The parchment on which most medieval manuscripts are written is less visually uniform than the paper that would come after, or even the papyrus that came before. This is because parchment was made from animal skin, and the process of creating it often left holes and tears, and sometimes the creativity of the repairs meant that the parchment was more beautiful for having been ripped.
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Other scribes went in a different direction, incorporating the parchment’s flaws into their illustrations:
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