Let's for a occasion push aside this world of computers and return to the world of books; a world of mystical journeys that for centuries have entertained and educated us. The very touch of a book and what it holds within is still a astonishing sensation for me today. The weight of books I find comforting and the expectation of a good read still gets my blood flowing. My mind is cast into worlds of magic and adventure and even sometimes, menacing worlds of the bizarre, inhabited by strange creatures and even stranger stories! The history of writing that gave birth to books goes back between the 7th millennium Bc and the 4th millennium Bc, production the new emergence of the Word.doc, Kindle and anything else is waiting in the computer techno wings of today look puny indeed! I don't know about you but I'm a medieval man myself. Not for me the big, show-off noises of the Renaissance with a far too confident attraction to the big, bold and brassy and with just a hint of church propaganda about the place!
The creation of books in the middle ages was mostly the work of monks and within the sanctity of monasteries the scriptorium was their workroom; here, books were copied, decorated, rebound, and conserved. This was a period of profound religious reliance and the simple but sincere observance of the Christian faith. The stories of the gospels were beautifully portrayed in both image and word as were the worlds of darkness, demons and the devil himself. The work of Taddeo di Bartolo (1362 - 1422) often enters the world of sin and evil itself, production the work of a Stephen King today, read like Mary Poppins! Within these tomes lived the monsters of evil that battled with the forces of God and the sense of good within the people of the day. The images within these manuscripts were the unquestioned visions of what people truly believed and their power to tell a story gave those same people a door to enter into the world of their faith.
Book
It was the university-cities that advanced throughout Europe from the 13thcentury onwards that gave birth to libraries and changed book production forever. Gradually books became tools of a trade that included law and the study of history and with the introduction of the liberal arts into universities, books on poetry and language entered the library shelves.
Today, with a small Sherlock Holmes about you, the world of monsters can still be tracked down within the magnificence pages of ancient books as they sleep in libraries like the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence. In part, this library is the work of Michelangelo no less and a astonishing place to visit next time you find yourself in Florence. And fear not those monsters that you might stumble across? As William Shakespeare once wrote, "And this, our life, exempt from group haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."
There Are Monsters in Florence?
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