After Jung finished writing Liber Novus in June 1915, which included the majority of the active imaginations he had between November 1913 and April 1914, together with his commentaries on them, he decided to make a calligraphic version of it. Modelled on medieval manuscripts, Jung used Gothic script, historiated initials, and paintings to illustrate significant episodes in the text. By the early autumn of 1915 he had transcribed Liber Primus onto seven parchment sheets. For symbolic or practical reasons, Jung then decided to put Liber Secundus into a large book bound in red leather – The Red Book – which he had begun by the late autumn of 1915. He continued to transcribe Liber Secondus until 1928 but never finished it. The historiated initials and paintings in The Red Book follow the text through the chapters on Izdubar episode and the Opening of The Egg, which took Jung until February 1917 to finish. Taken together, the parchment paintings for Liber Primus and the first part of Liber Secundus in The Red Book provide us with his initial attempts to illuminate the visionary, the first series of visual images in his ongoing process of individuation.

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