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Re: Earliest (detailed) sketch of Stonehenge
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Paper seems too clean.
Ink seems too dark.
And did they really use lined paper, with margins, in 1440?
Also, why use the vernacular when the Latin for Stonehenge (if there is such) would have been more appropriate.


The only image in the pubic domain at present seems to be the one that appeared in The Guardian on 27 November; that looks like a black and white photo of the original. I doubt if the original itself is that black and white, in fact the drawing of Stonehenge and the 'cartouche' to the right of it might even be in red ink. Difficult to tell, but the manuscript does look as if it's made of paper (paper was in use in France from around 1350 but not in England until nearly a hundred and fifty years later). Dunno about lines and margins in MSS of the Middle Ages (the lines in the Scala Mundi manuscript might even be watermarks).

I think it was not unusual to refer to place names in the vernacular. There's a fourteenth century manuscript in Latin in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge that refers to the Rollright Stones as Rollendrith - Ab incolis autem vocatur locus ille Rollendrith. (Though by the inhabitants that place is called Rollendrith).

You're right to be cautious however, and I think the illustration will come under a lot of scrutiny between now and when it's exhibited at the Royal Academy next year.


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Littlestone
Posted by Littlestone
30th November 2006ce
09:43

In reply to:

Re: Earliest (detailed) sketch of Stonehenge (follow that cow)

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Re: Earliest (detailed) sketch of Stonehenge (rocknicker)

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