Textura Quadrata

Part 3 of 5

As monasteries began to share the propagation of learning with scholastic universities through the later Middle Ages, a new script rose in popularity. Developed in the early 12th century, Textura Quadrata packs letters and words closely together so that they look like woven cloth. “Textura” means “woven” in Latin, and we get the word “textile” from it. The tight spacing decreased the cost of producing lengthy theological manuscripts by minimizing the amount of parchment occupied by each word. This script appears in scholastic religious texts through the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, usually in Latin. The elaborately illustrated and lavishly illuminated Trés Riches Heures commissioned by Duc du Berry uses Textura Quadrata. This Book of Hours was one of the most expensive books produced during the middle ages. Each page of parchment would have come from one sheep, meaning a flock of over 200 animals would have been necessary for such a large book. On every page, exquisite decorations display finely hammered gold leaf and brilliant blue pigment from lapis lazuli, even more expensive than gold. In premodern Europe, this gemstone could only be found in the mountains of far-off Afghanistan – an extra extravagance in a jewel-like book.

Textura Quadrata inspired later Gothic or Blackletter fonts, including the moveable type cast by Johannes Gutenberg for his newly invented printing press. For centuries, the copy of the Gutenberg Bible held at Lambeth Palace since around 1455 so convincingly replicated this script that the catalogue listed it as a manuscript instead of a printed book until 1873.

Unfortunately, the funding for the Book of the North does not include ground lapis lazuli, and the only North American source is in Colorado. Local plants and materials, including walnut, tansy, Northern grapes, and buckthorn berries will provide ink for the Book in a variety of colors; brown, yellow-gold, maroon, and green. 

Photo 1: Trés Riches Heures (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 65)

Photo 2: Lambeth Palace MS 15, Mainz, Johann Gutenberg, c.1455