The miniature of the Crucifixion which is reproduced on plate 11 is visibly Italian work of the rudest style. It is taken from a Missal, written in a hand which is also Italian of the end of the thirteenth century, but gothic in form. The liturgical character of the book is, however, such that we may believe it to have been produced in England, perhaps by an Italian Cistercian monk. The writing on the miniature is in so-called Lombardic uncials, a script which was used for capitals nearly everywhere in the thirteenth century. The three figures in the picture have red or auburn hair, a favourite colour at all times among the Italians, even after the Flemings had introduced a blackhaired Christ. Another noticeable feature is the building with an arcade and windows, in the lower background. Plate 12 is an illustration of the story of Troilus and Cressida, taken from Guido Colonna's Tale of Troy. It is Venetian, of about the years 1330-40, and exhibits the Italian style of using strong pigments for their figures. Whatever the faults of drawing may be, this is a real painting done with a full brush. There is no appearance of the outlines drawn with a pen or a fine brush, such as we see in French and English work, and the folds in the draperies appear to be produced by broad shadowings after the main body of colour had been painted. In fact, it seems to be, like other Italian illuminations, the work of a painter, not {89}of a miniaturist. The place of origin is revealed by the calligrapher's instructions to the artist, which occur on several pages in a minute hand, and which are written in a pure Venetian dialect. The manuscript is illustrated with an unusual quantity of pictorial designs. The writing is remarkable as resembling that of the English charters of the same period, but with greater regularity and evenness in the downstrokes. Plate 13 is reproduced from a French Apocalypse of the fourteenth century, with a text in French prose. The writing is gothic, much changed from the style of the thirteenth century, and less regular and elegant. The picture is thoroughly French, of the time when English illuminators had yielded up their supremacy to the men of the French school. We see the fine outlines and features as we are accustomed to see them in thirteenth century work, offering in their delicate style a curious contrast to the broad free paintiness of the illustration in plate 12. The Apocalypse, from which the plate is taken, is a French work of the middle of the fourteenth century, showing a good deal of the feeling of the preceding century, but tending visibly towards the manner of the time when Charles V of France and his brothers were associated with manuscripts of an unusually beautiful kind.