Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta with Caterpillar Floss Organizer by Primitive and Wood (P&W) Designer embroidery accessories

Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta with Caterpillar by Primitive and Wood (P&W)

Designer embroidery accessories

A delicate and elegant thread organizer featuring a botanical miniature from the legendary Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta — widely considered one of the most beautiful handwritten books in history.

• Holds 9 colors of floss
• Size: 110 × 80 mm (approx. 4.3 × 3.1")
• Material: 4 mm birch plywood
• Smooth hand-sanded finish
• Sealed print – won’t fade or wear off
• Oval thread holes: 7 × 9 mm – comfortable and thread-friendly
• Numbering engraved on the back

This Renaissance masterpiece was created in two stages by two artists who never met: imperial secretary and master calligrapher Georg Bocskay, and celebrated miniaturist Joris Hoefnagel. Decades after Bocskay’s calligraphy was complete, Emperor Rudolf II commissioned Hoefnagel to illuminate the manuscript with exquisite illustrations.

Hoefnagel’s miniatures are not mere decoration — they rival the text itself in refinement and presence. The result is a breathtaking dialogue between word and image: calligraphy as art, and art as nature.

The caterpillar featured here is one of Hoefnagel’s finely detailed naturalistic studies — a tiny marvel from a book that continues to inspire artists and naturalists alike, nearly five centuries later.