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Type specimen · By F. G. Delamotte · 1886

Mediaeval Alphabets and Initials for Illuminators

The fourth edition of F. G. Delamotte's plate book for amateur illuminators, published in London in 1886 as a follow-up to his Primer of Illumination.

What it is

The fourth edition of F. G. Delamotte's plate book for amateur illuminators, published in London in 1886 as a follow-up to his Primer of Illumination. A short introduction sets two first principles. Ornamentation is not illumination, so the painted lettering on shop fronts and pub signs does not count. And every letter has a normal form that can be twisted and enriched fifty ways yet stays the same letter. The 21 plates run by century from the 9th to the 16th, most copied from manuscripts of known authority, some designed by the author. The introduction traces one shift: early initials turn the letter itself into ornament, while from the 14th century the letter becomes a plain outline on a rich ground. Plate 9 is offered as an easy style for beginners, Plates 17 and 19 as the author's own "ribbon and flower" style. Back leaves advertise his companion titles.

Why read it now

For a marketer the value sits in the two principles, not in the plates. The first separates decoration from the craft, a line brand teams still blur when they treat a logo's flourishes as the identity. The second, that every letter has a normal form beneath its dress, is the rule behind legible display lettering. It also matches Jenni Romaniuk's work on distinctive brand assets at Ehrenberg-Bass: a mark earns recognition when its core form stays constant while executions vary. The preface also shows how to present a reference collection: state the selection criterion, admit the choice is your own taste, and order the examples so the sequence makes the argument. What has dated: the sneer at shop-sign painters is snobbery, the claim that true illumination ended in the 16th century is opinion, and hand illumination has no commercial role now. Use: when briefing an Arabic calligraphic headline or a decorated initial for a Ramadan campaign, first check that the bare letterform reads at small sizes, then put the ornament on the ground behind the letter rather than in its body.

Passages worth keeping

Ornamentation and illumination are not convertible terms.
Introduction

التزيين وفن زخرفة المخطوطات ليسا شيئًا واحدًا، فليس كل حرف مزيّن عملًا فنيًا.

a form which may be turned and twisted, expanded, contracted, ornamented, and enriched in fifty different ways, but which is still, in essence and principle, the same.
Introduction

للحرف هيكل ثابت، ومهما تغيرت زينته ومقاساته يبقى في جوهره الحرف نفسه.

With all our respect for mediaeval taste, we utterly repudiate the not uncommon theory, that whatever is old is good.
Introduction

القِدم ليس دليل جودة، والمؤلف يرفض أن يُعدّ كل قديم حسنًا لمجرد عمره.

as early as the 14th century, the initial had begun to assume the character of a simple outline laid on a rich background, rather than that of a form contorted and developed so as to become in itself an ornament.
Introduction

منذ القرن الرابع عشر لم يعد الحرف نفسه هو الزخرفة، بل صار خطًا بسيطًا والزينة في الخلفية من حوله.

On Plate 9 will be found a few specimens of a style at once easy to practise and effective in execution. The pen may here be used with an almost reckless freedom.
Introduction

يخص المؤلف المبتدئ بأسلوب سهل يسمح له بالعمل بحرية، حتى لا يترك التعلم في أوله.

The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.

What it teaches best

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