Many centuries ago, Irish Monks wrote and decorated one of the most visually beautiful books in the world, the Book of Kells. Looking at a facsimile of it today, the detail and intricacy is still breathtaking, a memory of a world long since gone.
Handwriting experts have suggested a number of different scribes worked on the book, their personalities ranging from the careful and pedantic to one scribe who loved quirky flourishes and brilliant colours.
The Book of Kells is not the only illuminated manuscript from the period, although it's certainly one of the most famous.
Most touching of all however, is a marginal note in one of these manuscripts by an anonymous scribe, back in ninth century Ireland, who wrote: 'Pleasant to me is the glittering of the sun today upon these margins, because it flickers so.'
Beautiful!
