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The initial on this page of the manuscript of the Epistles of St Paul with Gloss shows St Paul preaching and being lowered from the walls of Damascus. It must have been drawn by one artist and coloured by another, for there are tiny letters of the alphabet indicating the colours to be applied into each area of design. Those that are intelligible include 'r' on the red areas, 'v' on the green, and 'a' on the blue, indicating that they were speaking Latin or French. (This method is now called 'painting by numbers'.) A good artist drew the initial and indicated the colours for a lesser craftsman to colour it. Probably the artist of this initial was a professional, called in to help the monks decorate their book.
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