Lee Hendrix and Thea Vignau-Wilberg
Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta Book
In 1561 and 1562, the master calligrapher Georg Bocskay, imperial secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, created Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta as a demonstration of his own preeminence among scribes. Some thirty years later, Ferdinand's grandson, the Emperor Rudolf II, commissioned Europe's last great manuscript illuminator, Joris Hoefnagel, to embellish the work.
Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts, a testament to the universal power of the written word. Hoefnagel answered with brilliant grotesques of flowers, fruit, insects, and animals, making the book a landmark in the cultural debate between word and image. This facsimile edition features over 180 color illustrations, with scholarly commentary and biographies of both artists.