Szczecin is a city in what is now north-western Poland but for centuries was the capital of the principality of Pomerania. In its principal museum I found a framed picture which basically contained just calligraphy. Possibly a part of a bigger epitaph, it is the genealogy of Andreas Franz Bulgrin, who died in 1658, which is likely the approximate date of this picture.
Pictures like this, containing only calligraphy, were not unusual in this part of Europe with its strict Protestant ethics (in fact the church in Luckau, presented below in this blog, is not very far from Szczecin, although now in Germany). In the 17th century churches in the Catholic part of Europe had illusionist paintings of the open Heaven on the ceiling, whereas in the Protestant part there were no pictures, just calligraphy.
In the presented example most of the calligraphy in in the German Fraktur style, with a few names written in something that looks like Capitalis Quadrata but does not keep the classical proportions of that script. In fact the calligrapher seems to have struggled with this script, whereas his Fraktur is of much better quality.
There is a book available, based on this blog.
On the blog there is, so to speak, more room, one can show more illustrations there. Blogs, however, come and go, there is no certainty that it will be there ten years from now. The book, on the other hand, once you acquire it, will last, one can be sure of that.
