From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V5 #7 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Monday, February 12 2001 Volume 05 : Number 007 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. Re: [scribes]: period gesso recipe = no archive? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 21:39:50 EST From: RenScribe@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: period gesso recipe = no archive? In a message dated 2/11/01 6:12:58 PM, asta@pclnet.net writes: > >I have been wading through months of messages in my mailbox looking for >some period gesso recipes. I started saving all messages because I couldn't >find an archive of the scribes list. Is there one? Anyhow, none of the >messages I have saved actually have a period gesso recipe. A few modern >ones are all I could find. Does anyone know where I can find and document >one? I am also looking for documentation on period pigments (specifically >azurite, saffron, cinnabar, malachite, and others that I might be able >to find the ingredients for). I have Cennini's The Craftsman's Handbook, >Thompson's Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, and On Divers >Arts by Theophilus. Are there any other good period sources for pigments, >gesso, and vellum preparation? _De Arte Illuminandi_ - Yale University Press- 1933 An Anonymous Fourteenth century treatise on manuscript illumination. Translated by Daniel V. Thompson. Thompson's _Materials and Techniques_ was written after he translated this treatise. Some of the information is repeated in _Materials and Techniqes_ some is not. _The Technique of Raised Gilding_ by Jerry Tresser Michelle Jordan Publications-1992 ISBN 0-9633173-0-X The gesso recipe is easy to understand ... and it is a measured recipe not vague suggestions for proportions :-) This small (68 pg) book gives scientific explanations of why gesso works when made this way. I'm not a chemistry buff, but this information made a lot of sense. The magnified pictures helped - slaked plaster vs unslaked plaster ... and why hide glue is better than fish glue for gilding. These excerpts from the foreword sum it up: "This book is a practical but scientific reevaluation of Cennini's method for raised gilding." ...... "It is impractical or impossible for each of us to chemically dissect the gessoes of medieval manuscripts and thus obtain a definitive recipe for their manufacture. But a high tech approach is not really necessary for our success because the formula for raised gilding has been in print for hundreds of years--if only we knew what all the words really meant. The author of this book, believing in the credibility of Cennini's formula, went back to the basics and conducted a linguistic analysis of Cennini's text. The dissection of language has yielded up the original, intended procedure for raised gilding. The methodology has been confirmed by scientific instrumentation and experiment." Hope these suggestions help a bit. Eibhlin ni Chaoimh AEthelmearc =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V5 #7 ***************************