De Arte Illuminandi

Clarity, brilliance, intensity -

One is tempted to demand them

Of all Art if the harm of demand

Were not the bane of felicities;

But when the subject is God

And the century Fourteenth,

Color is our thrice modified object;

Its properties requisites, not requests.

For a Latin text worthy of God's name

Miniatures delightful to the eye

Invite the wandering mind to meditation

Whenever devotion tires of pious words.

Black letter must be charcoal of vines,

Willow branches, peach stones or almond shells,

Lampblack with ghost of blue, eerie

And handsome sable of smoking candles.

Blue and violet, best for segments of sky,

From the small turn-to-the-sun, those

Nettle shaped leaves and seeds like myrrh

Gathered before sunrise in July;

And green, the green of mallow leaves

For border flowers and tiny bees,

The crushed bloom of blue lilies

Or buckthorn berries picked in September;

Rose for thistles tamed and paired in corners,

And Dutch pink of unripe Persian berries

Squeezed for the garments of kneeling figures

Spread to both sides in the shape of bells;

From wild mignonette and saffron plum

Found in, and fond of, waste places

Yellow and fine gold, for frames and haloes,

Twinkling stars sprinkled even on daylight;

The ground shell of eggs is white,

That lightest grey, for doves and butterflies,

And the ermine edge of royal sleeves

At prayer with colorless hands and face.

An art replete with drolleries and grotesques -

Mermaids with mirrors, monkeys with bowls,

Angels at harpsichords, dragons tangled in trees -

All these praise God as well as any Gothic script.