A great part of the beauty of mediaeval manuscripts is quite unconnected with their illumination. The plain portion of the text, from the exquisite forms of its letters and the beautiful glossy black of the ink on the creamy ivory-like vellum page, lighted up here and there by the crisp touch of the rubricator's red, is a thing of extraordinary beauty and charm. This perfection of technique in the writing and beauty of the letters lasted considerably longer than did the illuminator's art. Hence in some of the manuscripts of the period of decadence, executed during the fifteenth century, the plain black and red text is very superior in style to the painted ornament; and one cannot, in some cases, help regretting that the manuscript has not escaped the disfigurement of a coarse or gaudy scheme of illumination. _Red inks_ were of three chief kinds, namely the _vermilion_, _red lead_, and _rubrica_ or red ochre, which have been already mentioned. _Purple ink._ _Purple ink_ was used largely, not often for writing, but for the delicate pen ornaments of the initials in certain classes of late Italian and German manuscripts. A vegetable pigment seems to have been used for this; the lines appear to be stained, and do not consist of a body-colour resting on the surface of the vellum. _Gold writing_ is usually executed with the fluid gold pigment, but in later manuscripts very gorgeous titles and headings are sometimes done with burnished leaf gold applied on the raised mordant, the writing being first done with a pen dipped in the fluid mordant. _The pencils and pens of the Illuminator._ Two quite different classes of pencils were used for lightly sketching in the outline of the future floral design or miniature. _Lead point._ One of these was the silver-point or lead-point[282], very much like the metallic pencil of a modern pocket-book. The use of the silver-point was known in classical times; Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ XXXIII. 98) remarks as a strange thing that a white metal like silver should make a black line when used to draw with. It is, however, rather a faint grey than a black line that a point of pure silver makes, especially on vellum, and so it was more usual for illuminators to use a softer pencil of mixed lead and tin; Cennino recommends two parts of lead to one of tin[283] for making the lead point, _piombino_. _Red pencil._ Another kind of pencil was made of a soft red stone, which owed its colour to oxide of iron. From its fine blood-red tint the illuminators called it _haematita_, _lapis amatista_ or _amatito_, hence an ordinary lead pencil is now called either _lapis_ or _matita_ in Italy. This stone is quite different from the hard _haematite_ which was used in classical times for the early cylinder-signets of Assyria. _Burnisher._