Vitas Patrum
The Vitas Patrum is an eleventh-century Latin manuscript of monastic saints' sayings, copied by an unnamed scribe, probably in a monastery, and kept by a Swiss library. The first picture shows a large illuminated initial built from interlaced white vine scrolls on blue and green grounds with red dots, while the second shows a red and green flower-shaped initial beside red and black capital lettering in a dense text block. A designer could take the interlaced initial scrolls and the red-and-black rubric headings as models for decorative lettering.
