We return to our facsimile of a 16th-cnetury calligraphic manuscript, Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, or Model Book of Calligraphy, written in 1561/62 by Georg Bocskay, the Croatian-born court secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, and illuminated 30 years later by Flemish painter Joris Hoefnagel for the grandson of Ferdinand I, Emperor Rudolph II. The manuscript was produced by Bocskay in Vienna to demonstrate his technical mastery of the immense range of writing styles known to him. To complement and augment Bocskay’s calligraphy, Hoefnagel added fruit, flowers, and insects to nearly every page, composing them so as to enhance the unity and balance of the page’s design. Although the two never met, the manuscript has an uncanny quality of collaboration about it.
Our facsimile was the first facsimile produced from the collection at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It was printed in Lausanne, Switzerland by Imprimeries Reunies and published by Christopher Hudson in 1992.
Graves at my command
