Activities for ages 9-13

Did you know that hundreds of years ago, the earliest printed books kept things simple by just using black ink for text. If people wanted colour, they'd sometimes decorate the book by hand with paints or coloured ink after the book had been printed with the black text. 

The printers of these books, hundreds of years ago, left spaces in the text so that artists could add in the red coloured letters after the book was printed. The space where a decorated red letter was to be added was called a LACUNA.

The oldest book in Dunblane’s historic Leighton Library was published in 1504. This is an example of a printed book which never had the initials added in, but still has the empty spaces (such a space is called a lacuna) which were left for the artist to add the red coloured capital letters (and you can see the tiny guide letters which were printed so that the artist would know what letter they were to add in red ink, but this book never had these red capital letters added by an artist. 

This book is called "Expositio compendiosa et familiaris : sensus litteratẽ et mysticũ cõplectẽs" and it's a textbook by Hungarian writer Pelbartus Ladislaus of Temesvár (known as Temesvári Pelbárt) on the book of Psalms. 

Click here to download the learning resource "Lacuna Lettering - from blank to beautiful." This resource was created by Leighton Library Volunteer Guide Malcolm Wilson.

This learning resource contains images from the Leighton Library book Temesvári Pelbárt "Expositio compendiosa et familiaris : sensus litteratẽ et mysticũ cõplectẽs" which was published in 1504.

There is an activity to identify the large red capital letters which couod have been added to such a book. There is a fill-the-gap text activity which contains the explanation about the gaps, and the task of the artist. There is an activity to use a red pencil or pen to create large red decorated capital letters in spaces left in images from the 1504 book in the Leighton Library (using the tiny guide letters).  There is an activity to circle, underline or decorate around words in the text in an image from this early book to make words stand out and be more attractive. There is an activity to copy some red capital letters of the style which would have been added in books from centuries ago. There is an activity to create your own designs of red decorated capital initial letters for each of the letters in the spaces from tiny guide letters. There is an activity  to recreate the role of a rubricator (the name given to an artist adding these red letters) by adding capital letters around a story you create.