In Hohenschwangau
In Neuschwanstein
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To those usually called Gothic Architects we are indebted for the first considerable Improvements in construction; there is a lightness in their works, an art and boldness of execution, to which the ancients never arrived, and which the moderns comprehend and imitate with difficulty. England contains many magnificent examples of this Species of Architecture, equally admirable for the art with which they are built, the taste and ingenuity with which they are composed. One cannot refrain from wishing that the Gothic Structures were more considered, were better understood, and in higher estimation than they hitherto seem to have been. Would our Dilettanti, instead of importing the Gleanings of Greece, or our Antiquarians, instead of publishing loose incoherent prints, encourage persons duly qualified to undertake a correct elegant publication of our Cathedrals, and other Buildings called Gothic, before they totally fall to ruin, it would be a real service to the Arts of Design; preserve the remembrance of an extraordinary Style of Building, now sinking fast into Oblivion; and at the same time publish to the world, the riches of Britain in the Splendour of her ancient Structures.[Treatise on the Decorative Parts of Civil Architecture by Sir William Chambers. 1759]
There is a story, long beleieved of Prince Rupert, that one day he saw a soldier cleaning the barrell of his musket, which the dew had rusted during a lengthy spell of sentry-go in the night. The prince, according to the legend, noticed that, as the soldier scraped away the fine grain eaten into the metal by the damp, which was in effect the rust, a sort of nondescript design was left, and from that he was supposed to have conceived the idea of mezzotint engraving. It was a plausible story, but its truth has been discounted, since Horace Walpole related it, by the discovery that the art was invented, not by Charles I's famous nephew, but by a German soldier of more modest fame.[The Old Engravers of England by Malcolm C. Salaman]
Yet mezzotint engraving has its romantic story. When Prince Rupert was in Brussels in 1654, he sought the acquaintence of a certain Colonel Ludwig Von Siegen - but it was not to talk of military matters. Perhaps he was trying to forget the stricken fields of Marston Moor and Naseby, the surrendered battlements of Bristol, in the peaceful arts and sciences which now engaged his subdued activities. Among these engraving enjoyed his particular favour and interest; and his wonder and curiosity had been aroused by the report of certain extraordinary prints mysteriously produced from copper-plates which yet revealed no tough of graver or etching-point...
The secret of his invention, however, Colonel Von Siegen had kept to himself for twelve years, and in the interval, he had worked during his leisure hours at its development; but the flattering interest evinced by Prince Rupert, when he curiously and admiringly examined the prints, overcame the reticence of the gallant and ingenious inventor. He confided his secret to the sympathetic prince. He told him how, by means of a steel roller with fine sharp teeth cut on the face of it, fixed to a horizontal handle, he had worked over and over a copper-plate, in every possible direction, until the surface presented a close and even burr of grain, which, when inked, had given an impression of practically uniform black. Then, with a sharp tool, which he had devised for the purpose, he had gradually scraped away portions of the burr to varying depths and degrees, while other portions were left untouched, so that the high-lights, middle tints, and black shadows of his design resulted from impressions taken from the worked plate, and a whole picture was accordingly presented merely by gradatory tones of light and shade, and without a single line or dot, as in the known forms of engraving.
The arrangement and publishing of the Bible was the most enduring monument of the scribes and illuminators of Paris in the early 13th century. This deserves some attention. It has a major place in the history of manuscripts. The way that the Latin Bible was redesigned and promoted from the Paris schools was one of the most phenomenal successes in the history of book production. The Bible is not an easy book to publish: a very diverse collection of ancient historical and literary texts sanctioned by divine authority and forming a vast and complex record of the Word of God. Of course, the Bible has been central to Christianity from the beginning...[A History of Illuminated Manuscripts by Christopher De Hamel. Phaidon: London, 1994]
But (with a very few distinguished exceptions) Bible manuscripts had been made up of several separate volumes, usually enormous in size, which were intended as vast monuments to be displayed on a lectern or altar in a church or in the refectory of the monastery... These volumes were not portable in the usual sense, and they were not designed for private study. 12th century students of the Bible text (and naturally there were many) would make use of those twenty or so distinct volumes which made up a glossed Bible. One studied the Psalms, or the Gospels, or the Minor Prophets, for example. Biblical scholars were known as Masters of the Sacred Page, a term which echoes this concept of the biblical corpus as the sum of a great many pages of Holy Writ rather than as a single book within two covers.
Some time in Paris in the late 12th or early 13th century all this began to change. This is really significant. The Bible was now put into a single volume. The order and names of the biblical books were standardized, the prologues ascribed to St. Jerome were inserted systematically, and the text was checked for accuracy as far as possible. For the first time the text was meticulously divided up into numbered chapters which are still in use today. The so-called Interpretation of Hebrew Names, an alphabetical dictionary of the Latin meanings of Hebrew proper names, was added at the end. More important in the history of publishing are the changes to the physical appearance of the book. Scribes used the thinnest silky vellum. The pages became extremely small. They employed headings at the top of each page, little red and blue initials throughout the text to mark the beginning of each chapter, and the text was now written in black ink in a microscopic script in two columns. The effect was dramatic. The new type of Bible was an absolute bestseller...
More than that, the Bible design masterminded in the early 13th century has so fundamentally entered the subconsciousness of all of us that, even now, 700 years later, Bibles still look the same. Choose a traditional printed Bible from a good bookshop today. Look at its physical layout. It is on tissue-thin paper, very like the uterine vellum of the 13th century. It is probably octavo in size, like almost every 13th century copy. It has the same order of biblical books, headings, the same division into chapters (with verses, not introduced until the 16th century) and - many centuries after this layout has been dropped from most other text - it is in minute writing in two narrow columns. Look at the binding and the colored edges. The chances are that the cover will look like leather and be black or red or blue: these are the three colors of 13th century Parisian painting. It is hardly possible to find another object which was so new in 1200 and which is still made with so little modification today.
Quia ergo femina mortem instruxitThis antiphon was sung at our wedding, at the bride's prayer before Mary's altar.
Clara Virga illam interemit.
Et ideo est summa benedictio
In feminea forma
Pre omni creatura,
Quia Deus factus est homo
In dulcissima et beata Virgine.
As a woman hath brought death,
A pure Virgin hath conquered it.
And therefore the highest blessing
Is upon the female form
Before all creatures,
Because God became man
Within the sweetest and beautiful Virgin.
Another great labyrinth style is the Mediæval Christian labyrinth with eleven rings of paths, which double back on each of the four axes to portray a distinctive Christian cross. These first appeared in manuscripts, followed by a number of examples in the indoor stone pavements of the great mediæval abbeys and cathedrals of the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. The oldest surviving labyrinth, built in the early 1200s, can be found at Chartres Cathedral in France. Those at Amiens Cathedral, Bayeux Cathedral, Saint-Quentin parish church and the church of San Vitale in Ravenna still survive; others in the French cathedrals of Arras, Chambéry, Poitiers, Rheims and Sens no longer exist.[The Amazing Book of Mazes by Adrian Fisher. New York: Abrams, 2006]
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: Good morning! We all remember the words allegedly said by Yuriy Gagarin: I went up to the outer space and didn't find any God there. Many years have passed. Does this axiom still work for the modern space explorers?
Valeriy Korzun: I know another phrase, also said by Gagarin: If you haven't met God on Earth you won't meet Him in outer space. This phrase is much closer to my heart. A lot has changed: every crew gets a priest's blessing before the launch now.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: Is there a church in Zvyozdny Gorodok?
Yuriy Lonchakov: Yes, there is, it was built three years ago.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: Is there a specific saint cosmonauts pray to before the launch? Do you have a heavenly patron?
Valeriy Korzun: Not as such, but we have always considered St. Nicholas the Wonderworker our patron, because he takes care of all travellers.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: Do you take icons along to space?
Yuriy Lonchakov: Yes, we take small ones along. I always have an icon of St. George the Victorybearer, because my name is Yuriy, it's a variation of George.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: I have recently been very surprised to learn that a church has been built in Baikonur. Do you know after whom it is consecrated and what services it holds?
Valeriy Korzun: I haven't heard that it's already been built, but I know there is an Orthodox community there, and they used to meet just in a room, and their priests came to bless us before the launch.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: Many people now consecrate their homes and cars, ships are consecrated, I even consecrated a theatre. Are rockets consecrated?
Yuriy Lonchakov: I don't know about rockets, but before the crew puts the space suits on, a priest is always invited to consecrate them.
Valeriy Korzun: And the bus that takes them to the launch pad. We don't know about the rockets because we don't deal with them, but they say they do get consecrated.
Father Alexiy Uminskiy: This must be wonderful - to fly all around the Earth on a consecrated space ship!
