Preservation Week
Before printing, manuscripts were created by hand and often elaborately decorated. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, a range of substances were used to enliven and color manuscript text and visual images, often referred to as miniatures, accompanying text. Paints, dyes, inks, and metallic gilding were used and frequently produced stunning and vivid color pallets. “Recipes” and “formulas” varied regionally, from scriptorium to scriptorium, and throughout the years. Makers experimented, used available “ingredients,” and rarely documented their methods. Today’s conservators and material scientists study inks and other manuscript materials to understand how a manuscript was created. Being able to correctly identify substances allows those caring for manuscripts to both prevent damage and to address deterioration when it happens. Studying inks increases our understanding of beautiful manuscript traditions, and sometimes inadvertently uncovers unexpected insights into manuscript traditions beyond the ingredient lists.
In honor of the American Library Association’s National Preservation Week, enjoy these two articles about contemporary research in materials science and seeing how it helps conservators, preservationists, and scientists better understand and care for precious library holdings.
This article chronicles a discovery of lapis lazuli embedded in dental tartar on the teeth of female script and help document the roles women played in creating manuscripts: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/the-woman-with-lapis-lazuli-in-her-teeth/579760/.
Scientists stumped on the origins of a distinctive blue ink, discover a roadside plant in Portugal that left its marks throughout medieval times: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/folium-medieval-ink?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page&fbclid=IwAR0RBcs9pKQNdz5bfbXYUDD-w3mQPlSl_BYIQZ8wcZCwyfTr5JfpvBNH45w.