TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

305

been made by St Isidor of Seville in the VII century, it was probably
many centuries before that. In the West the quills of the goose and the
seem to have been most taken for the manufacture of pens, and Johnston (pp.
54-60) recommends a wing feather quill from a turkey as strong and suitable for
ordinary writing. According to his directions, the barbs are first stripped from the

FIGURE 18. A pantograph, an instrument for making enlargements or reductions in scale
of drawings: (a) that described by Christ. Scheiner in 1635 (from Meder, p. 189, fig, 69);
I and c are modern pantographs produced commercially; d is a French one of the XVIII
century (from Meder, p. 189, fig. 70).

shaft and then this shaft is cut and pared at the larger end which Is to be used for
the nib. The extreme tip is cut off on a slab and a slightly oblique, chisel-shaped
nib is left. As with the reed, modern scribes have found that a thin strip of spring
metal looped into the shaft and under the nib will hold a fair quantity of ink.
Meder (p. 34) considers that the pen has been the drawing instrument of greatest
use in Europe since the time of Early Christian art, and the history of its use as
summarized by him includes much of the drawing of the Renaissance and most
of the great names through the XVIII century.