What is decorated with old books?

Books are considered one of the most expensive things of the Middle Ages. Usually they were made in scripts at monasteries. They were written by hand. The value of the book was determined not only by the painstaking manual work of specially trained monks, but also by the numerous decorations on the covers.

Gold, silver, precious stones, enamel, ivory carvings and not only decorated ancient covers. Often, the elements of these luxury frames were created in different places, countries and even in different centuries.

For example, the frame of the book, now kept in the Cluny Museum, Paris, has an inset from the elephant tusk of the tenth century, and the jewelry works were already done in the thirteenth century.

The real piece of jewelry is the cover of a manuscript from Lindau. The codex was named at the place of storage - Lindau Abbey, Germany. The manuscript contains the texts of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Similar books were in Kievan Rus. Ostromir Gospel is considered one of the oldest written books. The value of similar and even ordinary books of that time can be easily imagined immersed in ancient chronicles. For example, in the Galicia-Volyn chronicle there is a mention that Prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, the son of Vasilka Romanovich, purchased a small prayer book for 8 silver hryvnias, while the whole settlement could be bought for 50.

The beginning of the decline of the era of expensive books is associated with the invention of the printing press in the 1440s. The invention belongs to the German Johann Gutenberg. However, the value of the masters of calligraphy and the whims of the rich still contributed to expensive publications.