Artist known as Guda the Nun (e.12th). Book of Homilies page with Self-Portrait of the Guda the Nun [ink on parchment]. Stadt-und Universitäts-Bibliothek, Frankfurt, Germany.

I honestly cannot tell if this is an overly-ornate drop cap or simply an illustration. The language seems to be Germanic, not Latin, and of course I cannot understand it. The graphic itself is expert in it’s rendering: full variation of values, a simple complementary color scheme and a nearly exclusive reliance on patterned, curved edges and forms. The title individual’s gesture is one of calm humility. The text is set on the page masterfully, and I simply cannot imagine how the calligrapher accomplished this by hand. Each word is effectively a ligature. Leading is consistent but with natural variation. The character of these two traits alone still carry an organic feel, even though they are nearly mechanically applied. |

The design of the entire page is influenced more by the illuminary arts of the time than the communicative purpose of the text. Doubtless this entire text staked its ground in that very development more than being a result of it. With the narrow ragged-right column (cropped in the image), centrally-embedded pictorial graphic and large block of basic blackletter copy with a single line breaking the hierarchy, it displays an excellent alternative typographic layout. The designs of the graphic itself reflect the attributes of the body copy, while the strokes that define the portrait contrast in measure in their lengthy narrowness. 
Lines and shapes define the graphic in both color and value. It is essentially flat with a hint of spiraling depth. The most developed depth comes through the extreme contrast of the negative space-defined self portrait and the dense field behind her. The circular nature of the graphic contrasts well against the upright density of the letterforms and the vertical block of text they create. Both figure and text carry a natural, organic tone. “Reverse-highlighting”, formatting the figure in white and setting it against a dense field, sets the self-portrait apart from the remainder of the page.
The self-portrait is, in fact, framed by the edges of a versal character “D”. It is one of the first examples of a visual work of art signed by a woman creator, and in this case references the importance female technicians had in the labors of Germanic scriptoria. It is a pedestrian page of a voluminous text, yet displays deliberate and graceful design, contrasts in geometry, and typographic hierarchy.