this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Illustrations of history

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This magazine is for sharing artwork of historical events, places, personages, etc. Scale models and the like also welcome!

Generally speaking, actual photos of a historical item should go to !historyartifacts@lemmy.world

Photos of ruins should go to !historyruins@lemmy.world

Photos of the past should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world

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Making parchment in the Medieval period (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyillustrations@lemmy.world
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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

See: Vellum.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks, many interesting facts for anyone who can't be bothered to click the link but like to know more:

Most of the finer sort of medieval manuscripts, whether illuminated or not, were written on vellum. Some Gandhāran Buddhist texts were written on vellum, and all Sifrei Torah are written on kosher klaf or vellum.

A quarter of the 180-copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book. Paper was used for most book-printing, as it was cheaper and easier to process through a printing press and to bind. The twelfth-century Winchester Bible was also written on approximately 250 calfskins.

In art, vellum was used for paintings, especially if they needed to be sent long distances, before canvas became widely used in about 1500, and continued to be used for drawings, and watercolours. Old master prints were sometimes printed on vellum, especially for presentation copies, until at least the seventeenth century.