Look at this nice White Vine Illumination and how vivid the colors still are after 900 years. You can also see the holes that were punched in with a stylus to mark where the baselines should be drawn.
Tuscany, 1150, New Testament, Parchment.
Perkins Library at Duke University, NC.
Sheila Waters commented on this:
“Interesting to see the Q tail going out to the left – the perfect answer. In this case it was done for an obvious reason. The O part is in a box, the text wraps around and there is no room for the tail. I think that a tail going to the left in other situations would look unfamiliar and a bit odd, so it depends on the overall design of the context.”
