Illuminations; Illuminated

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Embellishments in a manuscript or book. Illuminations can be decorative elements, images, or ornamental lettering. They are typically hand-painted in richly coloured pigments and sometimes gilded. In early atlases and printed books, some capital letters were still illuminated by hand, showing an interesting transition from illuminated manuscripts to printed material.

A page from the Rudimentum Novitorum book, showing woodblock illustrations of Biblical geneology as lines of links in a chain on the left page, and a page of text with a large illuminated letter O on the right. The illumination is in blue and white pigment with gold highlights.