The court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II produced nothing more amazing than the Mira colligrophioe monumenta, a flamboyant demonstration of two arts-calligraphy and miniature painting. The project began when Rudolf's predecessor commissioned the master calligrapher Georg Bocskay to create a model book of calligraphy. A preeminent scribe, Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historic scripts. Many were intended not for practical use but for virtuosic display. Years later, at Rudolf's behest, court artist Joris Hoefnagel filled the spaces on each manuscript page with images of fruit, flowers, insects, and other natural minutiae. The combination of word and images is rare and, on its tiny scale, constitutes one of the marvels of the Central European Renaissance. The manuscript is now in the collections of the Getty Museum. Forty-eight of its pages are reproduced in this book, containing samples of classic italic hands; historical, invented, and exhibition hands; Rotunda, a classicizing humanist script based on Carolingian miniscule; classically based scripts; and Gothic blackletter and chancery.

Now back in print, "the ultimate book-lover's gift book" (Los Angeles Times) In 1561-62 the master calligrapher Georg Bocskay (died 1575), imperial secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, created Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Model Book of Calligraphy) as a demonstration of his own preeminence among scribes. Some thirty years later, Ferdinand's grandson, the Emperor Rudolf II, commissioned Europe's last great manuscript illuminator, Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), to embellish the work. The resulting book is at once a treasury of extraordinary beauty and a landmark in the cultural debate between word and image. Bocskay assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts for a work that summarized all that had been learned about writing to date-a testament to the universal power of the written word. Hoefnagel, desiring to prove the superiority of his art over Bocskay's words, employed every resource of illusionism, color, and form to devise all manner of brilliant grotesques, from flowers, fruit, insects, and animals to monsters and masks.

Between 1561 and 1562 Georg Bocskay, secretary to Emperor Ferdinand I, assembled a large selection of contemporary and historical writings in the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, in an attempt to demonstrate his technical skill as a court scrivener. Around thirty years later, Ferdinand’s grandson, Emperor Rudolf II commissioned Joris Hoefnagel, one of the last great European manuscript illuminators, to provide exclusive illuminations for the pages. Currently in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, this unique book—the only one worldwide—was fi rst published in facsimile form in 1993, with extensive commentary by Lee Hendrix and Thea Vignau-Wilberg. Now, at last, there is a newly produced facsimile edition in German. Besides biographies of these two exceptional artists, as well as an analytical observation of the role the manuscript played in the careers of both, Hoefnagel’s illuminations are examined more closely. An indispensable volume for anyone interested in design, typography, manuscript illumination, and exquisite craftsmanship. “The ultimate book-lover’s gift book,” raves The Los Angeles Times.