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Incunabula

@incunabula

Feb 25

All six Ukrainian Presidents since 1991, including Volodymyr Zelensky, have taken the oath of office on this book: the 16th century Peresopnytsia Gospels [Ukrainian: Пересопницьке Євангеліє], one of the most remarkably illuminated of all surviving East Slavic manuscripts. 1/

The Peresopnytsia Gospels were written between 15 August 1556 and 29 August 1561, at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Iziaslav, and the Monastery of the Mother of God in Peresopnytsia, Volyn'. The scribe was Mykhailo Vasyl’ovych, son of an archpriest from Sianik. 2/

The Peresopnytsia Gospels are held in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, in Kyiv. Its collection holds more than 15 million items, making it the 20th-largest library in the world. 3/

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Incunabula

@incunabula

Feb 24

"A Magnum Opus Beyond Measure: Yongle's Encyclopaedia Enigma". This is the catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Library of China in Beijing in 2018 and then at the Shenzhen Nanshan Museum in early 2020. 1/

The catalogue explores the history of the production of the two versions of this Chinese cultural icon, the Yongle Dadian (Yongle Encyclopaedia), under the Yongle and Jiajing emperors of the Ming dynasty. 2/

It allso includes many associated rare printed and manuscript works related to the Encyclopaedia, and tells the story of the ongoing efforts by China to reclaim the scattered extant fascicles following the destruction by fire of the Hanlin Library in 1900. 3/

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Incunabula

@incunabula

Dec 29, 2021

A large and luxurious finely-bound 18th century Qur’an, written in black and red in very fine naskhi in an austere, entirely undecorated style, described by Maggs in 1939 as "in the style peculiar to the islands of the Indian Ocean." Possibly originating from the Maldives. 1/

The binding is 18th century red Morocco with a fore-edge flap, very elaborately gilt-tooled with floral designs. The design shows some non-Islamic influences, and may have been executed in a workshop in southern India, possibly one attached to a mission press. 2/

It's a massive tome, 650 folios, on good quality burnished unwatermarked paper, almost certainly of Indian manufacture. The essentially complete absence of any decoration throughout is unusual and very striking. 3/

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Incunabula

@incunabula

Dec 27, 2021

Kyffin: A Celebration - Gwasg Gregynog, 2007.
Bound by Stuart Brockman in 2007 in translucent vellum over an original watercolour painting and tooled with chimney smoke in palladium, punctuated with gilt diamond shaped tooling; deep blue and silver patterned endpapers. 1/

A tribute to Kyffin Williams's art with a striking image of a Welsh village stretching across both boards.
Brockman has here brought the "vellucent" technique of translucent vellum over painted boards - first developed by Chivers of Bath around 1903 - into the 21st century. 2/

The Bath bookbinder Cedric Chivers first patented his "vellucent" method of art-bookbinding in 1898. An artist would paint on a thin surface medium; then a sheet of vellum, shaved to translucent thinness, was laid over it, giving the underlying painting a luminous warmth. 3/

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Incunabula

@incunabula

Dec 4, 2021

An unusual Somali Qur’an section, copied in a script quite distinct from the majuscule Arabic scripts used either along the Swahili coast or in West Africa, carefully but austerely written by an unnamed holy man in the town of Afgoi in the late 19th or early 20th century. 1/

The text is presented as a continuous block, 10 lines of thick majuscule per page, intended for a reader familiar enough with the Qur’an that it foregoes division markers of any kind - there are no marginal division markers, surah headings, or verse markers. 2/

There's a half-page of Arabic prayers on f.1r and two Italian inscriptions at the end: the first records that this Qur’an section was copied by a holy man in the town of Afgoi in Nov. 1911; the second is a presentation inscription from Dr. Carlo Bottari, dated 17 August 1912. 3/

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Incunabula

@incunabula

Dec 4, 2021

@joumajnouna

Joumana Medlej's @joumajnouna "The Canticle of Creatures", a calligraphic rendering of St Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of Creatures in Arabic, in the Eastern Kufic style and materials of the Qarmatian Qur’an, written using mineral, foraged earth & plant pigments, 2021. 1/

Also called Laudes Creaturarum [Praise of the Creatures] or the Canticle of the Sun, Francis' work was composed around 1224 in Umbrian, his native Italian dialect. The script Joumana has used here is based on that of the Qarmatian Qur’an, made in Central Asia, circa 1180. 2/

"Praised be, o God, for Sister Air and the wind and clouds, and clear skies and all weathers, with which you nourish Your creatures.
Praised be, o God, for Brother Water, who is useful and humble, precious and pure." 3/

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