This is a colored pencil study I drew of a margin drollery from a 15th c Botany text. I am assuming the thing in her hand is a magnifying glass:)

Cold enamel. Brass. Fiber laser

I know it’s ass but yknow, figured it’d fit here

About a year ago, I posted my game here, and a lot of you pointed out that the UI didn't quite capture an authentic medieval look. I took your advice and ditched the dark blue look for a wooden texture that fits the period so much better.

The game is playable now, though still in active development as I keep refining the art and mechanics. If you’d like to check it out, join our community, or support development, you can check it all out here.

I don't know why, but I really like this drawing. From the Luttrell Psalter (c. 1320-1345).

Bronze. Fiber laser. Cold enamel

Vita et miracula Sancti Quintini, France ca. 1100.
Saint-Quentin, Bibliothèque municipale, deposit,
Basilica of Saint-Quentin 1, p. 47.

In the early 13th century, a massive book was created that still inspires awe and legend more than 800 years later. Weighing 165 pounds (75 kg), standing nearly 3 feet tall, and requiring the skins of 160 donkeys, the Codex Gigas (Latin for “Giant Book”) is the largest surviving medieval illuminated manuscript in the world.

Commonly known as the Devil’s Bible, it contains the complete Latin Vulgate Bible, plus many other texts: works by Josephus, Isidore of Seville, medical treatises, exorcism rites, and a detailed calendar. But it is best known for one chilling full-page illustration — a menacing, half-human, half-animal figure of the Devil himself.

**The Legend**

According to medieval tradition, a monk in a Benedictine monastery (likely in Podlažice, Bohemia — present-day Czech Republic) was sentenced to be walled up alive as punishment for breaking his monastic vows. Desperate to avoid this fate, he promised to create a book containing all human knowledge in a single night.

Realizing the impossible task, he made a pact with the Devil. Satan completed the book in exchange for the monk’s soul. In gratitude (or warning), the monk included a large portrait of the Devil on a dedicated page.

The story explains why the manuscript appears to be written in remarkably uniform handwriting throughout its 310 parchment leaves (620 pages) — as if completed in one marathon session.

**The Reality**

While the legend is dramatic, historians date the Codex Gigas to the first half of the 13th century. It was almost certainly written by a single scribe over many years, though the exceptional consistency of the script is striking. The book was later moved to the monastery in Broumov and eventually to Prague. In 1648, Swedish forces took it as war booty during the Thirty Years’ War, and it has remained in the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm ever since.

The Devil illustration is unique. Unlike typical medieval depictions of demons as grotesque or tormented figures, this one shows a dark, horned, crouching giant with clawed feet, red-tinged skin, and an almost calm, knowing expression. The page opposite is blank — perhaps intentionally — adding to its eerie power.

Other remarkable features include:

Exceptionally large, clear script designed to be readable from a distance.

Beautiful illuminated initials throughout.

A practical “encyclopedic” collection of knowledge for its time.

**Modern Analysis**

Scientific studies have confirmed the book was made from calfskin (not donkey in all cases) and shows no supernatural anomalies. The uniform handwriting is attributed to the extraordinary skill and dedication of one monk working over an extended period, possibly with assistants. Some scholars believe the Devil image may have been added later or served as a moral warning about the dangers of knowledge without faith.

The Codex Gigas survived fires, wars, and centuries of handling. Today it is carefully preserved, occasionally displayed, and remains one of the most fascinating artifacts of the Middle Ages — a monumental achievement of human craftsmanship wrapped in centuries of dark folklore.

The book reminds us how stories of the supernatural often grow around objects of extraordinary human effort and mystery.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667604/

I’m working on an engraved plate and want a second set of eyes from people who know the emblem-book tradition. Full breakdown below, including what I can’t confirm yet.

The inscription
The header reads Fixum si solves, faciesque volare solutum, if you dissolve the fixed, you will make the dissolved fly. This is half of a couplet that circulated widely in 16th- and 17th-century alchemical literature,fix the volatile, volatilize the fixed, and the operator survives the work. Robert Thomson’s 1830 History of Chemistry quotes a close variant while describing the mercurial operations, which tells you the line had enough currency to still be cited two centuries after these plates were cut. It’s not unique to this print — it’s a stock proverb, the kind an engraver would reach for the way a modern textbook reaches for a standard citation.

The rim text
Traced clockwise, the circle spells CONFUSUM at the top and CHAOS at the bottom — confused chaos, a direct naming of prima materia, the unworked raw substance alchemical theory starts from. One glyph cluster on the right edge is illegible in my photo. I’m not filling that gap with a guess; if you can source a clean scan of this plate, that’s the detail I need.

The geometry
The construction is a nested progression, not decoration:

A)Circle,the bounding chaos, labeled by the rim text itself
B)Square, inscribed in the circle, its four points carrying the elemental glyphs (fire, air, water, earth) — the base register is labeled Principia, the principles chaos resolves into
C)Hexagram, inscribed in the square, carrying planetary/metallic signs — the seven governing bodies of classical alchemy.
D)Small circle at center, Sun over Moon ,sulphur and mercury, the two seed-principles of the Great Work
Read from the rim inward, the plate is an argument in geometric form: chaos is not disordered in some absolute sense, it is order not yet resolved. The four elements crystallize out of it, the planetary powers organize those elements further, and the whole operation collapses to the single Sun-Moon dyad at the center, the point every alchemical text treats as the actual secret.
What I’m asking
No plate number, printer’s mark, or watermark survived in my photograph. If this circle is familiar — a Ripley scroll variant, a German emblem book, a Maier plate I haven’t matched — I’d rather have the citation from someone who’s seen the original than publish a guess.

I googled angelic instruments and found a Wikipedia list but none of the pictures match this lute/harp combo set up. I have seen this instrument in other illuminations and I wondered if someone had an idea of what it might be called?

Does anyone have any recommendations on when art went from generalized characters to more lifelike realistic art?

Generalized characters such as the Bayeux Tapestry where all the figures looked similar with only crowns or clothing as to their importance.

I always look at medieval paintings and wonder if it looked anything like the real person.

"The Garden of Earthly Delights" (c. 1490-1510) by Hieronymus Bosch, detail from left panel "Adam and Eve", lower right corner.

Brass. Cold enamel. Fiber laser

I’m practicing drawing small. Tiny faces are challenging! These water bearing angels I hand drew from a 14th century illumination— the original has, I think, dead fish? In the water? (It’s the second pic) Not sure what these angels are up to.

Happy to take on a couple more!