A rare example of an entirely complete 13th-century Italian choirbook interpreting the first distinctive style of Bolognese illumination

5 Antiphonary. Sanctoral covering the liturgical year from August 1st to Advent

Illuminated choirbook on vellum. Italy, Emilia-Romagna, c. 1270-75.

427 x 330 mm. 289 leaves, complete: I-VIII10, IX6, X-XIV10, XV2, XVI-XXIV10, XXV12, XXVI10-1 (last blank leaf missing). Modern pencil foliation (incorrect from fol. 121 on, counts 301 leaves). – Written space: 300 x 210 mm.Text written in a single column in Gotica Libraria. 6 lines of musical notation in red ink. Numerous initials with filigree penwork alternately in red and blue, 34 floral initials and 17 historiated initials. – Fol. 1 darkened, some pages stained, some pages with tears to the lower margins, miniatures in good condition. – Binding: Brown calf over wooden boards dating from the end of the 15th century with triple filets, repaired. Front and back pastedown taken from a 15th-century antiphonary.

PROVENANCE: 1. Presumably made for Dominican use, cf. the importance given to St Dominic, who is depicted on fol. 87, 89v, and perhaps fol. 211. 2. Private collection Europe.

TEXT: Antiphonary (Sanctoral) covering the liturgical year from August 1st to Advent. On fol. 289 additions dating from the 17th century.

ILLUMINATION: fol. 40: Initial ‘V’: Christ blessing and a prophet - fol. 87: Initial ‘G’: St Dominic - fol. 89v: Initial ‘M’: the miracle of St Dominic carrying the Lateran - fol. 105v: Initial ‘L’: St Lawrence - fol. 125: Initial ‘V’: the Virgin with two angels - fol. 142v: Initial ‘I’: St Augustine - fol. 167v: Initial ‘H’: the Virgin with child (accompanying the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin) - fol. 181v: Initial ‘D’: Crucifixion - fol. 194: Initial ‘D’: St Michael playing the cornet - fol. 195v: Initial ‘F’: St Michael - fol. 211: Initial ‘S’: Christ, the Virgin and St John with monastic saints - fol. 231v: Initial ‘C’: Funeral mass - fol. 245v: Initial ‘H’: St Martin - fol. 262: Initial ‘C’: St Cecilia - fol. 275v: Initial ‘O’: St Clement - fol. 279: Initial ‘O’: St Clement - fol. 282: Initial ‘N’: St Katherine of Alexandria. In the second half of the 13th century Bologna with its prestigious university was destined to become one of Europe’s principal centres of book production, second only to Paris. In Italy, particularly in Bologna, the art of book illustration quickly rose to a high level of brilliance and quality, equalled in those years only by the Umbrian workshops. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Bolognese and Umbrian illuminators inspired each other, a fact also noted by Italy’s most celebrated poet Dante Alighieri, who mentioned in the 11th Canto of his Purgatory two (so far unidentified) miniaturists from these very areas: Franco Bolognese and Oderisio da Gubbio. As a matter of fact, in the last three decades of the 13th century, the pictorial style of Umbrian and Bolognese book illustration is markedly similar.As a consequence of this stylistic linkage, many manuscripts illuminated by Umbrian artists have in the past been considered as Bolognese works and vice versa. The style of the numerous miniatures in the present choirbook is undoubtedly related to the works of the so-called Master of Imola.This anonymous master takes his name from a series of choirbooks made for the cathedral of Imola, today in the Museo Diocesano of the town (Corali 5-7, 9-10, cf. Faranda 1994, nos. 2-6; exh. cat. Bologna 2002, nos. 73-74). The stylistic analogies are evident and can be seen above all in the narrow and angular facial type. This is exemplified by the prophet next to Christ on fol. 40, who may be compared with various figures in the Imola choirbooks. A closely comparable figural style can be found furthermore in the Bolognese Bible formerly in the Doheny Collection (cf. Eight Centuries of Manuscript Illumination, Dr. Jörn Günther Antiquariat, Hamburg 2004, cat. no. 1). Our illuminator must have been acquainted with the more famous examples of these leading Bolognese workshops. His palette conforms with the reduced range of colours of contemporary Bolognese illumination, and includes a muted shade of pink, grey and beige contrasted by a brilliant shade of orange and an opaque bright blue, which all in all form a well-balanced chromatic system. Compared to the most famous examples of this stylistically coherent group of the so-called Primo Stile Bolognese, most prominently the choirbooks made for the Cathedral of Imola and the Doheny Bible, the slightly provincial style of our miniaturist appears somewhat coarser.The faces are rendered in a simplified and less detailed manner, an observation that could lead to the conclusion that the artist probably did not belong to a workshop in the major centre of book production, Bologna, but was presumably active somewhere in the neighbouring regions of Emilia-Romagna or even in Lombardy. The present choirbook seems to have been produced for a Dominican convent. Undoubtedly the workshop of our artist, slightly provincial though it is, must have been familiar with the developments of Bolognese illumination in the circle of the Master of Imola. On the basis of these points of stylistic reference we may date the present choirbook to the beginning of the fourth quarter of the 13th century. This richly illuminated antiphonary is a captivating example of late 13th-century illumination in Emilia-Romagna, hence an interesting interpretation of the Primo Stile Bolognese.

LITERATURE: The manuscript is hitherto unpublished. Faranda 1994, nos. 2-6; exh. cat. Bologna 2000, nos. 73-74; sales cat. Günther 2004, no. 1.