Distribution of the Ornaments - Pattern Books
It can be safely assumed that so-called “pattern books” for ornaments and decorations existed even in the ancient world. There are many known manuscripts,
dating from the Middle Ages until around 1500, in which ornamental designs were recorded in the form of drawings. Perhaps the most famous of these is the sketchbook (1230–1235) of the master builder Villard de Honnecourt of Picardy, which is part of the collection of the French National Library in Paris; a comparable
pattern book in the German-speaking region is the well-known “Reiner Musterbuch”, a collection of manuscripts created in 1208–1213, which is now preserved at the Austrian National Library in Vienna.
Bernd Evers, Rainald Franz
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