In its text and pictures the Speculum contains a vivid account of the religious and artistic forces at work in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the lessons in piety, the allegories, and all of the arts were devoted to instilling in the minds of the people the need for salvation and the dread of eternal damnation. The Speculum humanæ salvationis, therefore, holds a unique place in the study of medieval miniatures in providing an enormous variety of styles and visual interpretations of the identical sequence of subjects.

It was indebted to the earlier Biblia Pauperum or Biblia Picta manuscripts, which were also typological, but they were composed almost entirely of pictures, while the first Speculum humanæ salvationis had an extensive text to explain its miniatures.įrom the first quarter of the fourteenth century to the end of the fifteenth, several hundred copies of it were made, nearly all illuminated, which followed the precise numerical pattern of the original manuscript and the subjects and iconography of its miniatures. The Speculum humanæ salvationis was written anonymously and it is unique in portraying, more fully and dramatically than any other book of the period, the medieval concept of typology, or the thesis that all the events of the New Testament were prefigured by the events recounted in the Old.

References to the Speculum text are limited to elucidating those aspects of the venerable book, and only translations that originated in the Low Countries are described.

In the following work the focus is on graphic art and printing. In addition, there is not only the interesting variety of miniatures but also the fine quality of the woodcuts to encourage investigation. The extraordinary metamorphosis of the Speculum from manuscripts to blockbooks, and into later incunabula, presents a unique opportunity for the study of the illustrated book of the late medieval period. The authors undertook the study of the Speculum humanæ salvationis because of its special relationship to their work on the history of the printed book, on the designing of books, and on manuscript models. They inspired other writers as well as artists and craftsmen whose interpretations were found in miniatures, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass, and, by the early fifteenth century, in woodcuts. These works were indeed reflections of the pervasive religious concepts of the time. The word speculum means mirror or reflection and it was used in the titles of many medieval writings such as the famous Speculum ecclesiæ of Honorius of Autun, the Speculum majus of Vincent of Beauvais, and the Speculum vitæ humanæ of Rodericus Zamorensis. Under these titles was produced one of the most widely disseminated and influential works of the late Middle Ages. Īnd to the memory of Willem Ovink Preface A Medieval Mirror. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1984 1984. Preferred Citation: Wilson, Adrian, and Joyce Lancaster Wilson.

Did medieval manuscripts use woodcuts