Mediaeval Alphabets and Initials for Illuminators
The pattern
This still is filed under Direct-from-the-founder letter.
Define
A letter in one person's voice, written as if to one reader, signed by the person who owns the outcome.
Mechanism
Personal authority. The signature is the proof. The tone is the brand. A committee cannot write this and keep the mechanism.
Verdict
Trust sits on a person
Why it works
The introduction earns the plates by drawing a line most pattern books never draw, between ornamentation and illumination, and then refusing to let age stand in for quality. That single act of judgement converts a picture book into an argument with a criterion, so the reader is being taught taste and not just handed shapes. Sequencing the plates by century turns the collection into a demonstration of one thesis: the ornament migrates off the letter and onto its background as the centuries pass. Putting the easiest style on plate 9 and telling the beginner the pen may be used freely there lowers the entry cost at exactly the point a novice would otherwise quit.
Steal this when
Reach for this when your reference material is beautiful but your reader cannot tell good from old. Write a short opinionated preface that names the distinction, states your selection criterion out loud, and orders the examples so the sequence itself makes the argument.