The Evolution of the Medieval Decorated Letter (1985)


The Evolution of the Medieval Decorated Letter (1985)
Mark Van Stone
Leporello attached to black boards with ribbon tie and pocket for folded information sheet. Leporello: H65 x W68 mm closed; W1630 mm (including board) open. Sheet: H280 x W215 mm. 25 panels. Acquired from Lorson’s, 5 December 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.
Mark Van Stone is a professor of art history at Southwestern College in California. Scholarly books and a documentary attest to his expertise in his academic specialty: the interpretation of Mayan hieroglyphs and calligraphy. He also teaches workshops in versals and white vine decoration. His workshop qualification needs no endorsement beyond this miniaturized history of medieval illuminated letters: a calligraphic, bookmaking and scholarly tour de force.
In the spirit of medieval illuminators, Van Stone has imitated the hand of twenty-three of what he calls the “semi-precious jewels” of “‘minor’ illumination that usually receives little attention in the Art-History books”. Because of their medieval humor, two initials were copied outright rather than imitated. Below, you will find eight of these semi-precious jewels along with Van Stone’s commentary on each. Use the WorldCat link to find your way to the closest institution holding a copy of this work to revel in the rest.








The folded onionskin of text contained in the binding pocket is like a miniature poster. On it, Van Stone documents each of the 25 styles of illumination that he reproduces in the leporello between the soft black boards stiffened by folding. The black-on-white parchment-like appearance of the “poster” complements beautifully what unfolds between those boards, and each of its 25 notes begins with the calligraphic bookhand that would be appropriate to the period of its initial. Correspondence with the artist reveals a possible origin story for the poster-like nature of the insert.
The project began life as a portfolio of individual letters of six inches square. For each letterform, Van Stone “drew the color-separations individually in black ink, rather than making finished illuminated initials in color and photographically color-separating”. After specifying the colors for the four plates and learning that the project would require eight dozen separate screens far outstripping the budget, Van Stone — without a Renaissance patron to come to the rescue — transformed the project into a poster. This involved finding another printer and photographing the separations in a ganged and reduced size. “An unfortunate accident in the pressroom resulted in the printing of 1000 copies with a marred title-line, but with the body of the sheet undamaged.”
After the poster was reprinted, Van Stone turned his attention to the 1000 posters he couldn’t use:
… we cut them all into strips, I folded and pasted them all by hand (with archival polyvinyl acetate), designed and folded the black covers to slip on the stubs at each end, and threaded the ribbon through the hand-cut slits. Like a 15th-century publisher, much of the work was performed by hand.
So if you find your closest institution holding a copy of The Evolution of the Medieval Decorated Letter, keep in mind the work’s real-life evolution and that you might have been looking at individual letter prints or a poster ready for framing rather than this red-ribboned treasure ready to unfold and display gem after gem.
Further Reading
“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.
“Lisa Merkin“. 24 February. 2023. Books On Books Collection.
“Pat Sweet“. 19 January 2023. Books On Books Collection.
“Dave Wood“. 31 May 2023. Books On Books Collection.
Demeude, Hugues. 1996. The Animated Alphabet. London: Thames and Hudson.
Shaw, Henry. 1845. Alphabets, Numerals and Devices of the Middle Ages. London: W. Pickering.

From Henry Shaw’s Alphabets, Numerals and Devices of the Middle Ages.