Parchment face

Here’s something special. Last Friday I posted a blog on holes found in the pages of medieval books (The skinny on bad parchment). As in the image above, such defects are usually caused by the parchment maker: he pushed his knife too hard cleaning the animal skin, causing it to rip. While the resulting holes must have been a major annoyance to producers of books, the scribe of this twelfth-century manuscript used them to his advantage. He drew a bearded man while turning the gaps into an eye and a nose (slightly displaced), as well as a big laughing mouth. The reader of this serious text - a commentary to the Song of Songs - will no doubt have laughed at the unexpected sight of this funny stranger. Making art out of flaws: it’s just the perfect image, then and now.

Pic: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc.Patr.41, fol. 69r. Full digital edition here (click “klicken”).