Before Dutch still life painting developed, artists illuminated handwritten manuscripts to add emotional power to a written work.
Reproduced here is a page he illuminated for the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, a mid-16th-century manuscript by Georg Bocskay..
A celebrated practitioner of this style was Joris Hoefnagel.
Before Dutch still life painting developed, artists illuminated handwritten manuscripts to add emotional power to a written work