The Book of Kells, held in Dublin’s Trin­i­ty Col­lege Library, is an illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­script Gospel book in Latin, con­tain­ing the four Gospels of the New Tes­ta­ment. It was cre­at­ed in a Colum­ban monastery in Ire­land around 800 AD, and it’s a mas­ter­work of West­ern cal­lig­ra­phy. It rep­re­sents the pin­na­cle of insu­lar illu­mi­na­tion (“insu­lar” deriv­ing from insu­la, the Latin for “island” and refer­ring to post-Roman art of Britain and Ire­land). It is also wide­ly regard­ed as Ire­land’s finest nation­al trea­sure, and although I haven’t yet made it past the pubs of Dublin to view it, it’s def­i­nite­ly on the list.

The illus­tra­tions and orna­men­ta­tion of the Book of Kells are exquis­ite. The dec­o­ra­tion com­bines tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian iconog­ra­phy with ornate, swirling motifs. There are fig­ures of humans, ani­mals, myth­i­cal beasts, along with Celtic knots and inter­lac­ing pat­terns in vibrant colours, all scribed onto leaves of high-qual­i­ty calf vel­lum with iron gall ink (the stan­dard ink used in Europe, made from iron salts and tan­nic acid extract­ed from oak galls) and colours derived from a wide range of sub­stances import­ed from dis­tant lands.

The man­u­script takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, in Coun­ty Meath, which was its home for cen­turies. Its exact place of ori­gin is uncer­tain, although it is wide­ly thought to have been start­ed at Iona and then lat­er com­plet­ed in the scrip­to­ri­um at Kells itself. Regard­less, it’s true to say that the Colum­ban monks respon­si­ble for its cre­ation had skills in cal­lig­ra­phy honed to a remark­able degree.