Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 20 April 2020

Recreating medieval blue ink

Ancient Origins has a post today about research in Portugal into the extraction of folium, a blue ink derived from a plant source and used in medieval illuminated manuscripts. Following and interpreting an historic text it has been possible to produce once again a pigment last produced in the nineteenth century. The post includes a video from the National Gallery about other blue pigments of the past - the most expensive being, of course, lapis lazuli or ultramarine, but also azurite and the later development of Prussian Blue in the early nineteenth century.

The post can be seen here




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