Paracelsus. Robert Browning. This web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide. Last updated Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 10:47. To the best of our ...
One of Morris’s first calligraphic subjects was relatively modern: a song from Robert Browning’s Paracelsus (1849 edition, IV lines 190-205). Morris illuminated it in the summer of 1856 and presented it to Robert and Elizabeth Browning. This single vellum sheet is the earliest surviving example of Morris’s calligraphy. The text is in two stanzas of eight lines each, written in rough textura quadrata script and framed by two floriated hybrid dragons in red and blue. The stanzas are surrounded by filigree flourishes and tendrils, also in red & blue, and each stanza features a large Lombardic initial capital on a gold field. The letters are uneven in width of stroke, and the border ornamentation crowds in on the text, but Morris is consciously working in a very early style of ornament, a fact easily overlooked if the viewer concentrates only on the penmanship.
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