A highlight of manuscript illumination between Bologna and Veneto

43 Investiture of Saint Clare

Historiated initial on vellum on a cutting from a Franciscan antiphonary. Italy, Bologna or Veneto, c. 1430-40.

290 x 229 mm, stave (on verso): 47-48 mm.Tempera and gold leaf on parchment. Historiated initial, with thick foliage decoration and rich use of burnished gold, cut around the edges. Illumination in very good condition, tiny flaking in the blue of the background.

PROVENANCE: 1. Since 1923 in the collection of the art and antique dealer Ercole Canessa, Paris and New York. 2. Robert Lehman Collection, New York (ms. 124).

TEXT: Verso: “...e tonso coram/ri domine nu/(e)terno sponso ps”. Although the context of this fragmentary passage has not yet been determined, iconographic details of the investiture scene indicate a provenance from a now lost Franciscan antiphonary. The cutting was acquired by Robert Lehman together with another fragment most likely excised from the same antiphonary volume or series (cf. Palladino 2003, p. 69, pl. 10). This companion piece, whose present location is unknown, shows the scene of the Nativity in an initial ‘H’ and probably illustrates the first response of the first nocturn for Christmas Day.

ILLUMINATION: St Clare is kneeling before St Francis, shown with the wounds of the stigmata on his chest, who invests her with the habit of the Franciscan order. Both figures are distinguished by a halo of burnished gold.Witnessing the event are four Franciscan brethren, dressed, like Francis, in the hooded grey habit with a knotted cord typical of the order. The scene takes place in front of an altar with a carved altarpiece. A wide arch resting on two columns and surmounted by a small gallery and a dome provides an insight into a chapel with a Gothic cross-vault. The present cutting and its above-mentioned companion piece, acquired by Robert Lehman in a pair, were tentatively catalogued as Umbrian by Comstock and De Ricci (Comstock 1927, p. 57; De Ricci/Wilson 1935-40/Reprint 1961, vol. 2, p. 1710, D. 27). However, their style and decoration much rather reflect Late Gothic painting and manuscript production in the Veneto and in Bologna. A Bolognese context is suggested by the exuberant, thick foliage of the initials, painted in a brilliant palette of green, blue, orange and pink, and by the filigree decoration on a blue background. Similar decorative elements, ultimately rooted in a tradition going back to Nicolò da Bologna, are found in the work of some of the dominant artists active in Bologna in the first decades of the Quattrocento, such as the so-called Master of the Orsini Missal and the Master of the Servi Missal (Medica 1992). The figural style and execution of the illumination, on the other hand, have little in common with the incisive, expressive vocabulary of these Bolognese illuminators. Instead, compositional and formal elements of the present miniature seem to derive from the production of those painters active in the Veneto in the wake of Gentile da Fabriano, such as Zanino di Pietro (flourished 1389-1448) and especially Nicolò di Pietro (documented 1394-1427). Zanino's Madonna and Child of 1429 (Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Rome) in particular, provides a direct source for the plump, softly modeled types, with rounded heads and heavy-lidded eyes, that figure most prominently in the now lost Nativity miniature.The composition of the Investiture of St Clare, in turn, may be directly inspired by a work like the predella scene with St Benedict exorcising a monk, in the Uffizi, Florence, attributed to Nicolò di Pietro, after a design by Gentile (De Marchi 1992, p. 103). Most recently Freuler has discovered the hand of our artist in a third cutting, an initial ‘E’ showing the Presentation to the temple in an elaborate architectural setting (private collection, Austria; Freuler 2004, p. 158, pl. 2). A cutting with the Funeral of St Francis in La Spezia (Museo Civico Amedeo Lia, inv. no. 510) also reveals a combination of Bolognese and Venetian elements and is attributed by Todini to a Bolognese artist influenced by the Venetian works of Cristoforo Cortese (Todini 1996, pp. 148-149). Although characterized by similar decorative elements, this initial with its expressive figural style is more clearly rooted in a Bolognese milieu. While these differences according to Palladino are arguments against a provenance from the same antiphonary series as the three other cuttings (Palladino 2003, p. 69, note 2), Freuler does not exclude that a team of artists may have shared the work on what probably was an extensive commission by the Franciscan order (Freuler 2004, p. 158). The group of three miniatures hitherto associated with our anonymous illuminator are not sufficient to reconstruct his career and to explain the fusion in his œuvre of various stylistic tendencies and influences. Did he move to Venice after an early activity in Bologna (or Emilia), or were his artistic training and his early years in Venice followed by a prolonged Bolognese phase? For the time being we can only hope that a discovery of further works attributable to this illuminator will provide answers to questions like this, thus gradually completing the fragmentary picture of a talented artist at the dawn of Renaissance manuscript illumination.

LITERATURE: Comstock 1927, p. 57; De Ricci/Wilson Reprint 1935-40/1961, vol. 2, p. 1710,D. 27; Palladino 2003, cat. no. 36, pp. 68-69; Freuler 2004, p. 157-158. De Marchi 1992; Medica 1992;Todini 1996. This description is largely based on Pia Palladino’s entry in the catalogue of the exhibition Treasures of a Lost Art.