Page (recto and veso) from a Book of Hours

Throughout most of the Middle Ages, texts circulated in the form of manuscripts written on parchment (prepared animal skin). Some of these were “illuminated,” or decorated with designs and illustrations, often in bright colors and with gold and silver leaf. Winding in florid curlicues around a page or framing a text with rich renderings of important scenes, illuminations made manuscripts among the most treasured and best-preserved artworks of the Middle Ages. Even after the invention of Europe’s first movable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century, many publishers retained the illuminated manuscript’s familiar format. In this leaf from a printed Book of Hours (a devotional text that prompted prayer throughout the day), the illustrations in the borders and the hand-colored lettering recall its handmade predecessor, while the change from parchment to paper and to a more mechanized production made the printed version more affordable.