It is permanently displayed at the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland, and is Ireland’s most treasured artifact. The Book of Kells is one of the best-preserved examples of illuminated manuscripts that exist today. Manuscript (derived from the Latin word manus, which means “hand ” and the Latin word scriptus, a form of scriber, which means “to write”).Illuminated (derived from the Latin word illuminare, which means “to light up”).The room in the medieval European monastery used for creating illuminated manuscripts was called the scriptorium it literally means “a place for writing.”Ī simple way to explain illuminated manuscripts is to define the words: The monks created most books to record and share religious stories. Prior to universities, monasteries were a commonplace of education. You and your kids probably don’t have the time (or the quietness) to copy entire books as the monks did, but I’ll show you a simple way to recreate the colorful, glowing, illustrated letters that fill the pages of old. These decorations often included radiant colors accented with gold and silver, creating a glowing, “illuminating” effect that gave these special books their name: ill uminated manuscripts. They wrote on parchment (a stiff, flat, thin material made from animal skin that was used in ancient and medieval times as a durable writing surface) and included beautifully decorated letters, borders, and important scenes, making each book a one-of-a-kind piece of ancient art. Before the days of printing presses and mass-produced, full-color books-before the e-reader was even imagined-books were written, decorated and painted by hand, one page at a time, often by monks quietly working for hours upon hours in their monasteries.
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