The Dies Irae Processional is a competition piece. The below text is taken from the formal documentation. As that documentation is nearly 20 pages long, I'm not going to reiterate it in its entirety; the following is a concise version of the full paper. You can click on any image to see it in a much larger size. If you are interested in learning more about the Dies Irae as a musical piece, feel free to follow the link, below.

The illumination style is that of the Lewis E-7 manuscript, a gothic processional. The original manuscript was created in France, and has been dated to approximately 1500-1515. Its script is a simple gothic bookhand written in Latin. The total size of the book is 130mm x 185mm. It is currently housed in Paris, France, and may be viewed at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The original text of the Lewis E-7 manuscript is executed in a straightforward gothic bookhand, also known as a simple Blackletter style. I have tried as best as possible to copy this hand, using a lettering guide made from the actual letter formations in the manuscript.

The primary text of this document consists of a selection of the Dies Irae. As the full medieval text was simply too long to render in its entirety, I chose a representative ten of the seventeen verses to incorporate into the illuminated piece. The Dies Irae is one of the oldest pieces of medieval liturgical music. The text of the hymn is taken from its entirety in a thirteenth-century Franciscan Missal.

The Lewis-E7 manuscript contains the musical chant for the processions celebrating the major events of the liturgical year. This miniature marks the beginning of the Blessing of the Candles, which occurs at the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, also known as Candlemas. The borders of this manuscript are filled with carefully drawn birds, insects, and flowers.

I specifically chose this processional based on three qualifications. First, that it was an excellent example of a medieval musical piece combined with free text; second, it was extremely representative of the turn-of-the-century style of illumination, transitioning from gothic borders to pure Renaissance vine-and-ivy work; and thirdly, that it offered a wide variety of techniques for the illuminator to utilize: pigment painting, gold leaf, miniatures, score notation, fluid block text, and drolleries (birds, flowers, and insects, in particular).

Around the 11th century, liturgical music began to become more complex, and the trend towards antiphonal, or polyphonic music, began. As choirs became more dependent on musical literacy and less on prodigious feats of memory, very large music books were produced, often with lavish production and decoration, for the use of the choir as a whole. The notes were rendered as very big and easily visible rectangles, so that everyone in the choir could read the text. This system is referred to as 'square notation,' and became the standard for medieval musical scores.

A specific order of execution exists for illuminating manuscripts. First, execute calligraphy or lettering; second, complete gilding; and last, painting. The order results from the degree of difficulty encountered when correcting various faults.

The illumination on this document was performed in a similar manner; first calligraphy, then gilding, then paint - from lighter to darker colors, where possible, to better cover errors if they were made. Once the calligraphy was finished and the scroll was ready for gilding, the hard bits of rabbit glue were prepared in water and then softened with heat and kept warm during application. When the glue was fully applied, gold leaf was secured to the areas, pressed tightly with silk, and allowed to dry overnight. The excess gilding was brushed away, and a second application of glue and gold foil was placed to cover any areas which had not been correctly applied in the first pass.

Thereafter, calligraphic ink was used to define the vined areas where the stem was nothing more than a thin black line. A second pass, this time with thinned red paint loaded onto the nib of a calligraphy pen, was used to create musical stanzas between the text of the Dies Irae. Once those had fully dried (after a night had passed), the square note musical score was added, being very cautious to keep the notes accurately aligned with the text with which they were individually associated. From there, paints were applied by color, filling in the vines and leaves of the outer design. Another pass filled in the colored patterns on the main capital and lesser capitals.

From there, paints were applied by color, filling in the vines and leaves of the outer design. Another pass filled in the colored patterns on the main capital and lesser capitals. At that point, the miniature was designed and lightly sketched onto the parchment, and the individual colors of the miniature base were applied. While that was given time to dry, white-work and detailing was done on the capital letters and vines. Lastly, detailing was done on the miniature, and errors throughout were addressed as well as possible.

The miniature in this document was designed after the text source was chosen, so that the depiction would be related as closely as possible to the meaning of the calligraphed piece. I utilized imagery from Revelations as inspiration for the miniature. As the 'Dies Irae' is a fairly violent piece of music, glorifying the battles and slaughter of the end of the world and the resultant return of Christ, an image of the four horsemen of the apocalypse seemed most appropriate for the overall piece.