A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. One of the earliest mentions of a limner's work is found in the book Methods and Materials of Painting by Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865). "The treatises cannot be placed later than the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth, century. This was the age of Dante, and "the art which in Paris was called illuminating" (limning) is well illustrated by such guides." p. 45