J. Henry Middleton

“ In many cases, we find, the illuminator prepared his own gold leaf, and it was not uncommon for the crafts of the goldsmith and the illuminator to be practised by the same man. For example the Fitz-Othos, mentioned at page 112 as a distinguished Anglo-Norman family of artists in the thirteenth century, were skilful both as makers of gold shrines and as illuminators of manuscripts. ”

“ This habit of manipulating the precious metals gave neatness and precision of touch to the painter, and in the art of illuminating manuscripts taught the artist to use his gold so as to produce the richest and most decorative effect.
The gold mordant. The mordant. We now come to the most difficult part of the illuminator's art, that of producing a ground for his gold leaf of the highest hardness and smoothness of surface. ”

“ It was only by slow degrees that the illuminators reached the perfect technical skill of the fourteenth century in their application of gold leaf.
Purity of the gold. In the first place the purest gold had to be beaten out, not the alloy of gold, silver and copper which now is used for making the gold leaf of what is called "the finest quality." ”

“ The Materials and Technical Processes of the Illuminator.
Finest vellum. Vellum for scribes [1] . The most remarkable skill is shown by the perfection to which the art of preparing vellum [2] for the scribe was brought. The exquisitely thin uterine vellum, which was specially used for the minutely written Anglo-Norman Vulgates of the thirteenth century, has been already described; see page 113. For ivory-like beauty of colour and texture nothing could surpass the best Italian vellum of the fifteenth century. ”

“ In the fourteenth century what are called water-marks came into use, together with the invention of linen paper. Some simple device indicating the city or province where the paper was made was woven with fine wire into the bottom of the sieve, and this mark was impressed upon the paper, like that of the other (parallel) wires of the sieve. A double-headed eagle, a vase, a letter or a bull's head are among the earliest paper-marks which occur in manuscripts and books of the fifteenth century [7] . In later times, during the sixteenth century, each manufacturer adopted his own mark [8] ”

“ Though by far the majority of the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are written on vellum, yet paper was occasionally used, long before the fifteenth century, when its manufacture was largely developed to supply the demand created by the invention of printing. ”

“ Application of gold. All writers speak of this burnishing as being a very difficult and uncertain process even to a skilled hand, requiring exactly the right temperature and amount of moisture in the air, or else it was liable to go wrong. ”