Columbanus founded the monastery of Luxeuil, and later
still, viz. in 616, that of Bobbio.
If we turn to the Visigothic area, including the South of France and the
entire peninsula of Spain, our first and typical example is the
celebrated Sacramentary of Gellone. This MS. dates, it is said, from the
eighth century. It is written throughout in Visigothic uncials, though
executed in the South of France. Its ornamentation is frankly barbaric.
The colours used are yellow, red, and green. The great initials are
double lined, and the interlinear space filled in with a flat tint of
colour and lines of red dots, as in the Book of Kells occasionally
follow the contours. Here, also, are the fish or bird-form letters as in
the Laon "Orosius." Now and then occurs a tiny scene--perhaps a fight
between two grotesque brutes, neither fish, nor fowl, nor beast known to
the naturalist, but a horrible compound of the worst qualities of each.
The human figure, when it occurs, is childishly shapeless. But the
design and treatment, nevertheless, bear witness to a lively imagination
and considerable knowledge of Christian symbolism. It is these mental
qualities which, in spite of the manifest absence of manual skill,
render the Gellone Evangeliary one of the most precious monuments of its
time.
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