The Middle Ages
Trails
Illuminated Manuscripts
One of the hallmarks of the Middle Ages is the illuminated manuscript.
There are thousands of manuscripts available to admire, so be prepared to wander a bit. You can ask technical questions: how were these things produced? Was it on paper? What sort of ink was used? Did they paint these things or what?
Closely related to this topic is the production of the book overall. That is, are we looking at something that was a single sheet of whatever, produced essentially as a work of art? Or is this part of a bound volume of some sort? How did they do the binding?
Many of the illuminations told a story. In this one, it's Daniel in a den of lions. No, I don't think it looks much like that either, but this is from a Bible and maybe you can see the word Daniel at the top of the page.
This one is a picture of Saint Catherine.
There were plenty of books other than religious works. This one is a book on herblore.
Notice the use of red ink as well as black. Notice also there are a few interlineations (words between the lines). There's also marginalia--words in the margins. Finally, you might notice the holes in the right side of the page.
The study of the document itself--the material, binding, and so on--is known as diplomatics (not to be confused with diplomacy). It's a highly technical field requiring a knowledge of the chemistry of ink and lots of other Sherlock Holmes-y stuff.