The clasps are gone, but the
plates remain riveted on the covers, engraven with the Tudor badges. The
MS. contains 320 large octavo leaves, the first fifty-six being taken up
with illuminated illustrations of biblical history from the Creation to
the death of Solomon. These pictures are arranged in pairs one over the
other, and to each one is given a description in French, taken sometimes
from the canonical text, sometimes from an apocryphal one. The drawings
are really exquisite, they are so fine, so delicately yet so cleverly
sketched. They are not coloured in full body-colours, but just
suggestively, the draperies being washed over in thin tints, the folds
well defined, but lightly shaded. Next after these subjects follows the
Psalter with miniatures of New Testament scenes and figures of saints
accompanied with most beautiful initials and ornaments, illuminated by a
thoroughly practised hand, for the artist of this volume was by no means
a novice at his work. A good example of it is given in _Bibliographica_,
pl. 7 [23], which forms the frontispiece to vol. i., and one or two
outlines in the folio catalogue of the Arundel MSS.
Arund. MS. 84 is also a good example of thirteenth-century illumination
to a rather unpromising subject, being a Latin translation of Euclid
from the Arabic by Athelard of Bath.
Pages:
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