and orange pigments were identified, as well as four different blues and four greens. Flesh tones contain variable amounts of lead white, chalk, vermilion as well as traces of earth pigments, at times supplemented by indigo or copper-based pigments in the shadows. Mosaic gold was used to paint the full architectural borders on fols. Shell gold was used extensively and shell silver was detected on a few folios. ![]() In a few cases, however, a purple organic dye was identified. Pink hues were obtained with insect-based dyes, which were mixed with azurite to obtain the purple hue visible in the violet-grey initials present on most pages and in selected details on a few folios. The rich palette shared by the four main artists and their assistants includes carbon black, lead white, chalk, vermilion and red lead. Every page has a one-sided strewn-flower panel in its outer border, and a profusion of initials and line fillers with violet-grey acanthus delicately graded in white against russet backgrounds patterned with exquisite shell gold motifs. Less important texts open with historiated initials, also surrounded by full borders. Large miniatures of Christ, the Virgin and the saints with full borders mark major text divisions. Another deluxe feature is the provision of full historiated borders for all twelve Calendar pages and for many other texts throughout the volume. Painted on single leaves, the frontispieces demonstrate an expedient measure adopted by manuscript professionals by the early 15th century, namely the production of individual images ready for insertion into a volume as and when a client wished to upgrade a standard manuscript into a richly illustrated one. Three of the frontispieces are still in the manuscript the fourth one, originally inserted before fol. The four large clusters of texts received double openings with a full-page frontispiece facing a large initial surrounded by a full border. The manuscript combines the texts and images characteristic of late medieval Books of Hours with less canonical, but equally popular texts and illustrations found in deluxe commissions.
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