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to the artists’ ability and their willingness to experiment with divided historiated initials, multicompartment miniatures, full- page miniatures, and divided miniatures that extend across more than one column of text. By the second third of the fourteenth century, however, a traditional format for secular manuscript il- lumination had largely been established, in which single-column miniatures indicated the major divisions of the text, usually il- lustrated an event located near the beginning of the chapter, and were often drawn from a stock of patterns—battle, letter deliv- ery, love scene—that could be easily inserted.97
By the early fourteenth century Paris was so closely associated with the trade and production of illuminated manuscripts that Dante, in Canto XI of his Divine Comedy (written between 1308 and his death in 1321), coined the term “illumination” to refer to the Parisian style of illustrating and embel- lishing manuscripts. By the second quarter of the fourteenth century the market for secular literature had expanded sufficiently that artists were begin- ning to specialize in illuminating either secular or religious works. Through the end of the fifteenth century the most important and original work done in secular illumination was in manuscripts featuring historical stories. The pattern of production of these manuscripts was often that patrons would negotiate with a bookseller regarding the text and style of writing, quality and quantity of images and decoration they desired in a manuscript. The bookseller would then commission a scribe to do the writing, leaving space on each page for the chosen illuminator to fit the images and other kinds of decoration into the manuscript. Sometimes the bookseller would provide written instructions to the artist regarding specific images and the details in each that were desired. Over time certain details of costume in particular
97 Morrison, “From Sacred to Secular: The Origins of History Illumination in France,” in Mor- rison & Hedeman (eds.), Imagining the Past in France. History in Manuscript Painting, 1250-1500 (2010), p. 22. This quote is taken from the author’s summary of points made with specific examples, and is beautifully illustrated in this chapter.
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