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Details
CAPITULARE CONSILIARIORUM VENETIAE, opening folio with an historiated initial I consisting of a miniature of a councillor, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Venice, third quarter of the 14th century]
323 x 242mm (leaf); 50 x 180mm (miniature with border). A man clothed in red and blue and wearing an elaborate red and white headdress, standing, three-quarter length, holding a book, against a ground of burnished gold; a leafy border in red, blue, pink and olive green with burnished gold disks heavily outlined in black. The leaf written in two columns of 24 lines in round Italian gothic script in brown ink, blind-ruled, justification: 202 x 145mm, rubrics in red, 1 (recto) and 3 (verso) pen-flourished Lombard initials in red and blue (a few stains to extreme blank margins, some flaking of text ink).
Although the Doge was the elected head of the Venetian government all decision-making and the exercise of executive power really lay with the councils and colleges drawn from the patrician class of the Republic; paramount among them was the Serenissima Signoria or Minor Consiglio, consisting of six Ducal Councillors and the three heads of the Quarantie, the Civil Assemblies. This is the opening leaf of a capitulary carrying the oath sworn by each councillor and laying down the duties and responsibilities of his office. While following exactly the same form as the Capitolare dei consigliere ducali of c.1343 (Venice, Museo Correr, CI III.327) the painting of the present leaf looks extremely close in style to the Gradual for the Scuola di S. Maria della Carit signed by Giustino del fu Gherardino da Forl and dated 1365.
[Venice, third quarter of the 14th century]
323 x 242mm (leaf); 50 x 180mm (miniature with border). A man clothed in red and blue and wearing an elaborate red and white headdress, standing, three-quarter length, holding a book, against a ground of burnished gold; a leafy border in red, blue, pink and olive green with burnished gold disks heavily outlined in black. The leaf written in two columns of 24 lines in round Italian gothic script in brown ink, blind-ruled, justification: 202 x 145mm, rubrics in red, 1 (recto) and 3 (verso) pen-flourished Lombard initials in red and blue (a few stains to extreme blank margins, some flaking of text ink).
Although the Doge was the elected head of the Venetian government all decision-making and the exercise of executive power really lay with the councils and colleges drawn from the patrician class of the Republic; paramount among them was the Serenissima Signoria or Minor Consiglio, consisting of six Ducal Councillors and the three heads of the Quarantie, the Civil Assemblies. This is the opening leaf of a capitulary carrying the oath sworn by each councillor and laying down the duties and responsibilities of his office. While following exactly the same form as the Capitolare dei consigliere ducali of c.1343 (Venice, Museo Correr, CI III.327) the painting of the present leaf looks extremely close in style to the Gradual for the Scuola di S. Maria della Carit signed by Giustino del fu Gherardino da Forl and dated 1365.