October 2010, Issue 9
Dollhouse Tourism
Page 22
Continue Dollhouse Tourism
Cossinia's doll was very in fashion and very richly supplied with all that was necessary. She had a pink jewel box in which she could keep all her jewels: a golden necklace shaped like a double chain and a number of golden bracelets, some for the arms and some for the ankles.
Girls of ancient times played with dolls just like our little daughters or even us "grown-up little girls!"
Well, as seen in the movie "Gladiator," boys, too, had their miniatures: small models of animals and people.
The gladiator Juba buries Maximus' two small figurines of his wife and son in the ground of Colosseu where Maximus died.
Leaving Ancient Rome, we can go on with the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts. An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decorations, such as decorative initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations.
The word is derived from the Latin illuminare ("to light up") because of the glow created by the radiant colors of the images, especially with the enhancements of metallic gold and silver. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages even if the earliest illuminated manuscripts produced in Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire are from the period 400 to 600 AD.
The largest part of these manuscripts are religious in nature and the most important were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum. In the early Middle Ages, most books were produced in monasteries, whether for their own use, for presentation, or for a commission.
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