Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval (page 2/7)

Table of Contents

8th Century. Vatican
8th Century. British Museum
8th and 9th Centuries. Anglo-Saxon.
9th Century From an Anglo-Saxon MS. Battel Abbey
From MS. Library of Minerva, Rome
10th Century. British Museum.
11th Century and Numerals
12th Century. From the Mazarin Bibe
12th Century. Two small. British Museum
12th Century. British Museum
12th Century. Bodleian Library
13th Century. Henry III. Westminster Abbey.
13th Century. From Latin MS.
13th Century. MS.
14th Century. Date about 1340
14th Century. British Museum
14th Century. Illuminated MS.
14th Century. Richard II. 1400. Westminster Abbey.
14th Century. Richard II. 1400. Small. Westminster Abbey.
14th Century. British Museum
14th Century. From MS. Munich.
14th and 15th Centuries. Two Small. British Museum.
1475. British Museum
1480. British Museum
1490. British Museum
Henry VII. Westminster Abbey
[more...]

Front Cover

Back Cover

The back cover of this Victorian book has a geometric border and a floral ornament.

Title Page

The Book Of Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval, from the eighth century, with numerals, including Gothic; Church Text;, Large and Small; German Arabesque; Initials for Illumination, monograms, crosses, &c., for the use of architectural and engineering; draughtsmen, masons, decorative painters, [...] [more...]

2. 8th Century.

British Museum. [more...]

3. 8th and 9th Centuries. Anglo-Saxon.

Calligraphy from England in the 8th and 9th centuries.

4.—9th Century. From an Anglo-Saxon MS. Battel Abbey.

Today called Battle Abbey. Someone made a font from a Dover reprint of this alphabet—Rob Anderson, I think. There is no coyright statement on the font, which was probably originally a PostScript Type 1 font converted to TrueType. I don’t think [...] [more...]

07. 7.—11th Century and Numerals

The odd title really means that this image is a plate made from Eleventh Century AD initial letters; the “numerals” are actually Roman numbers done as ligatures. [more...]

01. 8th Century. Vatican.

34. 34.—16th Century. Vatican.

Alphabet from a 16th Century manuscript in the Vatical Library. The letters are A B C D E F G H I K L M N P Q R S T Y, so that J, V, Y and Z are lacking. For J one would use J at that time, and U for [...] [more...]

50.—16th Century

This is not a good scan; I plan to replace it with one made at a higher resolution. Decorative initials suitable for use as drop caps or initial caps. They were printed in light brown in the book, but for this 300dpi alphabet scan I converted them to [...] [more...]

51.—16th Century

A set of decorative initial letters from the sixteenth century; it is missing “J” “O” “W” “X” and “Z” so that there are only 21 letters here, although I have made [...]A has a bird biting a moth; B has a king and a grotesque figure; C has a boar with a bird on its back; D has a log fire; E has a dragon with wings and a forked tongue; F has a flower (a Tudor Rose, perhaps) and a bird; G has a dog; H has an archer or a person walking with a stick; I has a dog biting a bone and also a lizard; J is a modern fake; K has faces sticking out tongues; L has a painter or writer licking a pencil; M has a lion and a thistle; N has a fish wearing a crown and a scarf; O is a modern fake; P has a pelican; Q has perhaps a peacock; R has a dog catching and eating a rat, or maybe a salamander; S has a king as a dinosaur; T has two phoenixes; U has a sun; V has a jester, I think; Y has maybe a tiny dancing dinosaur. [more...]