The Written Word
Part IV
The Holy Roman Empire -- Sinners, Saints, and Saviors

The human tongue whips the air, but writing is the guardian of history.
Abbot Alcuin of York, ca 813

The fourth* episode of our continuing expose, The Written Word, reveals five events that altered the direction and preservation of Western literature: 1) Use of parchment; 2) Spread of Christianity; 4) Power shift to Constantinople; and 5) Charlemagne's reign.

Jacqueline Ernst infuses 900 years of circumstances, people, and art with context and meaning relevant to creative minds seeking historically accurate inspiration to augment their own work. You'll discover the most frequently pictured authors in the history of book art (hint -- there are four of them!). Ernst's prose and collection of period illustrations carry you through ancient Rome and the glittering halls of Byzantium to the scandalous but scholarly Carolingian court.

Thirty-two pages and twenty seven visuals relate history to art in a way guaranteed to ignite your appreciation and understanding of the development of our Western alphabet between the first and ninth centuries. Early Christian concepts combined with classic Western literature and production techniques to derive new art forms and book design. As always, WINGIN' IT provides illustrations, working models, layout ideas, and templates to help imbue your creative endeavors with a broader spectrum of inspiration. A separate bind-in booklet offers insights into punctuation and abbreviations that acquired lives and looks uniquely their own. Period reliquaries prompted Jaki to design a template and write how-to-instructions for an easy-to-make 5" x 7" Byzantine style box, greeting card, and book cover. Complete with inset windowed shadow box, this unique presentation permits you to preserve a keepsake trinket inside the sealed display window set into the lid of a cleverly engineered gift container. Use the template to also make your own matching greeting card and book cover -- all with recessed altar suitable for displaying a special little relic or treasure.

Order your copy of Volume 3, Number 6 now and feel the fervor as pens and swords shape and slash the Western World. Better yet, subscribe to WINGIN' IT and receive six issues at substantial discount over individually priced releases.

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* The first part of the series introduces Ancient Scripts (Vol. 3, No. 2), the second installment details Persia -- Poetic Passion (Vol. 3, No. 3), and the third segment evaluates Runes -- The Celtic Connection (Vol. 3, No 4). Each release comes with a belly band embellished with an artistamp related to the subject material. Once completed, the entire collection will be housed in a specially designed slip case mailed to subscribers along with the final publication of the series. Be sure you have all components of this informative compilation!