# Book of Lindisfarne [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MINIATURIST, Irish]() - Date: 0651-0700 - Technique: Manuscript \(Cotton Ms. Nero D. IV\), 340 x 245 mm ## Commentary Book of Lindisfarne c. 700 Manuscript \(Cotton Ms. Nero D. IV\), 340 x 245 mm British Library, London Two Irish monastic foundations in the North of England, on the Island of Iona off the Scottish coast and in Durrow, had important insular scriptoria which produced the most glorious manuscripts in the seventh and eighth centuries. The Abbey of Lindisfarne, where one of the earliest masterpieces of Western book painting originated, was founded by Iona as a daughter house on an island not far from the mouth of the River Tweed. The Lindisfarne Gospels, which has survived virtually intact, contains 258 folios with four evangelist portraits, five carpet pages and numerous pages with decorative initials. The miniaturist was Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne \(died 721\). The Latin text has been translated into Anglo-Saxon in additions written between the lines. The picture shows the introductory form at the beginning of St Mark's gospel \(folio 94r\). The text starts with the word "initium", and the first two letters, I and N, have merged to form a particularly splendid initial. This kind of organic joining of two or more letters is called a ligature. From the 7th century onwards, insular book painting began to create a fluid link between the initials - which by this time were of huge proportions - and the small lines of the text; to do this, they used elongation or extended the body of the letter to various width, etc. As a result, the insular initial became a dynamic form, with the curvilinear ornamentation either filling the shape of the initial, which had rolled-up or unrolled ends, or nestling close to it. The eye becomes entangled in a maze, the letter is covered with decorative shapes like a body covered in tattoos. ## Related artworks - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Durrow]() - [Book of Kells]() - [Book of Kells]() - [Book of Kells]() - [Book of Kells]() - [Book of Kells]() - [Book of Kells]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()