Bestiary Project: 1st Anniversary

This blog post celebrates the first anniversary of my bestiary project, summarizing the progress made and the challenges encountered so far. It also outlines my aim to finish the text by early 2025 and reflects on the journey to this point.

Reflection

Close-up shot of the six finished quires.

June 2024 marks the first anniversary of my bestiary project. Personally, this is a significant milestone in my journey to create an illuminated manuscript inspired by medieval traditions. Unfortunately, I don’t know the actual dates since I didn’t accurately track every activity in my logbook. However, I started preparing my materials early that month and, by the end of it, started writing the first pages. The first quire must’ve been finished sometime before July 25th, 2023. That’s when I posted my first bestiary project update.

Photo of accidental ink drop on bottom of page.
Too much ink on your quill risks a big, fat droplet falling down on the page, such as this one in the lower margins.
Photo of page out of the BESTIARUM project where nib size changed twice, causing the overall page to lack homogenity and neatness.
A writing nib shouldn’t be too narrow, but neither too wide. It should be JUST right. Otherwise, it looks like this..
Photo of scraped away writing mistake which left some remnants of the old word visible.
This image shows the halfway progress of scraping away a writing mistake on the page.

As I wrote in my second project update, the project hasn’t been without its challenges. Ink bleed, wrongly cut nibs, writing mistakes, and simply accidentally dropping ink onto the pages. Errors that are top-of-mind when speaking about this project. The biggest issue, perhaps, is the lackluster quality of some parchment sheets that I’ve ordered. These forced me to substitute the more historically authentic iron gall ink with a carbon-based solution. Additionally, I had to reduce the amount of text I’ll be copying since some sheets are simply unusable.

Sixth quire describing many of the birds.

Despite the aforementioned setbacks, I’m determined to see the project through. I am well on my way to finishing the second section of the manuscript. That one details all the birds, as I mentioned in the third project update. I’m very happy with the overall results and can’t wait until I can start painting all the blank, empty spaces. Reaching the first anniversary of this project is, therefore, a moment of pride. And it also underscores the importance of perseverance in an undertaking like this one.

Acknowledgements

Even though I’m performing all work myself, I still have to express my heartfelt thanks to several individuals and institutions [for their contribution].

The creation of a manuscript was a monumental endeavor during the medieval period. This isn’t different for my own manuscript project. Even though I’m performing all work myself, I still have to express my heartfelt thanks to several individuals and institutions. Their contributions, in one way or another, advanced this project:

  • To several friends, I thank you for your support and, more importantly, willingness to listen to my lamentations. Your external insights were invaluable in helping me make some of the decisions on how to best approach the project.
  • To the University of Aberdeen, I am grateful for the express permission to use the Aberdeen Bestiary translation. This text, as provided on your website, is fundamental to my manuscript. Without it, I would’ve had to painstakingly translate a Latin text into English.
  • I’ve also got to thanks the Dutch master illuminator Jaap Boerman. His personal experiences, information and instructions were incredibly helpful in the project so far. His website contains some helpfull resources that I recommend to any aspiring illuminator.
  • CalligrapherStreet92 from the Calligraphy Discord for reading my project plan. You corrected some of my misinterpretations of medieval contractions. Furthermore, our exchange of information provided some usefull material for a future manual on how to make manuscripts.

Postface

Stack of quires after one year of copying text.
Thickness of book, consisting of six quires.

As I look back on the first year of my bestiary project, I am satisfied with the overall progress. I’ve again experienced major learning experiences which’ll be invaluable for any (future) project(s). I will keep dispensing this wisdom via my blog. For example, I’m working on an article that instructs one in how to determine the text area for a manuscript.

For now, my immediate focus is completing the writing phase.

For now, my immediate focus is completing the writing phase. Hopefully, that’s by the end of this year or, at the latest, early next year. This manuscript is longer than previous projects, and I’m eager to start painting the areas reserved for illuminations. Copying text by hand is meditative, but after 20.000 words it’s becoming a little stale. 😊

Overview shot of the six finished quires.

Thanks to everyone who’s following along and supporting this project. I look forward to sharing more updates as the work continues. If you’d like to contact me for whatever reason, whether that be this project or questions regarding manuscripts themselves, you can do so via the contact form. I look forward to helping anyone with their manuscript project, or calligraphy/illumination.itself.

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