HOW TO ILLUMINATE MANUSCRIPTS
[BOOK OF SECRETS] [ANONYMOUS.] A very proper treatise, wherein is breefely set foorth the art of Limming, which teacheth the order in drawing and tracing of leters, Vinets, Flowers, Armes, and Imagerye... London Thomas Purfoot 1588
Rare early English instruction manual for painting and illuminating books, manuscripts and other works. “Limming” or “limning” was originally the process of illuminating or outlining an image with gilt, but the term became associated with the art of miniature portraiture in general, as with Nicholas Hilliard’s Art of Limming (c. 1600). Here, since the term “purfle” is used to mean “to finish or decorate the border or edge of,” “limming” presumably denotes the more complex technique. First published in 1573, A very proper treatise provides detailed instructions for every stage of the gilding process, including how to make sizing and glair, and how to “temper” or mix one’s own inks. Among the “sundry kinds of colours” that can be made by “mingling” them together are lion tawny, “incarnation and fleshly colour,” peach, sky, and three shades of green—Lincoln, Popinjay, and Motley (f. 8). On the penultimate leaf the author summarizes his lessons, providing a one-paragraph summary of limning. The volume concludes with a table of contents and a list of “The Names of All Such Coloures and other thinges as are mentioned and contayned in this present Booke of Limming, and are for the moste parte to bee solde at the Apothecaries” (including but not limited to gold and silver foil, red, black and white lead, scraped cheese, and “childspisse”).Richard Tottill published the first edition in 1573, and reprinted it in 1581 and 1583. This edition, by his assigné Thomas Purfoot, is the fourth. Further editions appeared in 1596 and 1605. All editions are very scarce; of this printing the STC (24,255) records five copies. OCLC lists only a microfilm, which was made from the Folger copy. The 1583 edition is held by Boston University and Princeton; the Free Library in Philadelphia has that of 1596.
* STC 24,255.
$US22500
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