Colour ConText

For several centuries, the literature of artists’ recipe books has been considered one of the most original and comprehensive primary sources for the historical study of artistic practices and materials. In addition to the famous Libro dell’arte of Cennino Cennini, nearly five hundred European manuscripts containing artistic recipes survive from before circa 1550. A great number of these are still unpublished and virtually unknown. Our work on a large corpus of recipe collections has generated the material for a database that facilitates consultation and exploitation of the source material.Current structure of the database
The core data consists of mediaeval and pre-modern manuscripts and printed books from Northern and Southern Europe. The various layouts of the ‘Colour ConText’ database allow access to the metadata of the sources with details such as title, current location, place and date of origin, scribes or authors, previous owners, and description of any other (non-recipe) content. The database also allows access to digital images of these sources via European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) or via digital collections made available by external institutes, and to the transcription and translation of the recipe texts. Reference to primary and secondary sources, together with the related bibliographical data, is integrated throughout the database. To date, over 400 manuscripts have been considered and 4,500 recipes - some constituting only a few lines, others covering several folios - have been transcribed and recorded within the database. The database also includes a complete index of the ‘simples’ (substances mentioned as ingredients). Thus materials are indexed both by their current scientific name and by the terms exactly as they appear in the source texts.
Each ingredient’s appellation is linked by relational tables to its contemporary and modern synonyms. This allows the retrieval of all the different appellations used for one ingredient – detailing the historical written context – but also the various ingredients that may be related to one ‘appellation’.

A survey of artistic materials and techniques
The database helps not only to observe the global frequency and recurrence of each ingredient and technical instruction, but also to deduce the availability of artistic material within a chronologically and geographically defined area. Many of these recipes can be used to identify specific, datable practices and materials, as compilers often specify the name and/or place of origin of the artists from whom they obtained their information. Information related to the historical provenance of the source material (obtained through codicological or philological analysis) has also been recorded within the database and may be used for that purpose. Moreover, it is possible to observe, through factors such as frequency within the corpus, basic structure, and evolution, how recipes were modified over time or by other external phenomena. It is also possible to link the development of specific artistic procedures and technical traditions, and to correlate these with more widely diffused techniques. Thus, recipe books allow us to study the geography, chronology, circulation and dissemination of artists’ knowledge.

Colour material and terminology
This project notably aims at considering and evaluating the importance and interest accorded to knowledge of the materials and substances used by artists and shared with other professionals (such as apothecaries), focusing on pigments and colouring material. For that purpose, other written sources related to colour will be included (notably texts on colour theory, on colour symbolism, on colour systems, on the pharmaceutical qualities of colours, etc.). In parallel to the physical descriptions of pigments and colourants, these written sources deliver information concerning their optical characteristics, conservation, (in)compatibility with other sorts of materials and their ageing properties. The diversity of colour denominations and the complexity of the varied technical terminology will be made transparent through a glossary of all the substances, ingredients, and their synonyms mentioned in the recipe books.
Transmission of artists’ knowledge
Such collections of recipes were often gathered in the same book with other subjects (such as theology, alchemy, botany or medicine) and these are also described within the database. The database also includes information concerning the provenance and circulation of these books outside the workshop. This allows other questions to be addressed - notably those related to the ownership and readership of collections of recipes.