Details
MASTER OF THE FRANCISCAN BREVIARY, artist. The Coronation of the Virgin. Historiated initial D cut from a LARGE-FORMAT ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ANTIPHONAL ON VELLUM. [Lombardy, c. 1457-58].
147 x 152 mm. (5 3/4 x 6 in.); miniature in colors and liquid gold depicting Christ, clothed in dark blue with a purple robe, crowning the Virgin, clad in a red gown and a light blue cloak figured in dark blue and gold and lined in pink, the two seated on a step-like bench covered in a patterned green carpet, against a background of monochrome red seraphim, surrounded by monochrome blue seraphim, highlighted in gold and white; the whole inside a mauve initial D with white tracery and green, red and blue leafy decoration, with leafy extensions, on a burnished gold ground. Some extensions and part of the bow of the letter at the top cut away, rubbing and flaking of the burnished gold, some rubbing of colors, especially along the lines made by the staves for music ruled on the verso; laid down on a velvet backing (verso not examined).
The present miniature is identified as the work of the Master of the Franciscan Breviary by the elegance and grace of its figures, the pale delicacy of their faces, and its use of monochrome seraphim, surrounding the principal scene. Similar monochrome seraphim, with the same childish faces, the same hair and the same wings filling the sky, are found in other works by this illuminator, for example, an Ascension of Christ in an initial T (Mirella Levi d'Ancona, The Wildenstein Collection of Illuminations, Florence, 1970, pl. II). The central figures of the present miniature, Christ and the Virgin, are repeated exactly in an illuminated initial D in British Library, Add. ms. 60630, f. 12r, which Fabrizio Lollini attributes to the same artist (F. Lollini, "Miniature a Imola: un abbozzo di tracciato e qualche proposta tra Emilia e Romagna," in Cor unum et anima una: Corali miniati della Chiesa di Imola, ed. F. Faranda, Imola, 1994, pl. XLVIII; idem, "Gli Zavattari a Monza: tracciata per una fortuna visiva," in Monza: La Cappella di Teodelinda nel Duomo, ed. R. Cassanelli and R. Conte, Milan, 1991, p. 111).
The work of the Master of the Franciscan Breviary is identified in relation to a manuscript breviary (Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, ms. lat. 337) that has customarily been dated to 1446. Fabrizio Lollini, however, after noticing that the Bologna breviary contains the Feast of the Transfiguration, proclaimed by Pope Calixtus III in 1457, has proposed compelling liturgical and stylistic arguments for redating the manuscript to c. 1457-58, contemporary with a breviary in Parma (Biblioteca Palatina, ms. Pal. 6; see F. Lollini, "Il 'Maestro del Breviario Francescano' nei breviari di Bologna e Parma: Ipotesi sullo stile, la cronologia, la committenza," in Bessarione e l'Umanesimo: Atti del convegno (Venezia 1994), ed. G. Fiaccadori, Naples, forthcoming).
The text introduced by this initial was presumably the first antiphon of Vespers of the common for feasts of the Virgin, Dum esset Rex in accubitu suo, nardus mea dedit odorem suavitatis, which is followed by the Psalm Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis.
Fabrizio Lollini has kindly provided the attribution of this miniature.
147 x 152 mm. (5 3/4 x 6 in.); miniature in colors and liquid gold depicting Christ, clothed in dark blue with a purple robe, crowning the Virgin, clad in a red gown and a light blue cloak figured in dark blue and gold and lined in pink, the two seated on a step-like bench covered in a patterned green carpet, against a background of monochrome red seraphim, surrounded by monochrome blue seraphim, highlighted in gold and white; the whole inside a mauve initial D with white tracery and green, red and blue leafy decoration, with leafy extensions, on a burnished gold ground. Some extensions and part of the bow of the letter at the top cut away, rubbing and flaking of the burnished gold, some rubbing of colors, especially along the lines made by the staves for music ruled on the verso; laid down on a velvet backing (verso not examined).
The present miniature is identified as the work of the Master of the Franciscan Breviary by the elegance and grace of its figures, the pale delicacy of their faces, and its use of monochrome seraphim, surrounding the principal scene. Similar monochrome seraphim, with the same childish faces, the same hair and the same wings filling the sky, are found in other works by this illuminator, for example, an Ascension of Christ in an initial T (Mirella Levi d'Ancona, The Wildenstein Collection of Illuminations, Florence, 1970, pl. II). The central figures of the present miniature, Christ and the Virgin, are repeated exactly in an illuminated initial D in British Library, Add. ms. 60630, f. 12r, which Fabrizio Lollini attributes to the same artist (F. Lollini, "Miniature a Imola: un abbozzo di tracciato e qualche proposta tra Emilia e Romagna," in Cor unum et anima una: Corali miniati della Chiesa di Imola, ed. F. Faranda, Imola, 1994, pl. XLVIII; idem, "Gli Zavattari a Monza: tracciata per una fortuna visiva," in Monza: La Cappella di Teodelinda nel Duomo, ed. R. Cassanelli and R. Conte, Milan, 1991, p. 111).
The work of the Master of the Franciscan Breviary is identified in relation to a manuscript breviary (Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, ms. lat. 337) that has customarily been dated to 1446. Fabrizio Lollini, however, after noticing that the Bologna breviary contains the Feast of the Transfiguration, proclaimed by Pope Calixtus III in 1457, has proposed compelling liturgical and stylistic arguments for redating the manuscript to c. 1457-58, contemporary with a breviary in Parma (Biblioteca Palatina, ms. Pal. 6; see F. Lollini, "Il 'Maestro del Breviario Francescano' nei breviari di Bologna e Parma: Ipotesi sullo stile, la cronologia, la committenza," in Bessarione e l'Umanesimo: Atti del convegno (Venezia 1994), ed. G. Fiaccadori, Naples, forthcoming).
The text introduced by this initial was presumably the first antiphon of Vespers of the common for feasts of the Virgin, Dum esset Rex in accubitu suo, nardus mea dedit odorem suavitatis, which is followed by the Psalm Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis.
Fabrizio Lollini has kindly provided the attribution of this miniature.