Scientia potentia est

“But why could a simple photo of cat paw prints on a medieval manuscript become so popular on the Internet? Do manuscripts and felines make a good combination, or can this popularity be ascribed to the fact that many contemporary cat owners identify themselves with the unfortunate medieval scribe? I cannot give a straightforward answer to these questions because it is clear to me that there is no formula or recipe for determining whether anything on the Internet will become a success or not…”

Brilliant Damage

Parchment often contains some kind of imperfection. Holes, for example, are a common occurrence on the page of a medieval book. The parchment maker’s knife, scraping off hair and fleshy bits from the animal skin, was sometimes handled with too much pressure, producing holes such as the one seen in this brilliant image. That a drawing of a dragon should perfectly align with such a hole is a coincidence. What I like about it is the view it opens to the next leaf. I can just imagine how the heartbeat of the medieval reader sped up when he saw that a dragon was about to be introduced into the story. Parchment damage as a sneak preview: excitement coming to a chapter near you.

Illustrations from Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 180: Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies

The Blacksmith - Jefferson David Chalfant