The fourteenth century saw the production of innumerable Islamic manuscripts, many of which were extensively and expertly illuminated. The period is well-studied, in particular, the products of the ateliers of Baghdad, Tabriz, Shiraz and Cairo. This article concerns a manuscript from a less well-known production centre, namely that of Erzincan. This manuscript is a copy of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī's Mas̲navī produced in 774/1373. Although discussed briefly in previous scholarship (and attributed to Erzincan), there is much more to say about this skilfully and extensively illuminated manuscript. This article examines the manuscript's text, codicology, illuminations, inscriptions and wider historical context. In doing so, it substantiates the manuscript's connection to Erzincan and adds to the growing body of literature concerning the arts of the book of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Rūm.

The objects of this study are various local charters (cartas de foral, in Portuguese) granted by Dom Manuel I, King of Portugal (1495–1521), which substituted for medieval ones and were intended to achieve an administrative unification. These are luxuriously illuminated manuscripts, and our study aims at obtaining a better understanding of the gilding and silvering techniques applied to the parchments, in which the forais were written, between 1500 and 1520. The combined use of microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy analyses allowed us to identify the vestigial materials used for making the parchments, including products such as salt (NaCl), lime (CaO), pumice stone (SiO2+Al2O3), and chalk (CaCO3). Chalk was employed as a whitening agent to give the parchment its final color and opacity. Shell-gold and shell-silver mixed in with animal glue or gum binding media were directly applied on type 1 and 3 forais, while very thin gold leaves (<1 µm) were applied over lead-based tempera grounds (50–180 µm thick) in type 2 forais. Silver was always employed in its finest form without a further protective layer (thus its recursive state of corrosion), while gold was used in various alloy grades.