A masterpiece of Lombard illumination of the Quattrocento

47 Jesaia before the Almighty

Historiated initial ‘A’ on a vellum leaf from an antiphonary, illuminated by a follower of the Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum. Italy, Lombardy, c. 1460.

Leaf: 510 x 372 mm, initial: c. 170-190 x 210-230 mm plus extensions over the entire height of the page, rendered in flamboyant colours with burnished gold. – 5 (on verso 6) staves of music lined in red with notation and text in dark brown, capitals stroked in yellow. – In excellent condition. 47

PROVENANCE: Private collection Germany.

TEXT: The historiated initial introduces the words “Aspiciens a longe ecce video…”, which constitute the response for the first Sunday in Advent, i. e. the beginning of the liturgical year.

ILLUMINATION:The anonymous author of the impressively large initial is a typical representative of Lombard manuscript illumination around the middle of the Quattrocento, which developed its characteristic idiom owing to the artistic production of the Maestro Olivetano (alias Gerolamo da Milano) and the Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum.The latter, an anonymous artist active in the second quarter of the 15th century, owes his provisional name to his illustrations in a manuscript of Sueton’s Vite degli Imperatori (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. it. 131), which may be dated around 1430 (Melograni 1990). It is to this artist that our illuminator is most closely related stylistically. The prophet’s sharp-edged profile has its direct origin in the art of the Lombard master and recalls e.g. the figure of Virgil on fol. 2v of ms. 32 of the Biblioteca Communale of Imola (c. 1435-40). A close comparison, however, reveals small but decisive stylistic differences:While the Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum accentuates the plastic qualities of his figures’ faces through careful modelling, the face of Jesaia in the present miniature has an almost polished surface and marked shadows that lend the prophet a rather expressive appearance. Contrary to the master our artist avoids extreme poses.The figure of Jesaia is characterized by its tranquil composure. Liveliness is created solely through the prophet’s mimic. Thus our illuminator focuses on the dialogue between the prophet and God and the crucial moment of divine inspiration. The aspect of an art seeking to reinforce the internal or psychological expressiveness of the figures by simultaneously limiting the importance of external motion and gestures reveals the impact of Belbello da Pavia on our artist. This is particularly evident, if one compares the figure of Jesaia with a leaf featuring St Augustin in an initial ‘S’ that only recently appeared on the art market in Paris. This miniature, which Belbello painted around 1460, most likely for a badly spoliated choirbook of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, provides a direct comparison when dating the leaf at hand. Also similar is the integration of architectural and natural elements. With its stylistic affinity to the art of the Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum and Belbello our miniature is also closely related to a group of works, whose artistic provenance is still not sufficiently clear.These leaves have been connected with the œuvre of the so-called Maestro dei Fondi Giallini, another, though artistically less significant, illuminator of the same circle (Maggioni 2004). The high quality of this group, however, rather suggests an attribution to a talented protagonist of Lombard manuscript illumination who in all likelihood spent some time in the workshop of Belbello and the Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum. This hypothesis is all the more plausible, as a cooperation of the two prominent masters is in fact documented around 1430-40 in the illumination of a breviary for Bianca da Savoia (Chambéry, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 4), i.e. at the very time around which our artist most probably began his training. The above-mentioned group comprises a leaf with an initial ‘C’ featuring the Murder of the Innocents (private collection), a leaf with an initial ‘D’ showing King David in Prayer (New York, Brooklyn Museum, Prints and Drawings N. 38. 743), the Judgement of Solomon in an initial ‘A’ and another David in an initial ‘A’ (private collection, Milan).The Murder of the Innocents reveals the closest stylistic parallels with our leaf. Although obviously executed around the same date, the differences of dimensions and layout exclude a provenance from the same antiphonary. The discovery of this hitherto unknown leaf and its integration into a small but artistically important œuvre enable us to define step by step a new and highly talented representative of Lombard illumination of the mid-15th century. Our artist, who is still rooted in the tradition of the courtly High Gothic, stands at the beginning of Humanistic illumination. It may be hoped that further discoveries will enable us to define more clearly the artistic profile of this anonymous master.

LITERATURE: The miniature is hitherto unpublished. Exh. cat. Milan 1988, pp. 110-129; Melograni 1990; Melograni 1994; Palladino 2003, pp. 115-122; Maggioni 2004.