The Model Book of Calligraphy (1561–1596)
An incredible collaboration between a scribe and natural history painter
I found out about this book last year in 2023 when I was trying to find historical calligraphy ‘models’ to study the shapes and forms – and haven’t found anything close to this level of artistry since. For me it’s hard to believe the illustrations were added 30 years after the calligraphy had been done! The illustrations were never initially part of the original calligraphy. They’re full of detail and balance the calligraphy so wonderfully with fruits, insects and flowers painted in tempera and watercolour. I especially love the trompe l'oeil effect (artistic optical illusion) with some of the pieces where flowers are seen to be growing from the surface of the page or cut into slits of the page (see very last image).
The following is taken from the Getty:
“From 1561 to 1562, Georg Bocskay, the Croatian-born court secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, created this Model Book of Calligraphy in Vienna to demonstrate his technical mastery of the immense range of writing styles known to him.
About thirty years later, Emperor Rudolph II, Ferdinand's grandson, commissioned Joris Hoefnagel to illuminate Bocskay's model book. Hoefnagel added fruit, flowers, and insects to nearly every page, composing them so as to enhance the unity and balance of the page's design. It was one of the most unusual collaborations between scribe and painter in the history of manuscript illumination.”
The Getty has ridiculous 5000 x 8000 px high resolution scans that you can zoom into (to the point of seeing preliminary pencil marks)
See the rest of the book on the Getty here.
Omg those are all gorgeous!