How Does The Alchemy of Color and Chemical Change in Medieval Manuscripts Work?

It’s like painting with invisible ingredients that make colors pop up when you mix them just right.

Imagine you’re using a special kind of paint, but not the kind you find in your art box. This paint is made from things like crushed bugs, plants, and even chemicals hidden inside rocks and minerals. These ingredients are mixed with glue or animal fat to make them stick on paper.

Sometimes, when you mix these special paints together, especially under the heat of a sun-dried wall or near an open fire, something amazing happens. It’s like when you mix baking soda and vinegar, and it fizzes up! This is called a chemical change.

In medieval times, scribes used this trick to make colors shine brighter than ever before. For example, they might use iron salts and oak gall (from oak trees) to create black ink that wouldn’t fade easily, kind of like how your marker pen doesn’t run out even after you draw a lot.

So, it’s not magic, it's clever mixing and a little bit of chemistry, just like when you make a rainbow cake or watch popcorn pop!