Blue in the Middle Ages: Pigments, Symbols, and Power in Medieval Miniatures

In the Middle Ages, the color blue wasn't simply an aesthetic choice. It was a sign of prestige, sacredness, and power, especially in medieval miniatures and the great pictorial cycles of the 13th and 14th centuries.

Blue functioned as a true visual language, understandable to those who could read images.

The two main pigments used in the Middle Ages were ultramarine and azurite.
Ultramarine was the most precious blue. It came almost exclusively from lapis lazuli mined in the mines of Badakhshan, in present-day Afghanistan. It reached Europe via long and complex trade routes that crossed the Middle East and the Mediterranean. This journey, in itself, made it more valuable than gold weight for weight.

Azurite, on the other hand, was a more common mineral, also found in Europe. Its blue was intense but unstable: it tended to darken or change color over time. For this reason, it was used with greater caution, especially in miniatures.

The production process was long and complex. The stone was broken and ground into a fine powder, using mostly human energy.

A separation phase followed: the blue part was isolated from impurities, such as calcite and pyrite, through washing and mixing with waxes and resins, to obtain an increasingly pure pigment.

The first extractions produced the best blue, the most saturated and luminous, intended for the central figures. Subsequent extractions produced a less intense blue, reserved for the secondary elements.

Medieval manuscript contracts often contain specific clauses regarding the use of blue. The illuminator was not free to decide: he was handling a sacred, expensive material, charged with symbolic meaning.

The dialogue between blue and gold is one of the most powerful elements of medieval art. Gold reflects light, blue absorbs it and deepens it. Together, they do not represent the world, but transcend it.

In medieval contracts commissioning a manuscript, it was not uncommon to find specific clauses: the client supplied the blue or authorised its use only for certain figures (Christ, the Virgin, the sky).

The miniaturist did not “choose” freely: he administered a sacred and very expensive material.

In medieval miniatures, blue was never thought of alone. Its dialogue with gold was essential:

• gold reflects the light,
• blue absorbs it and deepens it.

Together they do not imitate the visible world, but surpass it.

For this reason, the blue, obtained with so much effort, becomes the color of the sky, of transcendence, of truth that does not change.

Using ultramarine blue meant:

• declare a theological importance
• show economic power
• invest in time

Ultramarine blue is in fact one of the most stable pigments ever produced.

It is the same principle that guides the production of facsimile manuscripts today: the use of special papers and highly stable inks to guarantee value over the decades, even centuries.

For this reason, blue, not only in manuscripts but also in large pictorial works, is reserved for decisive subjects.

For example, Christ's robe frequently appears in blue: in Duccio di Buoninsegna in the Stories of the Maestà, in Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel and in the Lorenzettis in the frescoes of the Lower Basilica of Assisi.

A blue that becomes a language: it speaks of faith, power, and timeless beauty, and explains why the color blue in medieval miniatures is one of the most powerful symbols of medieval art.

The colors in the miniatures of the Divine Comedy by Marciana

In Marciana's Divine Comedy, color is never merely decorative.
It is a real reading system, a code that allows you to immediately understand:

1. the role of the characters
2. Dante's situation
3. the physical or metaphysical place where the action takes place

Without going into an exhaustive reading (and without giving away too many spoilers), here are some significant examples.

1. The role of the characters

In the miniatures the contrast between good and evil, between the blessed and the damned, is immediately legible.

In Hell, in particular, the damned, the demons and Lucifer himself are made “other” than Dante, who is alive, and Virgil.

The most consistent chromatic trait is paleness: light, livid, almost translucent bodies, sometimes tinged with gray-greenish hues. It's a precise visual language that communicates:

• deprivation of fullness, that is, they are not “full” like the living or like the guiding figures
• absence of real light: there is no heat, there is no vitality
• humanity reduced to a "shadow": a lifeless presence

The Divine Comedy by St. Mark is characterized by two large miniatures dedicated to Lucifer. In both, the body is rendered in a pale yellowish color; what changes significantly is the head.

In the first, folio 25, Lucifer is depicted chewing on Judas. His head is red, the color of hatred, in open contrast to divine love.

In this scene, Dante is illuminated in blue twice: the first time when, terrified, he contemplates Lucifer; the second time when, upside down, he uses the devil's body as an instrument to ascend towards Purgatory.

In the second miniature, folio 26, Lucifer is depicted full-page. His head takes on a yellowish, white-yellow hue like his body: a color that symbolizes impotence and envy, in contrast to divine power.

Evil, here, is no longer fury: it is sterility.

2. Dante's situation in the miniatures of the Divine Comedy by Marciana

Blu

At the beginning, Dante is depicted wearing a blue robe, contrasting with the colors used to depict Virgil and especially with those used for the damned and other figures. We are in Hell: there is no sky and, above all, no stars. Those will be seen again later. We all remember the famous line: "And then we came forth to see the stars again" (Inferno XXXIV, 139), the last line of the Inferno.

Blue indicates attention, clarity, ability to see and understand.

Dante is alive, but he is not “just any” man: he is the one who looks and who will have to remember.

The blue character describes him as a waking conscience, not as a character immersed in action.

Blue separates him from the world of the damned. In the same scenes, the damned are pale, livid, and empty; the demons do not emerge in color; the infernal space is earthy and cold.

Dante's blue creates an ontological distance: he is in the place, but he does not belong there. Visually, he is not absorbed by Hell.

Blue is also the color of suspension. In the Middle Ages, blue was the color of the sky, of interiority, of what is not yet complete. Dante, at the beginning, is exactly this: he is not damned, he is not saved, he is not transformed.

Red

Dante appears in red for the first time in folio 8, when he finds himself among the heretics and in the presence of Pope Anastasius II, placed by Dante among these sinners because he considered him guilty of having readmitted to Communion Photinus, a bishop/patriarch considered a heretic.

The punishment for heretics consisted, as can also be seen in another miniature from the same folio, of being locked in fiery stone tombs, open like tombs in an immense cemetery, perpetually licked by the flames.

In this case Dante is illuminated in red because he is no longer just a pilgrim: he takes on a function of judgment and truth.

In the Middle Ages, red was the color of fire, of blood, of the prophetic word.

Before the burning tombs Dante does not learn, as happens in the blue, he recognizes and measures the doctrinal error.

His dress resonates chromatically with the fire of the heretics: the truth against the false truth.

Green

Passing through some miniatures with Dante in yellow and pink, we finally arrive at Paradise, with Dante illuminated predominantly in a green cloak under a blue sky illuminated by gold stars.

Mainly because, again in Paradise, Dante also appears wearing a red cloak, probably to underline the strong emotions following a particular event, such as the sight of Beatrice.

In the Middle Ages, green was the color of rebirth, and in this case too Dante is reborn as a new man.

In Paradise, returning to the initial thought, blue is used for the sky and for the key divine figures: the Madonna, the central and visible presence of Paradise, and Jesus Christ, as for example in the beautiful images on folios 76 and 77.

The green used serves to highlight the regenerative path undertaken by Dante and the difference with the Divinity.

3. The physical or metaphysical place

Here we conclude the article by returning to the beginning: blue, in St. Mark's Divine Comedy, is used to make immediately visible the difference between Paradise, where the souls of the blessed reside, as opposed to Purgatory and Hell, metaphysical places not yet touched by this bliss.

The use of blue in the beautiful full-width miniatures found at the end of the manuscript is a testament to the power of the Creator God, and the divine figures of the Madonna and Jesus Christ are also illuminated in blue.

Are you curious to discover the meaning of the various miniatures?

You have the choice: there are over 170… here on the Antiquus blog we're starting to read some of them, but if you really want to live this experience, you can discover our facsimile edition of the Divine Comedy of St. Mark.

Divina Commedia Marciana