The Art of the Pen: Calligraphy from the Court of the Emperor Rudolf II

By Lee Hendrix and Thea Vignau-Wilberg

Book Overview

The court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II produced nothing more amazing than the Mira colligrophioe monumenta, a flamboyant demonstration of two arts-calligraphy and miniature painting. The project began when Rudolf's predecessor commissioned the master calligrapher Georg Bocskay to create a model book of calligraphy.

A preeminent scribe, Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historic scripts. Many were intended not for practical use but for virtuosic display. Years later, at Rudolf's behest, court artist Joris Hoefnagel filled the spaces on each manuscript page with images of fruit, flowers, insects, and other natural minutiae. The combination of word and images is rare and, on its tiny scale, constitutes one of the marvels of the Central European Renaissance.

The manuscript is now in the collections of the Getty Museum. Forty-eight of its pages are reproduced in this book, containing samples of classic italic hands; historical, invented, and exhibition hands; Rotunda, a classicizing humanist script based on Carolingian miniscule; classically based scripts; and Gothic blackletter and chancery.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892366222
• ISBN13: 9780892366224
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: J. Paul Getty Museum
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Gorgeous book!

I am so pleased with the gorgeous fine art in this whole series of small books (I bought all 3). This one has particularly fine art reproductions. Buyers, just be aware this book series are all rather small books but very well bound. I was a little surprised when I received the first one because I had not noted the book dimensions. But I was so pleased that I went ahead and bought the other 2.

A rapturously enticing work of exquisite artwork

The Art Of The Pen is a lavishly beautiful, full-color reproduction of classical works of calligraphy and miniature painting drawn from the era of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. These selected pages from the "Mira calligraphiae monumenta" or Model Book of Calligraphy, one of the major manuscripts in the J. Paul Getty Museum collection, The Art Of The Pen is enthusiastically recommended to calligraphy enthusiasts as a rapturously enticing work of exquisite artwork that transcends the test of time.