Gothic decorated lettering, John 1:1-5

Click on the photo's to zoom in and see the detail all work is done by hand.

This piece was completed on parchament white paper, main body hand letter was done with a 3 1/2 nib and the larger title was size 1 nib.  In this piece I used a light gold gouche and the rest of the gouches are still student quality Reeves. 

Researched the illuminated letter from The Bible of Illuminate Letters with a Beneventan minuscule found in the Calligraphers Bible.

Beneventan hand lettering was mainly used from the 8th to 13th centry and was prevalent in southern Italy and centered on the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, more informtion can be found at wikipedia; Beneventan script.  For capital letters I chose Lombardic Versals to emphasize their imporatance, these letters date from the early gothic period to the renaissance period.

Follow this link to see an actual manauscript dated 1050-1099 from the digital scriptorium showing the Beneventan script,.