Specimens of Illuminated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, From the Sixth to the Sixteenth Century

Specimens of Illuminated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages is a chromolithographic art book by Henry Noel Humphreys (1810-1879), the English illustrator, antiquary, and writer on numismatics and natural history who was one of the leading Victorian popularisers of medieval manuscript art. Humphreys produced a long series of luxurious illustrated books in the 1840s and 1850s that used the new technique of chromolithography to reproduce medieval gold-leaf and pigment work for a wide Victorian audience. The Specimens volume gathers careful colour facsimiles of pages from medieval Books of Hours, Bibles, and Psalters from European libraries, with introductory text on the history of the illuminated book from late antiquity through the close of the Middle Ages. The book helped shape Victorian taste in Gothic Revival design and the early study of medieval book art. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.