Cistercian Horizons - collected essays

Abstract

Mediaeval blue colour has long been the subject of several histories and stories concerning its meanings and sources, especially the use of ultramarine and the introduction/transition to azurite in the art history painting’s production. Being the most expensive blue pigment during the mediaeval to renascence period, ultramarine is said to have been selectively used for the most important representations of the painting compositions. In contrast, azurite – a less expensive blue pigment – was used for the less important blue paint representations. The analysis of eleven illuminated Liturgical Codices from the 12th-14th centuries produced in the Alcobaça scriptorium allowed fingerprinting the introduction of azurite in the most important Portuguese scriptorium, not just in terms of the period it occurred in, but on how it started to be used. The holistic approach followed in this study, combining the results gathered from the liturgical analysis of the manuscripts with the in- situ non-invasive analysis of the illuminations (h-EDXRF, UV-Vis-NIR-FORS and Hyperspectral Imaging analysis), allowed screening the use of ultramarine and azurite along circa two centuries of the activity of the scriptorium. Within this, it was possible to identify what appears to be the manuscript of transition at Alcobaça scriptorium concerning the introduction of azurite – the Alc. 167, produced during 1197-1198. This is the ancient manuscript from those which have reached our days, where azurite was first identified, in a remarkable way of use: not in the composition of secondary elements (such as titles or small capital letters) – as referred to in the bibliography of azurite use in Art History – but in the production of the most prominent illuminated initials of the manuscripts, combined with ultramarine blue.