Excerpt from Celtic Illuminative Art in the Gospel Books of Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells Every nation there has been manifested, in varying degrees, a desire for decoration; and the objects selected for ornamental embellish ment, together with the type of decorative design employed, afford an indication of the character and pursuits of a nation no less than of the position it has attained in artistic achievement. The desire that books should be made beautiful is of great antiquity. Evidence of this is to be found amongst the most ancient civilizations: for example, an Egyptian papyrus is preserved in the Louvre at Paris containing a description of funeral rites pictorially adorned in colours, and embellished with gold. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.