From 1 September, a book exhibition “The drop cap-initial” timed to the Knowledge Day runs in the Book Museum.
For centuries masters had aspired to decorate capital letters in book texts. They used multicolored paints of natural materials and even artificial gold at times. Each letter was a work of art and it was never repeated. Such a skillfully decorated capital letter at the beginning of the text is called bukvica (from the Slavic bukva, i.e. “a letter”) or initial (lat. initialis, i.e. "initial").
The exhibition includes manuscripts of the 16th–19th centuries written in Cyrillic and Roman fonts including those of Belarusian origin, collections of Old Believers’ motets of the 17th–19th centuries and early printed books of the first half of the 15th century (incunabula) from the stocks of the National Library of Belarus. They present various styles and methods of hand-written design of capital letters.
The exhibits on display show the historical development and perfection of the art of drop cap-initial design.
Contact phone: (375 17) 293 27 22.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
