Welcome to 31 Days of Medieval Manuscripts, a month-long series introducing the fascinating and brilliant world of medieval illuminated manuscripts.
I always get excited when I find a great new (or at least new-to-me) website about medieval manuscripts, and today, I just discovered litteravisigothica.com, which is dedicated to the study of Visigothic script.
Visigothic script a form of writing used in Hispania, specifically the Iberian Peninsula area, roughly between the 8th and 12th centuries A.D. (source). It is preserved in manuscripts of the period but is not particularly well studied as of right now. Littera Visigothica, run by medieval manuscript historian Ainoa Castro, aims to share knowledge and increase interest in the script, its forms, and variants.
I’ve always wanted to learn more about the different scripts that appear in medieval manuscripts, yet I’ve never really had the opportunity to read about them anywhere. I’ve noticed that the decoration typically gets far more attention than the actual writing. I will definitely be following Littera Visigothica’s future updates with great interest. For the moment, I hope you’ve enjoyed the visual examples on Littera Visigothica’s Catalog of Visigothic Script Manuscripts, Codex of the Month, and Flickr page.
