This leaf is about 4"x5.5". It is from the middle of the 15^th century, and was created near Grenoble. The palette is limited to red, blue, yellow, white, and both flat gilding and shell gold. A suggested modern palette might be ultramarine blue+white, carmine, cad red+white, lemon yellow, white, and gold.

The whitework has been done after the gilded area has been re-outlined with black ink. The ink used in the illuminated areas is a strong black--my guess is that it is a soot ink. The background red is a carmine color; the red in the calligraphy details, below, is more an orange.

There are several things worthy of note in these details. 1. Both of the text samples contain sections of smaller handwriting. While I do not read medieval latin and so can not be sure, I suspect that these sections of smaller handwriting are the preface notes that are, in modern bibles, usually at the beginning of books and chapters, set in smaller, italic type. 2. The baseline shows a definate upward slant. The leaf is set up that way, it is not a mistake in the scan. 3. Again, the letters are not typeset-perfect. There are variations on the size and in the spacing. Perfect appearance is not typical in handwritten books.

Also note that the secondary capitals are blue with red tracery or gold with black tracery, and minor capitals are touched in yellow. Particular words/abbreviations are written in red. The x-height is approximately 1/8". The leaf appears to have been writen with a ferrogallic ink that is currently a deep brown.

 Note the downward slant on this side. One wonders if the leaf was out of place in the stack when the ruling markes were set up, or if the person doing the ruling was just plain drunk. ;-)

 I like the little red tip behind the "serif" of the "B." I have wondered if that was deliberate, or a mistake.

This is probably the most unique feature of this particular leaf. Usually, gilded initials are surrounded by black tracery, and evidence of this typical design element can clearly be seen in the initials above. What is unusual, however, is the shell gold background; the centers of the initials have been painted with shell gold and small punched dots or black lines applied over the shell gold. The punched dots appear to have caused the shell gold to flake away, leaving a reddish base showing through. Further, the "u/v" above looks almost like the punching went awry and the scribe just scribbled over his/her mistake.