Speaking of a freak coincidence, check this out. The bottom image you may recognize as something I tumbled just last week (in this post). The decorator Rufillus drew himself in a decorated letter R. It is special because a monk is supposed to be humble and not draw attention to himself. To make it worse, he placed his name above his portrait (faintly visible in white paint). Today I was browsing the wonderful Initiale website for images of scribes and I came across the top image. No way, there is Rufillus again! This time he depicted himself as a scribe, again writing his name above his self portrait. Both the handwriting of the name and that of the main text is from the same individual, meaning Rufillus copied the book himself. It looks like our Rufillus was not just proud of his painting abilities, but he was also quite fond of the way he wrote - everybody was to know it was done by him. Most striking, however, is the similarity of the two portraits: the bony features of the face, the pronounced chin, and the copious red hair. Both images are very likely showing what he really looked like - and are therefore true medieval selfies. How great is that?
Pics: The letter D is found in Amiens, BM, Lescalopier, MS 30 (more here), the letter R in Cologny, Collection Martin Bodmer, MS 127 (more here).
