Virgin and the Writing Christ Child

~In one of the first appearances of the word “paper” (papier) in the French language, a poet calls on his secretary: “Find some paper; I wish to write.” This command is...

Already, early in the fourteenth century, we are made aware of a new situation for the book illuminator in relation to other practitioners of the pictorial arts. I refer to the development and spread of panel painting, a development which takes place in Italy especially and which, gathering momentum in the thirteenth century, becomes widespread throughout Europe in the fourteenth century. It may be that if larger amounts of wall painting survived from the earlier Middle Ages, more relationships …