Byrne Manuscript Ruling and Pictorial Design in the Work of the Limbourgs, The Bedford Master, And the Boucicaut Master

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Manuscript Ruling and Pictorial Design in the Work of the Limbourgs, the Bedford Master,and the Boucicaut MasterAuthor(s): Donal ByrneSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Mar., 1984), pp. 118-136

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ManuscriptRulingand PictorialDesign in the Work of the

Limbourgs,the BedfordMaster,and the BoucicautMaster

Donal Byrne

It is not easy for us to see the book painting of the Middle

Ages with medieval eyes. ... Books were meant to be read

and illumination was built in, with all the forces of Ingen-ium, Intellectus, and Ratio, not sprinkled on top like can-died violets hundreds and thousands on a dish of trifle.

D. V. Thompson,The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting

Late medieval illuminated manuscriptswere the product ofdivided labor. The chief stages into which this labor wasdivided were as follows: the preparationof the parchment;

the construction of the gatherings; the pricking and rulingof these gatherings; the writing of the text; the decoration;the painting of the miniatures; and the provision of bind-

ing.1 No part of this process had more importance for thefinal appearance of the manuscript than did the prickingand ruling. Indeed, the ruling provided the armature of the

design of the manuscript page throughout all the later stagesof its manufacture.

To begin with, the ruling set the text in its proportionalrelationship to the marginsof the folio, determinedthe sizeof the script, and fixed both the number of the columnsand the number of lines of writing. Clearly, these functionsare the main ones of the ruling and the reasons for its ex-

istence. Nevertheless, the ruling goes on playing a vital, ifmore discreet, regulatingrole after the gatheringshave beenwritten and have passed from the hands of the scribes intothose of the decorators.

Most late medieval manuscripts clarify and dramatizethe divisions of the text by the use of decorative initials of

varying sizes and richness. As has been shown, and as canbe verified by leafing through almost any manuscript, dec-

orative initials are typically arranged in a graduated scaleof sizes. Initials announce the relative importance of the

following textual section by occupying a greater or lessernumber of lines of ruling. Forexample, all the minor initials

may be one line in height, all the intermediate ones two

lines, and all the major initials may encompass three, four,or five ruling lines.2The principle that can be inferred fromsuch evidence is made explicit in some records of paymentto book decorators in which the initials are costed, in part,on the basis of the number of lines they fill.3 Concern forease of reading and aesthetic pleasure and the payment of

hard cash find common ground in the module of the rulingline.

No less than the scribes and the decorators, the paintersin their turn were obliged to take account of the page rul-

ing. By the time the gatherings reached the atelier of the

miniaturists, the influence of the ruling was already firmlyestablished in the nature of the task to be done. In an il-

lustrated book, an indication of the location of the paint-ings, as well as some guidance on their size and shape, hadto be provided to the scribes in order that the necessaryspaces be left blank. Unfinished manuscripts show the

process arrested at an early stage, and to this evidence wecan add that provided by a handful of marginal notes and

one complete maquette.4There were three main solutions to the setting of mini-

atures on the folios of late medieval manuscripts in Franceand the Netherlands. The simplest was to separate pictureand text and to place each alone upon the page.5The othertwo methods, which first concern us here, unite pictureand

text, and may be seen combined in diagrammatic form in

Fig. 1. First, in a one-column manuscript, or in a single

I wish to thank the University of Aberdeen and the Carnegie Trust for

the Universities of Scotland for grants-in-aid towards the preparation of

this study. I am also grateful to the staffs of the libraries holding man-

uscripts cited here, especially to Mine. F. Chapard of the Mus&eConde,

Chantilly.

1The best short introduction to the entire topic, with up-to-date bibli-

ographies, is J. D. Farquhar,"The Manuscript as a Book," in Hindman

and Farquhar.2 An example, readily available in partial facsimile, is the Grandes Heures

of Jean de Berry, in which the initials are graded in a 1, 2, 3 hierarchy,the two larger initials being historiated. See M. Thomas, The Grandes

Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, New York, 1971.

3 For examples, with bibliographical references, see Hindman and Far-

quhar, 71f and 95, nn. 100 and 101.

4 (a) Unfinished Manuscripts: For a study of an unfinished manuscript,with a select bibliography, see R. G. Calkins, "Stages of Execution: Pro-

cedures of Illumination as Revealed in an Unfinished Book of Hours,"

Gesta, xvii, 1978, 61-70. (b) Marginal Notes: Marginal notes to the il-

luminator occasionally specify the number of lines to be occupied by the

miniature. For example, a copy of the Grandes Chroniques in the Bib-

liotheque Ste.-Genevieve, Paris (Ms783)has the following on fols. 152 and155v: "Hyst. double, xxvi lignes." Cited in L.Delisle, Recherches sur la

librairie de Charles V, i, Paris, 1907, 311. (c) Maquette: In what is ap-

parently a maquette prepared for an illustrated manuscript of Honore

Bouvet's Somnium Prioris de Sallono SuperMateria Scismatis (Paris, Bib-

liottieque Nationale, Ms at. 14643, fols. 269-283v), regularly sized spacesfor the pictures have been left (8/9 lines). See G. Ouy, "UneMaquette demanuscritapeintures,"in Mklangesd'histoire du livre et des bibliothkquesofferts

'Monsieur Frantz Calot, Paris, 1960, 43-51 and pl.iv.

5This solution occurs most often in Books of Hours, in which categoryof manuscript the large volume of production may have been facilitated

by such clear separation of parts.

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MANUSCRIPTRULING AND DESIGN 119

1 Diagramofmanuscriptruling,withprickingand

miniatureframes

23 4

obab c, d

'• ,

..6

a e,fo

--.6

column of a two-column page, a space was left blank (Fig.1, Space B). And second, in a two-column manuscript, usu-

ally at the opening of an important textual section, a spacewas left that encompassed both of the writing columns andthe margin between them (Fig. 1, Space A). These simplepractices ensured that most miniatures were equal in widthto the text itself. As to the height of the paintings, most

manuscripts show a simple rule of thumb being employedthroughout the pictorial cycle. Miniatures were repeatedlycalculated to the same, or nearly the same, number of lines,

and this made them not only consistent with each otherand regularly proportionate to the height of the column,but linked them with the initials as the largest item of thedecorative hierarchy.6

The foregoing remarks are, I trust, broadly acceptable.They are not, however, new. They are put forward herefor two reasons. First, and more important, because theyform the necessary foundation for the theory to be ad-vanced in this paper. And second, because they may beunfamiliar to readers who are not students of the medieval

manuscript, but are otherwise interested in the topic of pic-torial composition.

In this article, I wish to show that the ruling of late me-dieval

manuscripts regulatednot

only page proportions,the script, the decorative initials, and the shapes of the min-iature frames, but that in a significant number of cases itwent on to play an important role in the design of the paint-ings themselves. To the best of my knowledge, this theoryhas not been advanced before, and full discussion would

require a substantial study. Here I confine myself mainly,but not exclusively, to the works of the Limbourgbrothersand of the Boucicaut and Bedford Masters. I do this notbecause the practices under discussion are peculiar to theseartists (indeed, I shall occasionally be at pains to show that

they are not), but because this approach affords a limited

study at the highest level of artistic production.In the presentation of somewhat intractable material, I

have kept a few guiding principles in mind. First, I havetried to move from the simple and easily verifiablepracticesto the more complex ones, and to reserve more speculativematerial for the end. Second, I have included a number of

diagramsto ease the pain of verbal descriptions of technical

procedures. And third, I have with few exceptions chosen

paintings in which the practice under discussion is evidenteven in reproduction. However, since the present repro-ductions are necessarily small, the hoped-for advantagemay not always be apparentin these pages. I have therefore

given references to such large reproductions as exist of the

works discussed. Since most of my material is drawn fromthe Limbourgs'Belles Heures and TrbsRichesHeures, I shallavoid the clutter of footnotes by citing reproductions fromthese manuscripts alongside the present figures. The formerreferenceswill take the following forms: BH fol. 17 (Meissand Beatson, 1974, fol. 17) and: TRH fig. 543 (Meiss, 1974,

fig. 543).7Some of the basic evidence for the theory presented in

this articlecannot, for the above reason, easily be presentedhere. It is therefore hoped that the interested reader willuse the referencesprovided, and judge the matter like thosescholars pictured in the medieval manuscripts, seated atlecterns littered with the authorities.

Before turning to our first piece of concrete evidence, we

may set the scene by considering the typical problem facingthe late medieval miniature painter as he prepares to starthis work. The folios spread before him already possess a

powerful aestheticpersonality. The steady beat of the scriptmarks out part of the folio on which the painter is to work,and often the entire conjoint folio as well. Here and therethe rhythm of the writing is halved or quartered by the

heavy accents of pen or color initials. The space for theminiature is already provided, and the shape and size ofthe frame are typically derived from the same ruling thathad regulated the script. Finally, the space in which the

paintingis to be made

commonlycarries the

repeated hor-izontals of pen or stylus (Fig. 1, Space B), and, in a min-iature over two columns, the twin verticals of the center

ruling (Fig. 1, Space A, Lines2 and3).8

Efforts to erase the

rulingin picture spaceswere usually only partial, and tracesof the lines remain visible, even through the completed

6 In the Grandes Heures of Jean de Berry, to take again this readily ver-

ifiable case, twenty-seven of the twenty-eight one-column miniatures are

eight lines high (the exception, on fol. 45, is nine lines). This eight lines

comes as close to one third of the column height (twenty-three lines) as

is possible mathematically. Indeed, with the slight expansion of the scenes

by architecturalsettings, the heights of the illustrations hover around the

third. See Thomas (as in note 2), passim.

7 I have preferredthe black-and-white plates of Meiss, 1974, to those in

color in Longnon and Cazelles because the ruling, easily visible in the

manuscript, is clearer in the former.

8 I should stress that I am speaking of the most common practices, with

which this article is chiefly concerned. I do not wish, even by implication,to minimize the variety of other modes of production, such as tipped-infolios, etc.







120 THE ART BULLETINMARCH 1984 VOLUMELXVI NUMBER 1

fitt Industat't:* tiw e cmacwJ filet,pthfi ew zr

p~ewlc :maamn LTe~~c~o enpuc~oltffniln~taesjT.Nt d r O n k i f i s t o a p i e i m e n t

ri

3e courenvAancf .

-. Ar b o i u s c h u s l e * I l n C t a Z v ( M O C t A !

) t t i r o m - t f e

,,r, ,.-•,~,too,

- - • -?

2 The Presentation of the Book, L'Arbredes batailles. Paris,Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms fr. 1276, fol. 4v (photo: Bibl. nat.)

iahe~ivasp~. e'muIno~onrnunsq~

4 FuneralService, Belles Heures. New York, Metropolitan Mu-seum, Cloisters Collection 1954, fol. 221 (photo: Museum)

3 Diagram ofarchitecture in

Fig. 2, withcenter marginruling

- 1 ~ I

5 Diagram ofarchitecture in

Fig. 4, withcenter marginruling







MANUSCRIPT RULING AND DESIGN 121

1wtbummu11 iuitambiCtlpu

6 TheMartyrdom f SaintMark,Trks ichesHeures.Chan-

tilly,Mus6eCond6,fol. 19v (photo:Giraudon)

paintwork, in many miniatures.

Against this background, it appearsboth technically and

psychologically probable that the painterwould, in the de-

sign of his picture, take occasional account of the lines of

ruling whose influence has run like a red thread throughall the earlier stages of the page design. Attention to the

evidence converts this probability into certainty. To beginwith, I should like to look at the two most common influ-

ences of page ruling on pictorial design, first in works of

modest artistic quality, and then in the paintings of the

Limbourgs.

ment of page ruling in the design of fourteenth- and fif-

teenth-century miniatures involves the double verticalwhich delimits the inner edges of the text on a two-columnfolio (Fig. 1, Lines 2 and 3). These lines, and the spacebetween them, are here referred to as "the center margin."Figure 2 shows the unassuming frontispiece of a French

manuscriptof the Arbredes batailles, dated 1460.9The mostprominent vertical feature of this composition, and the ful-crum of the pictorial space, is the twisted column of the

loggia, which separates the sergeant-at-armsfrom the ded-

ication scene. If the ruling of the page is examined, it isevident that the left profile of this column lies exactly uponthe right-hand line of the center margin (Fig. 3). By meansof this simple device, the design of the page and the designof the picture share a common structure, and the eye isenabled to pass smoothly on a proportional bridge from

words to image and back again.The division of a miniature by the erection of one or

more vertical stresses on the lines of the center margin is

a widespread practice in late medieval manuscripts.10Thepractice is sharedby the Limbourgs.The Mass for All Soulsin the Belles Heures, to cite a comparable example, is il-

lustratedwith a painting showing the funeral service taking

place in an open-fronted chapel (Fig. 4, BH fol. 221). Oneline of the composition leaps with special urgency to the

eye: the sharply defined edge of the right side of the en-

trance arch. The prominence of this long vertical is further

emphasized by tone, for this edge marks the crisp frontier

between the penumbraof the chapel interiorand the blond

tonality of the exterior. Considered in its relationship to

the ruling, which remains clearly visible in the Belles

Heures, this line proves to be aligned precisely on the rightvertical of the center

margin (Fig. 5).This

pictorialem-

bodiment of the proportions of the text is an exact parallelfor the method followed in the Arbre des batailles frontis-

piece (Figs.2 and 3). The Limbourgshave furtheremployedthe ruling of the center margin by using the left-hand line

to place the axis of one of the struts of the funerary ca-

tafalque (Fig. 4, BH fol. 221).There aremany examples of this use of the vertical ruling

in the pages of both the Belles Heures and the TrbsRiches

Heures. Some of them will be discussedlater,but one paint-ing from the latter manuscript forms a sort of composi-tional pendant to the All Souls miniature. This is the

Martyrdom of Saint Mark, a design that also makes use of

an obliquely set, open-fronted chapel (Fig.6, TRHfig. 556).In the Martyrdom, the left-hand edge of the chapel, which

I. The Vertical RulingThe most frequent and most easily demonstrated employ-

9 See E. P. Spencer, "Gerson, Ciboule and the Bedford Master's Shop

(Bruxelles,Bibl. Royale, MS IV, III, Part II),"Scriptorium,xxx, 1965, 106

and p1.14.10From among many possible examples, the following four are well-re-

produced and span some 150 years of Franco-Netherlandishpainting:Chalons-sur-Marne,Bibliotheque Municipale, Ms270, Romande la rose,

ca. 1320, fol. 1, The Author's Dream and the Garden of Dkduit. The left

and right edges of the entrance gate of the garden are on the rulings of

the center margin. See I. Lavin and J. Plummer, eds., Studies in Late

Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, iI, New

York, 1977, pl. 10, fig. 16.

Chateauroux, Bibliotheque Municipale, Ms 2, Breviary (Summer sec-

tion), ca. 1415, fol. 282v, Death of the Virgin. The right center margin

line gives the longest, most important vertical, the axis of the post and

the edge of the raised upper section of the building. See V. Leroquais,Les

Brkviaires manuscrits des bibliothbques publiques de France, vi, Paris,

1934, pl. LXXI.

Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Ms 2561, Boccaccio, Dk-

camkron, ca. 1425-1430, fol. 157, The Story of Fra Alberto. The left side

of the dividing pillar is aligned by the ruling of the center margin. See

Boccaccio, Decamerone, ed. V. Branca, ii, Florence, 1966, 351.

Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS9243, Chroniques du Hainaut, iin,

1468, fol. 72, Baptism of Clovis and His Companions. Both sides of the

arch that separates Clovis and his retinue are directly on center marginlines. See V. Leroquais, Le Breviaire de Phillippe le Bon, nii, Paris, 1929,

pl. 5.







122 THE ART BULLETINMARCH 1984 VOLUMELXVI NUMBER 1

soars above the saint and dramatizes his fall, sits on the

left line of the center margin. And, once again, the edgeforms a sharp boundary of tone, this time between the fullylighted architecture and the darkling street beyond. Be-cause the chapel in the Martyrdom is in the second plane,and because the facade is partially overlapped by a figure,

it keeps its compositional secret better than the correspond-ing structure in the Belles Heures.

II. The Horizontal RulingTurning our attention from the influence of the ruled ver-

ticals to that of the horizontals, we may again begin ourdiscussion with a work of humble quality: a picture froma copy of the Livre des proprietes des choses painted in

England, probably in the 1440's (Fig. 7)."11n this miniaturea doctor performsa uroscopy for the benefit of a bedridden

patient. To modern eyes, the steeply inclined plane of thebed looks highly uncomfortable and may strike the casualobserver as "naive"perspective. While it would be disin-

genuous to foist a proto-Cubist aesthetic on the modestexecutant of this picture, the tip-tilting of the bed does rep-resent, however unconsciously, a compromise between thefacts of two-dimensional design and the demands of spatialrepresentation. If the page ruling and the picture are ex-amined simultaneously, it is evident that the former is usedto provide the two most important horizontals of the latter

(Fig. 8). Reading downwards in this twenty-line miniaturereveals that the far and near edges of the surface of the bedare simple pictorial embodiments of the eighth and six-teenth lines, respectively.

The compositional method evidenced in this miniature,

though less common than that involving the vertical ruling,

was frequently used in fourteenth- and fifteenth-centurymanuscripts.12 Once again, the Belles Heures offers a par-allel example in the work of the Limbourgs.

The Suffrage to Saint Anthony in the Belles Heures isdecorated with a painting that shows the saint interruptinghis preaching to admonish a meteorologically meddlesomedevil (Fig. 9, BH fol. 170). Saint Anthony stands in a hand-some wooden pulpit whose proportions have been carpen-tered out of the horizontal lines of ruling. Readingupwardson the left side of the pulpit, the molding above the legsstands on the second line, the upperedge of the large, plainpanel lies on the sixth, and the total height is firmly delim-ited by the ninth line (Fig. 10). In its own way, the pulpit

of Saint Anthony is as much a response to the rhythm ofthe ruling as are the initial letter and the words, "O proles

hyspanie, pavor infidelium ...

III. The Vertical Ruling and the Horizontal RulingFor the sake of clarity, I have so far separated the artistic

uses of the vertical and horizontal page ruling. In practice,in those images set over a double column, vertical and hor-izontal lines often exert their influence within a single paint-ing. To demonstrate this, we need go no further than theminiature of Saint Anthony discussed above (Fig. 9, BHfol. 170). Not only do the proportions of the planimetri-cally placed side of the pulpit move to the beat of the hor-

izontals, as has been seen, but the far edge of the face ofthe pulpit also abuts snugly on the left upright of the center

margin (Fig. 10).This dual conversion of page ruling into pictorial design

may be seen to even better advantage in the beautiful Pen-tecost which stands before the Hours of the Holy Ghost in

the Belles Heures (Fig. 11, BH fol. 84). Here a centralizedVirgin presides over laterally matched figure groups in a

setting of exceptional symmetry. Although the choice of a

symmetrical composition relies on iconographical tradi-

tion, the practical attainment of that symmetry is achieved

by mirroring the symmetry of the folio ruling. As the dia-

gram in Fig. 12 shows, the two low screens enclosing thePentecostal oratory are exactly five lines in height and the

upper moldings of the decorated panels are on the fourthline. In the vertical, the little apse is centered on the margin,with the engaged colonnettes above the Virgin resting theirouter edges on the uprights of the center margin. That the

picture depends on the ruling, and is not merely one kind

of symmetry atop another, unrelated kind can be shownon other evidence. In common with many folios of theBelles Heures, the folio bearing the Pentecost has two writ-ten columns which differ in width by small but measurableamounts. Here the variation is approximately two mm.,and this tremor in the symmetry is exactly matched in the

placing of the apse.

IV. The Ruling of the MarginsThe ruling of a manuscript folio is found not only in andaround the blocks of text, but also in the blank margins.As seen in the diagram in Fig. 1 (Lines 1-6), in order to

place the limits of the text the folio must first be ruled from

11Glasgow, University Library, masHunter 8. See J. Young and P. Hen-

derson Aitkin, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Libraryof the Hun-

terian Museum in the University of Glasgow, Glasgow, 1908, 12f.

12As with the examples in note 10, the following are chosen because theyare well-reproduced and span over a century:

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. gall. 30, Guillaume de De-

guilleville, PHlerinagede la vie humaine, mid-14th-century, fol. 95, four

scenes. The horizontal ruling provides many of the moldings of the fram-

ing architecture and some of the horizontals within the scenes (e.g., the

"skyline" of the base in scene 4). See L. Olschki, Manuscrits francais'

peintures des bibliothbques d'Allemagne, Geneva, 1932, pl. II.Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, Ms 664, Terence, Comedies (Thrence

des ducs), ca. 1412, fol. 37v, Chremes TellsSimo of the Birthof the Child.

The ruling gives important guidance for the architectural horizontals,

moldings, etc. See H. Martin, Le Thrence des ducs, Paris, 1907, pl. XLII.Rome, VaticanLibrary,Pal. lat. 1989, Boccaccio, D&cambron, a. 1414-

1420, fol. 174v, The Story of Federigo degli Alberighi. In this unusually

complete example, the horizontal ruling yields the following: the top of

the garden trellis; the upper edge of the molding above the arch; the "sky-line" of the garden; the forward edge of the table; and the inner edge of

the lower opening of the arch. See P. Durrieu, La Miniature flamande au

temps de la cour de Bourgogne (1415-1530), Paris, 1927, pl. v (bottom).

Dresden, formerly SaichsischeLandesbibliothek, masOc. 58, Rene of

Anjou, Le Livre des tournois, fol. number unknown, The King of Arms

Receives the Sword. This example shows the ruling interacting with em-

piricalperspective. The first three transversalsof the floor do not diminish

with distance, but follow the regularly spaced lines of ruling. See Olschki

(as in this note), pl. xxII.








/.J.

V o.

p 0

7 Doctor and Patient, Livre des propri tes des choses. GlasgowUniversity Library, MSHunter 8, fol. 89 (photo: Library)

I -I

9 Saint Anthony Preaching, Belles Heures. New York, Metro-politan Museum, Cloisters Collection 1954, fol. 170 (photo:

Museum)

8 Diagram of bedin Fig. 7, with

ruling

I/,,

lit,•],•/,

11

10 Diagram ofpulpit in Fig. 9,with ruling







124 THE ART BULLETIN MARCH 1984 VOLUME LXVI NUMBER 1

lie

Nw

vAll•.

:

vp lk?J-

I,:MM.Aulf or

?

Jft'

•.- .. . ... .

.,,

• :. . .

11 Pentecost,BellesHeures.New York,MetropolitanMuseum,Cloisters Collection, 1954, fol. 84 (photo: Museum)

12 Diagram ofarchitecturenFig. 11, with

rulingaddedatsides

top to bottom and from left to rightwith the basic networkof lines. At least two horizontals and two verticals areneeded for one column of text; two horizontals and fourverticals for two columns; and a variety of other patternsfor more complex textual arrangements.'3

Wheremarginalpaintingsarepresent, in medallions, bas-

de-pages, or as free compositions, they not infrequentlyshow relationshipswith the rulingsimilar to those we havemet in paintings within the columns. A demonstration ofthe simple use of marginal ruling may be seen in a foliofrom a fine Book of Hours attributed to the Master of theDuke of Bedford and dated to the 1420's (Fig. 13).' Thiscalendar page is rich with figurative marginal decoration,and the mise-en-page of some of this decoration shows di-rect employment of the ruling. The uppermost ruled hor-

izontal, for example, provides the lower edge of the

platform on which the feasting nobleman sits. And, in the

vertical, the right-handline enclosing the text gives the limitof Aquarius's wood, in the upper margin, and the right

profile of the Church, in the lower margin.

V. The Complete Page Ruling: The Procession of Saint

GregoryAll the previous discussion preparesus for an examinationof one of the most complete and exciting examples of theunion of rulingandpictorial design: The Procession of Saint

Gregory in the Tris Riches Heures (Figs. 14 and 15, TRH

figs. 575 and 576).The Procession of Saint Gregory is a many-figured com-

position spread over two folios. It occupies all of the lower

margin across the opening, all or part of three of the lateralvertical margins, and rises into the empty text column be-tween the end

of the Penitential Psalms and the beginningof the Litany. The execution of a unique two-page com-

position was facilitated, and perhaps even dependent, onthe fact that fols. 71 and 72 form a bifolio that could be

spread out before the painters, and which is now glued toa stub at the center of a gathering.15 It should perhaps benoted at this point that although JeanColombe completedthis painting, no student of the TrbsRiches Heureshas dis-

puted that it was designed and partially painted by the

Limbourgs.16Before turning to a formal analysis of The Procession of

Saint Gregory, it is necessary briefly to recall the icono-

graphicalmeaning of the scene. The painting representstheclimactic moment of the procession that the saint had in-stituted to appeal for divine aid in time of plague. Here the

prayers are answered, as Saint Gregory sees, in the words

13 On problems and patterns of ruling, see L. Gilissen, "UnEl1mentcod-

icologique trop peu exploit&:La Reglure," Scriptorium, xxIII, 1969, 150-162.

14Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1855. For a recent catalogue entryon this manuscript, see D. Thoss, Franzbsische Gotik und RenaissanceMeisterwerken der Buchmalerei ..., Vienna, 1978, 106 (No. 22).

15sThis can easily be seen in the manuscript, and agrees with the collation

given by Meiss, 1974, 313 (gathering 11, fols. 71 and 72).16 See Longnon and Cazelles, 73-74, and Meiss, 1974, 313.







MANUSCRIPTRULING AND DESIGN 125

o u t l t

MIsTitftrull.I

Ito

.,i,:-:!i4IR-

13 CalendarPage(January),Book of Hours.Vienna,National-bibliothek,Cod. 1855,fol. 1 (photo:Nationalbibl.).

of the Golden Legend, "... an angel on a castle which madeclean a sword all bloody, and put it into the sheath."

As one scans the processional composition across the bi-

folio, one finds that two figures, each on the axis of a folio,attract attention and express the twin themes of plague anddivine mercy. On the left folio, Saint Gregory experienceshis angelic vision, and his gesture lifts our gaze aloft toshareit. On the rightfolio a plague-riddendeacon has fallento the ground, leaving a dramatic caesura among the fig-ures. Each of these events is set against a brick tower ofthe walls of Rome: that above the pope, seen only in its

upper part, amplifying the expansive papal gesture, andthat above the deacon, seen only in its lower half, weight-

ing and accelerating the sudden fall.If the relationship between this painting and the under-

lying ruling is analyzed, it becomes apparent that the con-cealed compositional strategies serve the same ends ofnarrative clarity as does the figurative imagery. To beginwith, the brick towers above pope and deacon are each, in

slightly varied ways, formal derivatives of the double rul-

ings of the center margins (Fig. 16). The tower above thedeacon is the simple continuation, in its forward face, ofthe blank center margin of the right folio, of which it is the

pictorial analogue. And that above Saint Gregory has itsleft edge exactly on the right line of the center margin onthe opposite folio. The saint's tower is precisely as wide as

the adjacent margin, and, therefore, as wide as the match-

ing tower across the opening. Through the mediation ofthese twinned towers, the proportional design of the textis incorporated into the painting and is brought to bear onthe two focal points of dramatic narration.

The relationshipbetween the designof the folios and their

pictures does not end with the marginalruling. In the viewof Rome towering over Saint Gregory is an excellent ex-

ample of what I earlier termed "dual conversion": the si-multaneous pictorial use of ruled horizontals and verticals.The right-hand text column on fol. 71v was ruled but notwritten. The ruling can still be seen clearly in the manu-

script and, to a lesser extent, in good reproductions (Fig.14, TRH fig. 575). It was on the foundation of this rulingthat some of the importantarchitectural eaturesof theviewof Rome were laid. Two examples will suffice. First, the

sharply defined edge of the "CastelS. Angelo," which risesover the reliquary, is precisely given by the right vertical

delimiting the submerged text column (Fig. 16). And sec-

ond,the horizontal

ruling providesthe

scaffoldingfor

thetower of Old St. Peter's, which rises in no less than five

regular, two-line stories (Fig. 16). Deprived of their role in

regulating the script, the lines of ruling live out another lifein the forms of the picture. This is most clearly seen in the

relationship between the left edge of the tower, over the

pope, and the cutting-edge of the castle, over the reliquary.Because these long verticals are placed on the left and rightuprights of the unwritten column, respectively, there

emergesbetween them a "ghostcolumn" which answers thedimensions of the three columns of writing on the opening(Figs. 14 and 16).

The Procession of Saint Gregory, then, demonstrates allthe compositional practices outlined in the earlier sectionsof this paper. But if one stands back, as it were, from thebifolio as a whole, it also shows another aspect of the in-fluence of folio design on pictorial composition that hasnot yet been encountered. This is the use of the ruling inmodular fashion, with the transferenceof the proportionsof the ruling to parts of the folio where no rulingis actuallypresent. As with "dual conversion," the modular methodmakes use both of the vertical and the horizontal ruling.

Turning first to the vertical page design, one may notean obvious fact that serves as an introduction to our topic.Although the outer views of Rome and the one over the

pope are the same height as the twenty-two-line column,the truncated fourth panel is half that height, and termi-

nates just above the upperruling of the eleventh line. Sincethe horizontal ruling of the columns does not extend intothe margins, the height of the short panel must have beenachieved by counting and matching.

Armed with this fact, one may turn to a less obvious and

closely similar procedure in the planning of the horizontaldimensions of the bifolio. If the widths of the two outer-most views of Rome are measured, it will be found that

they mimic exactly the width of the columns of writing.These lateral paintings, the three written columns, and theburied, unwrittenone, all measurebetween forty-seven and

forty-nine milimeters (Figs. 14, 15, and 16). And this var-iation of two milimeters, it may be recalled, occurs on a







126 THE ART BULLETINMARCH 1984 VOLUME LXVI NUMBER 1

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14 TheProcessionof SaintGregory left), Trbs ichesHeures.Chantilly,Mus&eConde,fol. 71v (photo:Giraudon)

bifolio 420 milimeters wide. The modular relationship of

ruling and picture, which seems to have been achieved bycounting in the vertical plan, was here attained by the

transference of measurements to unruled portions of thefolios.

The simplicity and easy verifiability of the above

procedures prepare us to consider a final and more deeplyhidden modular accord, one that involves the rotation ofdimensions from the horizontal to the vertical. The lowersection of the Procession is disposed like a framed bas-de-

page. The upper frame is on the lowest ruled line and thelower is some sixty-two to sixty-threemilimeters below this.In the light of what has been seen, it can hardly be

coincidental that the height of the bas-de-page is exactlythat of a column of writing plus that of the adjacent center

margin.In its indissoluble blend of narration, geometry, and vis-

ual delight, The Procession of Saint Gregory recalls theaesthetic of the finest Italian trecento frescoes. But the Ital-ian achievement is not transferred,willy-nilly, to the pagesof a book. Rather, it is matched and transformed withinthe stimulating constraints of manuscript design. The

painting takes its place alongside the other design elementsin a Gesamtkunstwerkof unusualcompletenessand beauty.The above analysis has only touched on that completeness,for an exhaustive treatment would risk exhausting the

15 The Processionof SaintGregory right),Trbs ichesHeures.Chantilly,Mus&eConde,fol. 72 (photo:Giraudon)

___---

16 Diagramof bifoliolayoutof Figs.14and15

reader. However, one final demonstration of the totality ofthe folio design may not be out of place, as a token of whatis left unsaid.

As has been seen, the ruling of the center margin on the

right folio serves, at its lower end, to place the tower whichseems to batter down the fallen deacon (Figs. 15 and 16).If the upper end of this same ruling is examined, it will beobserved to perform a similar, but much more pleasant,function. There it is used to contain the curling leaves ofthe pseudo-acanthus that grows out of the initial letter. Like







MANUSCRIPTULINGAND DESIGN 127

plants encountering a garden trellis, the outermost leavesrest gracefully against the right vertical of the center marginand the topmost horizontal of the column ruling.17

VI. The Rulingas Pictorial Module: TheLegendofAracoeli

and The Baptism of Saint Augustine

There are three main solutions to the problem of the mise-en-page of the miniatures in the TrbsRiches Heures. First,small paintings are set within one of the two columns of

writing, like the God in Majesty on fol. 41v. Second, largeminiatures are placed over four lines of writing (very oc-

casionally, over three), and occupy the width of two col-

umns, like the Annunciation on the fol. 26. And third, the

largest pictures stand alone on the folio, without writing(and occasionally without any ruling), like the Fall of the

Rebel Angels on fol. 64v, or with a few enclosed words of

astronomical or calendricaldata, like the famous Months.18

To these patterns there are only three exceptions: The

Procession of Saint Gregory; The Legend of Aracoeli; and

The Baptism of Saint Augustine. All three are found onfolios with script, but none employs the clear separationof words and picture that characterizes the standard pat-terns. Rather, they show a complex, and in each case

unique, interpenetrationof the two elements. Their unique-ness and complication of design make these miniatures un-

usually accessible to analysis and unusually revealingabout

the modular planning that underlies their structure. The

first has been seen. Let us turn now to the simpler of the

remaining two.Folio 22 of the TrbsRiches Heures carries The Legendof

Aracoeli and the beginning of the prayer O Intemerata(Fig.17, TRH fig. 557). The folio is unique in being ruled for a

single column and in being painted with three separatescenes which make an iconographical and formal ensemble.

The basis for this ensemble is provided by the rectangle of

the ruling, whose total dimensions match those of the

standard ruling of the text pages in two columns.19The

design of fol. 22 was arrived at by three simple propor-tional decisions, each involving a modularrelationshipwith

the ruling. The three stages of the design are set out in Fig.18, though it is not implied that they necessarily followed

the order adopted here. If the first stages are self-evident,I trust that their later usefulness as evidence for similar,more complex practices will absolve me from the chargeof laboring the obvious.

First,the

heightof the

panels containing Augustusand

the Sibyl was set along that line of ruling which divides the

text in half (Fig.18a). Eleven lines of paintingbalance eleven

lines of writing in a fashion closely akin to that used to

shape the truncated Roman view on fol. 72. Second, these

panels were made to match each other in width, and the

width of the column of writing between them, by the di-

vision of the total writing column into thirds (Fig. 18b).20

The equality of paintings and enclosed script again recalls

The Procession of Saint Gregory, where the lateral paint-ings repeated the width of the columns of the writing. And

third, it will be observed that the circlecontaining the half-

length Virgin is generated from the ruling: the center of the

circle being exactly in the topmost line, the lowest pointof the circle being exactly tangent to the fifth line down,and the circle thus having a four-line radius (Fig. 18c). The

Marian disc is, of course, a realization of the text of the

Golden Legend,in which the TiburtineSibyl saw "themaid"

in a "circle of gold about the sun."21 But the artistic con-

struction of the circle is a response to more practical con-

siderations. The embodiment of a vision in workmanlike

measure reminds us of the sturdy concreteness of medieval

mystical writing.The lunette of the Virgin's disc rising like a sun above

the block of text induces in the student of the Tres RichesHeures a haunting sense of dejiavu. The reason is not far

to seek, and provides an insight into working methods in

other parts of the manuscript. The Legend of Aracoeli, as

was seen, accompanies the prayer O Intemerata, which is

the last textual item before the Hours of the Virgin. The

Limbourgspainted eight of the nine pictures that decorate

these Hours, and provided seven of them with projectinglunettes. The seven miniatures are: TheAnnunciation; The

Visitation; The Nativity; The Annunciation to the Shep-herds; The Meeting of the Magi; The Adoration of the

Magi; and The Coronation of the Virgin (TRH figs. 559,567, 569, 570-72 and 574. Forthe third, see the present Fig.24). Leaving aside The Coronation of the Virgin for the

moment, one finds that the lunettes of the first six minia-

tures rise above the topmost ruled line by the followingamounts, respectively: 28mm, 29mm, 28mm, 29mm,

29mm, 28mm. In simple terms, these statistics mean that

the height of these lunettes match exactly, or come within

1mm, of the projecting semi-circle of the Marian disc in the

Aracoeli miniature.How are we to explain this accord? As seen above, the

radius of the Aracoeli circle is derived from the module offour lines of writing. It is this module which provides the

key,for all the

bigminiatures of the Hours

ofthe

Virginthat are accompanied by text stand over four lines of script.These four lines measure 29mm in height, and by placing

17Other 14th- and 15-century manuscripts show a similar use of marginal

ruling to guide and contain ivy-leaf and other floral decoration. See, for

example, The Tickhill Psalter, New York, Public Library,MsSpencer 26,fol. 51, Psalm 52 (R. Marks and N. Morgan, The Golden Age of English

Manuscript Painting, New York and London, 1981, pl. 18).

18 For these examples, see Longnon and Cazelles, 37, 21, 65, 2-13. This

broad division into three types suffices for the present study. However,it should be remembered that the manuscript underwent changes of plan

during the decoration, and was neither finished nor bound in the era of

the Limbourgs. For a discussion of these problems, see Meiss, 1974, 144-

167.

19Approximately 162 x 111mm. Cf. fols. 48v and 49: Longnon and Ca-

zelles, 45 and 46.

20With added frames, the maximum variation is two milimeters.

21 The words of the Golden Legendare, however, mediated through icon-

ographical models. See O. Piicht, "TheLimbourgsand Pisanello," Gazette

des beaux-arts, LxII, 1963, 119-122, and Meiss, 1974, 139ff.







128 THE ART BULLETINMARCH 1984 VOLUME LXVI NUMBER 1

lunettes of this dimension atop their pictures, the Lim-

bourgs have restored above what was pictorially lost be-

low, and thus equalized miniature and original text block

(see Figs. 24 and 25b).22 The slightly smaller lunette in TheCoronation of the Virgin is explained -by the unique deci-sion to repeat the same form on the right and left side of

this festive miniature (TRH fig. 574). A full-sized lunette,repeated, would visually have overcrowded the inner andouter margins of the folio.

The Baptism of Saint Augustine on fol. 37v illustratesthe Te Deum, which is said at the end of Matins in theHours of the Virgin (Fig. 19, TRH fig. 579). The miniatureis unique in form, at once straddlingthe centermargin and

yet encased within the text. This hybrid shape enables the

pictureto take an intermediate decorativeposition betweenthe small, one-column miniatures, almost surrounded bytext, which accompany the Psalms in the Hours of the Vir-

gin, and the full-scale miniatureswhich open the canonicalHours themselves.

The distinctive form of The Baptism of Saint Augustine,added to the evidence already gathered from other folios,enables us to plot its construction with some degree of

confidence. The stages of this construction are set out inthe four diagramsin Fig. 20. It should be noted that, in theinterestsof visual clarity, I have employed in the diagramsa slightly different order from that in the verbal description.

As with all folios containing script, the design of fol. 37v

began with the ruling. The dimensions of the total text areaare exactly those found throughout the manuscript, and,before the scribe could begin to write, the frame had to be

designed in its complex entirety. This was done on the basis

of the ruling, in a series of steps involving both the counting

of lines and the modular transference of proportions. First,the width of the miniature was established. This was done

by measuring, the picture being made half as wide as the

parent block of text (57mm and 112mm, respectively. See

Fig. 20a). The next stage was to set the upper and lower

limits of the main, rectangular field of The Baptism. Forthis purpose, the four-line module, which has already been

met, was twice employed, once counting upwardsfrom thebottom line, and once downwards from the top (Fig. 20c).

Following this, the width of the centralprojection (and thusof the shoulders of the main body of the miniature) wasdecided upon. This was arrived at by making the projectionexactly half as wide as the body of the painting (28mm and

57mm, respectively. See Fig. 20b). This third operation is

mumqI umm.b

Sinixmaluuatm,illt

zlznt aptuni

O~tittstttausrnptrn~ twntitatti

fuuolln 0ifuno illr1t0n

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17 TheLegendof Aracoeli,Trbs ichesHeures.Chantilly,Mu-

s6e Cond6, ol. 22 (photo:Giraudon)

18 Three dia-

gramsofstagesof con-structionofthe LegendofAracoeli,Fig.17

a b

c4

t..e~

C

22This practiceis not unique to the Limbourgs,but is used with reasonable

frequency in 15th-century Hours. Four reproducedexamples are:

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms at. 1159, fols. 155v, 160v, 161v, and

Ms at. 1176, fols. 83 and 186 (see V. Leroquais, Les Livres d'heures man-

uscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale, iii, Paris, 1927, pls. LIII-LVnd LXIX,

LXXI).

Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Ms S.N. 2613, fols. 14, 43v, 49, 55v, 75,

96, 128 (see O. Picht and D. Thoss, Die illuminierten Handschriftenund

Inkunabelnder OsterreichischenNationalbibliothek: Franzbsische Schule

I, ii, Vienna, 1974, pls. 239-245).

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms Nouv. acq. lat. 3107, fols. 24 and 77

(see Hindman and Farquhar,figs. 26 and 28).








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19 TheBaptismof SaintAugustine,TrisRichesHeures.Chan-tilly,Mus&eCond6,fol. 37v (photo:Giraudon)

20 Fourdia-

gramsofstagesof con-structionofBaptismofSaintAugus-tine, Fig. 19,withpagepricking d)

T

d 6d

a repetition, but on a smaller scale, of the first step. Its

effect is to make the miniature frame mirror the propor-tions of the whole page, with the narrower part of the

paintingstandingto the wider as the wider does to the whole

text. Finally, all that remained was to set the height of the

archedprojection above the top of the ruling. Having twice

employed the four-line module, nothing could be more vis-ually comfortable than to make its influencefelt once more.

Thus the upper limit of the lunette was set at exactly thatdistance above the top line of rulingwhich equals four lines

of script (29mm. See Fig.20c). Like TheLegendof Aracoeli,the present miniature thus enjoys a discreet family resem-blance to the design of the large paintings of the Hours of

the Virgin. All are variations on a common theme.The influence of the ruling on The Baptism of Saint Au-

gustine does not terminate at the edge of the frame, but

enters the painting to position some of the chief pictorialaccents. Consider only the three most striking examples.First, the horizontal shoulders of the frame continue in the

pictureas the chief molding below the baptisterybalustrade(Fig.20d). Second, the vertical sides of the upper projectionfind similar embodiment in the slender compound piers

framing the saint. And third, the influence of the center

margin re-enters the story in a way that needs a few wordsof explanation. Above the baptistery, a narrow tower as-

cends into the upper part of the picture, its form echoingboth the tall, slim frame and arched top that enclose it. The

left and right profiles of this tower lie precisely along the

lines of the center margin, which can be seen in the man-

uscript itself, risingout of the painted forms like a shadowyscaffolding (Figs. 19 and 20d). It is also worth noting that

this tower is built in two stories, with the break occurringin harmonious accord with the

upperlimit of the

ruling.The Limbourgs' sensitivity to the rhythm and propor-tions of the rulingraises a teasing question: were the broth-

ers merely reacting to the proportional decisions of the

designer of the book, or were they themselves responsiblefor the design? On the folio bearing The Baptism of Saint

Augustine is a piece of concrete evidence that allows a

deeper glimpse into the problem. As noted above in the

introduction, the ruling of a medieval manuscript is set bythe prick marks positioned in the margins of the folio.23 To

place the ruled verticals of a simple, two-column folio, four

prick marks are needed in both the upper and lower mar-

gins (Fig. 1, Marks a-d, e-h). With the exception of the

Aracoeli page, the Trbs Riches Heures is written in two

columns, and the quadruple pricking is visible throughoutin the upper and lower margins. On the folio with The

Baptism of Saint Augustine, however, the prick marks

number a surprisingsix, above and below (Fig. 20d). Fourof these marks perform the standardfunction of setting thetext ruling in place (Fig. 20d, Marks 1, 3, 4, and 6). The

remaining two have no such role, but are used to place the

outer vertical limits of the miniature frame (Marks 2 and

5). These last are the only prick marks of this type knownto me, which have to do not with the writing but with the

painting of a page. They reveal the presence of the Lim-

23See note 13.








bourgs at the earliest stage of the aesthetic preparation ofthe folio. And they suggest an answer to the question posedabove: that Jean de Berry's favorite miniaturists not onlydecorated the masterpiece of his collection, but were the

designers of its subtle and beautiful proportions.

VII. Ruling and Whole-Page Miniatures: The BoucicautHours and The Seilern HoursSo far only those miniatures which share folios with greateror lesser amounts of text have been considered. Let us nowlook at the influence of rulingon miniatures that stand alone

upon the page.Most late medieval manuscripts were first ruled in their

entirety. Thus many folios with whole-page paintings were

originally ruled, are contiguous with text folios in the gath-ering, and still show tracesof the ruling through theirpaint-work. Tipped-in, unruled folios for whole-page miniatures

were, of course, used in a minority of cases, and do not

concern us here. In a sizable number of the whole-page

paintings on prepared folios, the underlying ruling hasplayed some part in the design of the pictorial composition.This is so in The Boucicaut Hours and in The Seilern Hours.

The Boucicaut Hours is one of the most famous andbeautiful of early fifteenth-century manuscripts.24 In plan-ning this manuscript,the forty-two originalminiatureswere

completely separatedfrom the text and placed alone on theversos of the folios.25 The ruling of the twenty-line singlecolumn is visible through the miniatures, even in photo-graphs, and was an important influence on the design of

the architectural settings of the compositions. Nowhere is

this more evident than in the Virginand Child Enthroned,which illustrates the Mass of the Virgin (Fig. 21).26

Thispainting

is one of the mostcompositionally

accom-

plished in The Boucicaut Hours, with the curvilinearforms

of the majestic Virgin anchored in the rectilinear grid of

the throne, and answered by the swirl of scrolls and angelic

wings. The tonal banding of the throne, together with the

use of a canopy above and steps below, lend the paintingan unusual appearance of regular stratification over its

whole height. This regular banding mirrors exactly the

script of The Boucicaut Hours, both in the number of itslines and in their proportions. The explanation for this

agreement will not surprisein the present context, for both

the scriptand the design of the miniature share the common

foundation of the ruling. What does, perhaps, surprise is

the amazing thoroughness with which this accord has been

pursued in the picture, in which all but one of the twenty-one lines of rulinghave found directembodiment in pictureor frame (Figs. 21 and 22). Indeed, this miniature is themost complete example of the artistic use of the horizontal

ruling that I have encountered.

If the use of horizontal ruling in the design of whole-

page miniatures is demonstrated in The Boucicaut Hours,that of the verticals is clearly shown in the pages of TheSeilern Hours. These Hours were paintedbefore about 1422,

possibly at the Burgundiancourt, and certainly by artistswho had been deeply influenced by the work of the Lim-

bourgs.27 The main paintings arewhole-page, and the man-uscript is ruled for two columns of script in seventeen lines.In the Nativity for Prime in the Hours of the Virgin, the

ruling is plainly visible beneath the paint, and has beeninfluential in planning an important aspect of the com-

position (Fig. 23, TRH fig. 627).As befits the text and the subject, the adoring Virgin

dominates the Seilern Nativity. She is placed close to thecenter of the picture, is buttressed before and behind byplatforms of drapery, and the axis of her long body is ma-terialized and extended above her halo by the pale strut ofthe Nativity shed. This height-increasing support sits ex-

actly along the left vertical of the center margin, and thus

brings the hidden design of the page to bear on the chiefprotagonist of the scene (Figs. 23 and 25a).This picture offers the rare opportunity to adduce evi-

dence for artistic intention and consciousness beyond that

provided by our eyes, our measuring instruments, and ourintuition. It has long been observed that the paintings inThe Seilern Hours depend on the iconographical and sty-listic models provided by the Belles Heures and the TresRichesHeures.28 The present Nativity derives from the same

subject in the TrbsRiches Heures, from which it repeats the

poses of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, as well as the figure ofGod the Father in a glory and the conical hill with a vistaof distant townscape (Figs. 23 and 24). The Seilern Masterhas also echoed his model at a

deeperlevel,

repeatingthe

concealed measure of its structure. For the Nativity of theTrbs Riches Heures uses a design method extremely closeto that just encountered, with the left vertical of the center

margin giving the edge of the shed-support which frames,extends, and stabilizes the figure of the Virgin (Figs.24 and

25b).29

VIII. Pictorial Space, Two-Dimensional Design, and theEvidence of Page RulingA thorough investigation of the influence of ruling on the

design of miniature painting would, as I said at the outset,

require a substantial study. The material set out here pro-vides only a starting-point, with many questions left un-

answered and many avenues unexplored. However, thereis one aspect of the theory that cannot be passed over evenin a brief survey: its implications for the treatment of pic-torial space in medieval painting. While it is not my in-tention to attempt a r~sumbof art-historical thought on this

24 Meiss, 1968, 3-22 and passim.

25 Ibid., figs. 1-42.

26 Ibid., fig. 28.

27 See Meiss, 1974, 237-39.

28 Ibid., 330, for a chronological bibliography for this manuscript.

29 For a similar model and variant, see Durrieu (as in note 12), pl. v. There

two versions of the story of Federigo degli Alberighi from the French

Decameron are reproduced (Rome, Vatican Library,Pal. Lat. 1989, fol.

174v, and Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, MS5070, fol. 211v). The latter

depends on the former, and preserves intact not only every detail of the

composition but also the placing of the edge of the building along the

right vertical of the center margin.








,v,

A V

21 TheVirginand ChildEnthroned,BoucicautHours.Paris,Mus6eJacquemart-Andr6,ol. 46v (photo:Bulloz)

topic, some introductory remarks are necessary.30aThe aesthetic meditations of nineteenth- and twentieth-

century art historians, as well as the development of "pro-gressive" art in this period, have demolished the idea of

normative style. As part of the new view, the treatment of

space in medieval painting is no longer viewed solely in

terms of a preparationfor the emergenceof focused, math-

ematical perspective. Rather, it is seen as representing an

equilibrium between the increasing appetite for pictorial

depth and the abiding demands of two-dimensional, planardesign. Two brief examples of this approach will suffice.

First,JohnWhite speaks of Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes:

"The general configuration in Giotto's case is that of a

steadily increasing harmony between the flat wall and anever more ambitious spatial realism."31And second, Erwin

Panofsky discusses the spatial aesthetic of the Master of

Flkmalle:"Froma diametricallyopposite point of view, and

with a diametrically opposite intention, the Master of Fl&-

malle achieved an effect not unlike that aspired to by C&-zanne and van Gogh. C6zanne and van Gogh wished to

affirmtheplane while still committed to a perspective inter-

pretation of space; the Master of Fl6mallestrove to affirm

po

ool?

22 Diagramof throne n Fig.21, with ruling

perspective while still committed to a decorative interpre-tation of the plane surface.'"32

The application of this attractive hypothesis to any par-ticularmedieval pictureis, however, fraughtwith historical

dangers(a fact, it should be added, well known to the above

writers). This is so chiefly because the two parts of the

equation are unequally susceptible of investigation and

proof. On the one hand, it is a comparatively simple matterto judge the spatial verisimilitude of a painting, both by

empiricalmeans and by the use of the tools of mathematical

perspective. On the other, it is considerably more difficultto show that this or that deviation from optical "truth" s

a matter of intention, answering the demands of planar

composition within some mathematical or geometrical sys-tem. In the first case, there are tests and checks to determine

spatial verisimilitude that are largely uncontroversial. In

the second one enters, willy-nilly, the smoke and battle of

proportional studies. And in doing so one might note thewise words of Rudolf Wittkower: ... in trying to provethat a system of proportion has been deliberately applied

by a painter, a sculptor or an architect one is easily misled

into finding those ratios which one sets out to find. In the

30 Most of the important literature on space in medieval and early Ren-

aissance painting is cited in White and in S. Y. Edgerton, The Renaissance

Rediscovery of LinearPerspective, New York, 1975.

31White, 65.

32Panofsky, I, 166f.








AV-., .• j & $ . .

A

23 TheNativity,SeilernHours.FormerlyLondon,Collectionof Count A. Seilern,MSnot foliated(photo:CourtauldInstitute)

scholar's hands dividers do not revolt. If we want to avoid

the pitfalls of useless speculation we must look for unmis-takable guidance by the artists themselves."33

Illuminated manuscripts can assist us in adding to ourstore of "unmistakableguidance by the artists themselves."

Such guidance may be provided in a variety of ways: bytheoretical writings; by measureddrawings and plans; and

by the unequivocal traces of design proceduresthat survivein the works of art themselves. Few works of art retain as

much evidence of the temporal unfolding of their makingas do illuminated manuscripts. In such manuscripts, the

miniaturesare but the keystone of an arch whose centeringis still everywhere in place. With the aid of this still-visible

evidence, most particularly that of the ruling, we can fre-

quently point to aspects of two-dimensional design thatprecede the miniature, become enmeshed in its pictorialstructure, and influence its treatment of space and per-

spective. Let us turn to an example drawn from the so-

called Salisbury Breviary painted by the Bedford Master

and his associates.The Salisbury Breviary was begun about 1423 for John,

Duke of Bedford, regentin Francefor the infant Henry VI.34

On fol. 518, Anne, Duchess of Bedford, prays to her pa-troness, in the large miniature, from the historiated initial

til

ft

24 The Nativity, Tr s Riches Heures. Chantilly, Mus6e Cond6,fol. 44v (photo:Giraudon)

r

b

25 Diagrams of Figs. 23 (a) and 24 (b), with center marginrulings

33Architecturalrinciplesn theAgeof Humanism, rdrev.ed., London,1962, 126.

34See E. P. Spencer, "The Master of the Duke of Bedford: The Salisbury

Breviary," Burlington Magazine, cviII, 1966, 607-612.








i4C

26 TheHoly Kindredwithmarginal cenes rom the StoryofJoachimandAnna, SalisburyBreviary.Paris,BibliothequeNa-tionale,MSat. 1794,fol. 518 (photo:Bibl.Nat.)

27 DiagramofBirthof the Vir-gin fromFig.26,with columnandcentermarginrulings

1?

(Fig. 26).3 In common with the remainder of illustratedfolios in this sumptuous book, the margins are rich with

figurative decoration. Readingclockwise from the top, TheAnnunciation to Joachim, TheAnnunciation to SaintAnna,The Meeting at the Golden Gate, and The Birth of the Vir-

gin recount the story of "Anna mater" invoked in the text.

Important here is the last of these scenes: The Birth ofthe Virginin the lower left. The event takes place in a little,

open-fronted house whose face is parallel to the pictureplane and whose side recedes in perspective (a type of con-struction characterized by White as "foreshortened fron-

tal").36 Before the creation of this little house, the relevant

part of the folio carried, and indeed still carries, the ver-ticals of the ruling for two columns of writing. Althoughinnocent of any spatial intention, indeed of any pictorialintention, this ruling has been adopted by the miniaturistasone of the bases of theperspectiveof SaintAnna'schamber.

First, the front of the house is exactly as wide as thecolumn of text above, because both depend on the same

ruled verticals (Figs. 26 and 27). On the left, the rulingterminates the painted house so abruptly that the archi-tectural moldings are sliced off. On the right it marks ex-

actly the change of plane from the front to the side of the

building. And second, the vertical limit of the foreshort-ened side is given with equal severity by the right-handline of the center margin.

Within these predeterminedverticals, the converging or-

thogonals are clearly arrived at empirically (and are "in-correct"by the anachronistic standards of Alberti). But itis worth underlining that if the angles of these orthogonalsare a matter of observation, the degree of theirpenetrationinto space is determined by quite another means - the

geometryof the

page design.In this

painting, and in manyother comparable works, the nature of illuminated man-

uscripts provides unusual opportunities for testing theoriesof spatial design in medieval painting. Indeed, most of theworks examined in this paper give scope for the controlledobservation of the varying demands of space and plane ina single painting. A case in point is The Virgin and ChildEnthroned from The Boucicaut Hours.

In this work, as has been seen, the regular banding ofthe composition owes its placing and dimensions to thehor-izontal ruling (Figs. 21 and 22). Yet the objects ensnared inthese surface horizontals are notionally of considerable

spatial complexity. Considered in side elevation, for ex-

ample, the steps, throne, and canopy move in and out of

depth through no less than nine right-angled turns. As inThe Birthof the Virgin, a delightfulbalance has been struckbetween the demands of the observant eye and the abstrac-tions of the page design.

IX. Ruling and the Theory of the FramingArchWithin the larger literature on space in medieval painting,there exists a theory that is specifically addressed to thetension between plane and depth on the folio of the illu-

35For a large reproduction, see Leroquais, 1934 (as in note 10), pl. LXIV.

36 White, 27.








minated manuscript. This may be dubbed "TheTheory ofthe FramingArch."37Because the pictorial use of page rul-

ing can, I believe, contribute to this theory, I shall brieflyset it out here.

In Northern miniature painting of the late Middle Ages,theredeveloped the practice of placing frontal architectural

openings inside the miniature frame, and in the foremostplane of the picture. By the late fourteenth and early fif-

teenth century these architecturalframes were of two main

types. In the first, the frontal architectural entrance is the

forward face of a complete structure for which one can

imagine a ground-plan. Examplesof structuresof this type,used in this way, may be found in the Pentecost of the Belles

Heures and in The Baptism of Saint Augustine in the TresRiches Heures (Figs. 11 and 19). In the second type, an archor post and lintel construction is set immediately withinthe frame, and has little or no connection with the archi-

tecture and space of the rest of the painting.3 In practicethese ideal types are rarely found in a pure state. Rather,

they form the extremes of a single design procedure whoseeffect is to provide the miniature with an architectural en-trance within the decorative entrance of the frame.39 It isto the effect on the relationship of plane and pictorial spaceon the folio that "The Theory of the Framing Arch" is

chiefly addressed.

The theory proposes that the architecturalentrances are

intended as a formal bridge between the flat plane of the

folio, with its script and miniature frame, and the illusion-

istic depth of the miniatures themselves. Such mediation is

necessary, it is argued, because of the increasingly disrup-tive effects of deepening pictorial vistas on flat and flimsy

parchment folios. And such mediation is possible, it is fur-

ther said, because the architecturalopenings partake of thetwo aesthetic worlds. On the one hand, theirplanar nature

and planimetric arrangement give them the characterof an

additional frame. On the other, they partake of the pic-torial space because they are themselves illusionistic forms

and part of the pictorial world.40

Two brief formulationsby proponents of the theory must

here suffice. First, Millard Meiss speaks of developmentsin fourteenth-century manuscript painting prior to the Bou-

cicaut Master: "From the time of Pucelle, French illumi-

nators ... sought to harmonize the tri-dimensionalminiature with the two-dimensional script and the thin re-

silient folio itself. As the impact of the recession of space

increased... the miniature seemed to

require strongerboundaries ... that would, however, be neither flat normassive."41And second, Dorothy Miner describinga richly

episodic miniature of The Adoration of the Shepherdsfrom

a fifteenth-century Hours: "Somehow, the book designer

has to bring us back to the surface of our page and the

words written thereon. To do this he has used a clever de-

vice. He has given us to understand that we are seeing all

this through a window, arched and traceried."42Consid-

eration of miniatures in their relations with the ruling can,as I have indicated, add something to our formulation of

the "Theory of the FramingArch." Two of the paintingsalready met provide material for this: the Pentecost in the

Belles Heures and The Baptism of Saint Augustine in the

TrbsRiches Heures.The architecture of the chapel of the Pentecost makes

little literal sense, either in historical or structural terms

(Fig. 11, BH fol. 84). Historically, the "house in which theywere sitting" becomes the contemporary and abidingChurch. Structurally, the logic of architectureyields to the

logic of the manuscript page. The human figures remain

within the scale of sizes that is common to the large picturesof the Belles Heures, and helps give that book its visual

unity. But the architecture is related not to the needs of the

figures but to the proportions of the page design. Thecharming and impossible edifice has its foundation, so to

speak, on the fac;ade,which fits snugly into the miniature

frame. This frame, and the ruling on which it depends,conditions the forms of the fac;adeand the sizes of much

of its detail (Fig. 12).Let us take first the influence of the frame, remembering

that the latter is itself a derivative of the ruling. First, the

frame gives the height of the lateral structures by the in-

ward extension of the shoulders, which are placed on the

top line. And second, the width of the frame, which is of

course equal to the two columns, provides for the placingof the compound piers by division into thirds.

If the frame mediates the influence of the ruling to thearchitecture of the miniature, elsewhere in the fac;ade hat

influenceis felt directly.The following horizontals are based

on lines of ruling:the firstmolding upwardsfrom the frame;the shadowed edge of the square decorated panel; the limit

of the low screens; and the limit of the decorated panelsover the arches above.

Our second example, The Baptism of Saint Augustine(Fig. 19, TRH fig. 574), permits us to apply what we have

already seen to the present context. Although the whole of

the baptistery front is not flush with the picture plane (for

good reasons of iconography), the central section is so po-sitioned. It is this section, as was seen, which draws its

proportions preciselyfrom the form of the

frame,which

in its turn relies upon the ruling. The "entrance arch" is

framedby the horizontal that connects the frame shoulders

and the compound piers that are the downward projectionof the sides of the upper frame (Fig. 20d).

37Variations on this theory may be found in Panofsky, 58f., 383, n. 2;in D. Miner, The Development of Medieval Illumination as Related to the

Evolution of Book Design, reprintedfrom Catholic Life Annual, i, 1958,

17f.; in K. M. Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif in Netherlandish Painting of

the Fifteenth Century, Part One," Art Bulletin, XLIII, 1961, 5-8; and in

Meiss, 1968, 2-14.

38The second type, in its pure form, is sometimes referred to as "the

diaphragm arch," following Panofsky, who borrowed it for illumination

from the vocabulary of architecture (p. 58f.).

39See, for example, the range of types in the Boucicaut Hours; fols. 9v,17v, 24v, 29v, 31v, 32v, 36v, 38v, 41v, 83v, 142v. Meiss, 1968, figs. 1, 5,

11, 12, 16, 17, 21, 23, 25, 33, 41.

40 The most succinct formulation is in Birkmeyer (as in note 37).41 1968,12f.42 As in note 37; 18.








The two foregoing miniatures contain architectural en-trances of the first type listed above: those attached to com-

plete structures with broadly coherent ground-plans. Forour third example, and for the last illustrations to this ar-

ticle, we turn to an entrance of the second type: one more

closely connected with the frame than with the background

architecture. Fig. 28 shows David Composing the Psalmsfrom the second volume (Bks. xi-xxii) of the Frenchtrans-lation of Saint Augustine's The City of God. As early as1909 the paintings in this manuscript were connected withthe Boucicaut Master, and Meiss saw the best of them im-

plying "considerableparticipationby the Masterhimself.."43he pictorial space of the David Composing is reached

through a thin frame and a scarcely thicker post and lintelentrance which clings closely to its decorative counterpart(Fig. 29). The ruling plays a major part in proportioningthe architecturalopening and the other related forms in the

foreground plane. At the bottom, the edge of the dais ison the first line above the frame. This dais is attached tothe left

post,and acts like a

stepinto the

painting.Above

this, the next two rulings place the two moldings of the

posts and the lowest one of David's throne. And at the topof the miniature, the first line down yields the inner edgeof the lintel, which thus proportionally echoes the dais-stepbelow.

EarlierI said that attention to the pictorial uses of folio

ruling can help us to refine our present theory. In the above

examples, and in a significant number of other miniatures,there is technical continuity of proportion that binds to-

gether ruling, script, two-dimensional frame, and three-di-mensional architecturalopening. This fact adds a practicaldimension to the aesthetic intuition of page unity that isenshrined in "The Theory of the FramingArch."

X. ConclusionIf the thesis of this article is accepted, even in broad outline,it seems to me to connect with an approach to the studyof manuscripts that has become known as "codicology" oras "the archaeology of the book."44

The codicological approach is characterized, at its best,

by an unblinking attention to the uniqueness, wholeness,and physical make-up of the individual manuscript. Itspro-ponents show a certain empirical suspicion of the tradi-tional boundaries of the disciplines that have developed forthe study of medieval manuscripts.And they encourage theview that nothing is too small to be noticed, or too ap-

parently remote from our specialist concern to be of po-tential value. As L. M. J. Delaiss6 has put it: "... we can

undoubtedly be deprived of essential elements in our re-search if, when using manuscripts, we limit ourselves to anexclusive interest and neglect any of the technical aspectsof these books. We must, on the contrary, go first to thebook as a whole, see how it is made, examine all aspects

-7-7- --? -777'--

!tv'

jL

At^

All

28 DavidComposing hePsalms,Cite de Dieu. Baltimore,Walters Art Gallery, MS 770, fol. 117 (photo: Walters)

B29 Diagramofarchitecturalentrance n Fig.27, with ruling

of its content and only then can we appreciate the conse-

quences of this complete analysis on our personal inter-est."45 This interdisciplinary potential has caused one

scholar engagingly to describe codicology as "a railwayturntable, surrounded by a number of humanistic sci-ences."46 I shall be pleased if this paper helps the flow of

traffic, along the lines of ruling, from the province of the

archaeologists of the book to that of the art historians.The University of Aberdeen

Old Aberdeen AB9 2UB Scotland

43 A. de Laborde, Les Manuscrits'

peinture de la Cite de Dieu de Saint

Augustin, ii, Paris, 1909, 323ff.; Meiss, 1968, 41f., 76f., fig. 337.

44See A. Gruijs, "Codicology or the Archaeology of the Book? A False

Dilemma," Quaerendo, 11,1972, 87-108.

4s "Towards a History of the Medieval Book," Divinitas, II, 1967, 429.46Gruijs (as in note 44), 105.







Bibliography

Hindman, S., and J. D. Farquhar,Pen to Press: Illustrated Manuscriptsand Printed Books in the First Century of Printing, University of Mary-land, The Johns Hopkins University, 1977.

Longnon, J., and R. Cazelles, The TrbsRiches Heures of Jean, Duke of

Berry, New York, 1969.

Meiss, M., 1968, FrenchPainting in the Time of Jeande Berry. The Bou-

cicaut Master, New York and London.

, 1974, FrenchPainting in the Timeof Jeande Berry.TheLimbourgsand Their Contemporaries, 2 vols., New York and London.

Meiss, M., and E. H. Beatson, The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,New York, 1974.

Panofsky, E., Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character,2

vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1953.

White, J., The Birth and Rebirthof Pictorial Space, 2nd rev. ed., London,1967.

Telemaco Signoriniand Macchiaioli

Giapponismo: A Report of

Researchin Progress

Nancy Gray Troyer

Although there are many published studies of the influenceof Japaneseprints on the art of the West in the nineteenth

century, none has attempted any systematic examination

of this phenomenon with specific regard to Italian paint-

ing.1 Scatteredthrough the literature on modern Italian art

are passing referencesto this or that artist'sexperiencewith

or enthusiasm for Japanand Japaneseart, but these remain

tantalizingly incomplete and have never been gathered intoan overall evaluation of the influence.

We know that Antonio Fontanesi taught painting at the

Tokyo Technical Art School from 1876 to 1878, but this is

the obverse of the question, since his presence there came

about through the Meiji government's policy of Wester-

nizing Japaneseart training in the interests of scientific and

industrial progress. There is no indication that Fontanesi's

two years in Japan significantly affected the direction of

his own work; on the contrary, he is best remembered asa profound influence on some Japanese Western-style

painters.2Ugo Ojetti relates an amusing account of the trib-ulations of Francesco Paolo Michetti when, because of hisinterest in Japan, he sought unsuccessfully to be appointedto the post in Tokyo after Fontanesi's return. Michetti isalso mentioned by ErnestChesneau in 1878 in a list of art-

ists who had assimilated the art of Japan and, at the sametime, kept their own individual identities.4 Emilio Lavag-nino documents the conversion to Japonisme of GiuseppeDe Nittis, whose connections with the Goncourt circle arealso known.5 Ojetti also pauses briefly and somewhat dis-

dainfully over Mario Fortuny, the popular Spanish artist,who had, according to Ojetti's colorful description, a hostof "butterflying"followers. The Macchiaioli he dismisseswith a stroke of the pen: they learned about nature second-

1 This article is based on material contained in the last chapter of myPh.D. dissertation, "The Macchiaioli: Effects of Modern Color Theory,

Photography, and Japanese Prints on a Group of Italian Painters, 1855-1900,"Northwestern University, 1978. The results of further researchhave

been included in this report, a synthesis of which was given as a paperin March, 1982, during the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Art Historical

Society in Chicago. All Italian and French translations are my own.

2 M. Harade,Meiji WesternPainting (Arts of Japanvi), New York/Tokyo,

1974, 29ff. Two other Italians taught with Fontanesi in Japan: Vincenzo

Ragusa, sculptor, and Giovanni Cappelletti, architect, who taught geom-

etry, perspective, and the decorative arts.

3U. Ojetti, Ritratti d'artisti italiani, Milan, 1948, 20-21.

4 E. Chesneau, "LeJapon'

Paris," Gazette des beaux-arts, xviII, 1878,396: "... Each one assimilates from Japanese art the qualities that have

the greatest affinity with his own talents: Mr. Alfred Stevens, certain rare

delicacies of tone; Mr. James Tissot, the boldness and even oddness of

composition, as in his beautiful Promenade on the Thames;Mr. Whistler,

his exquisite delicacy of color; Mr. Manet, his boldness of color areas andthe sense of strange form as in his etchings for the illustrations to The

Raven of Edgar Poe; Mr. Monet, the summary suppression of detail in

the interests of the impression of the whole; Mr. Astruc, the clever capriceof the foregroundsof his watercolors; Mr. Degas, the realistic imaginationof his groups, the lively effect of the placement of the light in his marvelous

scenes of caf6-concert; Mr. Michetti, the elegant outlining of his figures

against monochrome backgrounds ... And all find there a confirmation

rather than an inspiration for their personal ways of seeing, of feeling, of

understanding and of interpretingnature. From this a redoubling of indi-

vidual originality instead of a base submission to Japaneseart."

5E. Lavagnino, LArte moderna dai neoclassiciai contemporanei, ii, Turin,

1961, 851-52.

Documents

Byrne Manuscript Ruling and Pictorial Design in the Work of the Limbourgs, The Bedford Master, And the Boucicaut Master