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The Collation

A third manuscript by Thomas Trevelyon/Trevilian

The author’s name in the Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608 (Folger MS V.b.232, fol. 264v); click image to enlarge in Luna.

Many Collation readers are already familiar with the Folger’s Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608 (Folger MS V.b.232), and the fabulous Trevilian Great Book of 1616 at the Wormsley Library. Both manuscripts, created by Thomas Trevelyon/Trevilian 1 (b. ca. 1548), have been published in facsimile, and the Folger version is also fully digitized

  1. Thomas spells his surname as Trevelyon in the Folger’s Miscellany and Trevilian in the Wormsley’s Great Book, but I’ll just refer to him as Trevelyon in the rest of this post

Comments

I love how he uses the design to illustrate “so from my worke ile ronne” by leaving part of the border above “feede you all” very obviously incomplete. I don’t recall the borders and the content interacting like this in the 1608 Miscellany.

On the other hand, I only just now noticed the unusual border around Queen Anne in the Folger version: it overlaps itself in the lower right corner. The same border design appears around the Folger’s “contry clowne” without that oddity.

Also, there is a little tick mark above the “r” in “first” that points at the upside-down “m” in “James.” Is that perhaps a “this side up” acknowledgment? It would be very unusual to get a stencilled “m” upside down (unlike an “s” for example). Does the size and design of the letters match a known typeface? I wonder if he was instead painting over smoke proofs from a punch or a piece of type, where you can’t see which way up the letter is when making the mark. Also, the “a” and the “e” look quite regular, but if they’d been stencilled, the bowls would have had to have been finished by hand (in order to hide the join that keeps the bowl part attached to the rest of the stencil).

Erin Blake — December 7, 2012

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Fascinating; I’m so glad it was worth following up.

Martin — May 11, 2013

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On looking closely at the illustration of Queen Anne…is this inferring a male model? I note the shape of the head, neck shading etc. giving hints to this. Also, the fangs are quite noticeable at the corners of the mouth. Would appear no love lost.
I am following over after reviewing blog of Baroque Embellishments, and have not done reading. My apologies for ignorance in advance.
Cheers, Brenda J.Moore

Brenda J. Moore — May 30, 2013

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Hi Heather,

I only recently found your blog. This is an awesome article and it’s so cool to see photographs of the pages – it brings TTs designs to life for me!

I would like to thank FS for making all the designs available online. I also thought you might be interested to know that there are embroiderers today still using his designs to create & inspire us. Here’s a link to an embroidery I created using a spin off one of Trevelyon’s holly patterns : http://baroqueembellishments.blogspot.com/2012/01/christmas-ornament-inspired-by_02.html

Kimberly Servello — July 1, 2013

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