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St Peter, historiated initial 'T' on a leaf from the Amati Antiphonal [Italy, Church of San Francesco a Rimini], 1314.
細節
Neri da Rimini (active 1300-1338)
St Peter, historiated initial 'T' on a leaf from the Amati Antiphonal [Italy, Church of San Francesco a Rimini], 1314.
A leaf from one of the choirbooks produced for the Church of San Francesco a Rimini in 1314 by Neri da Rimini, one of the greatest exponents of Gothic miniature painting in Italy and an enthusiastic assimilator of Giotto's expressive style.
458 x 387mm. The initial 'T' with St Peter opening the antiphon for Vespers for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June: 'Tu es pastor omnium', reverse with five lines of text and music on a 4-line red stave, two large initials in red and blue with penwork flourishing of the opposite colour, initials touched in yellow, rubrics in red (trimmed at the lower margin, some marginal staining, else in good condition). Mounted and framed.
Provenance:
(1) The miniature is the characteristic work of the great illuminator of the early 1300s Neri da Rimini, and is part of a documented set of signed choir books made for the Church of San Francesco a Rimini in 1314. The Church was known as the 'Tempio Malatestiano': in 1312 it became the family chapel and burial site of the famed Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini, founded by Malatesta da Verucchio, father of Giovanni, whose infamous murder of his wife Francesca and brother Paolo was immortalised by Dante in his Inferno. Doubtless the choirbooks were commissioned by the Malatesta family from Neri himself. In one of the surviving volumes in Bologna (see below), the figure of a kneeling Franciscan in the lower margin of f.3v shows the caption 'Riu[s]/ne', an anagram of Nerius. The volumes were signed by the scribe 'Frater Bonfantinus antiquior de Bononia' and dated 'm. ccc. xiiij' (1314). The convent was suppressed in the 17th century and the library dispersed. The surviving four volumes (of six) from this set are now Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale, MS. 540; Krakow, Czartoryski Library, MS. 3464 (acquired in 1882 in Ancona by Prince Vladislav Czartoryski); a now dispersed volume, once in the collection of Josef Baer, recorded intact in 1905 (Handschriften und Drucke, cat.500, pp.7-8) but broken up in 1921 with leaves now in Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis, E M 68:7-9 and Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, Acc. No. 28.183, among others; and the so-called Amati Antiphonal, acquired by Raffaello Amati at Sotheby's, 7 December 1982, lot 98 and now Rivoli, Fondazione Cerruti, Inv. 0746. On the choirbooks, see G. Dauner, Neri da Rimini und die Rimineser Miniaturmalerei des frühen Trecento, 1998, pp.97-144 and 236-237; F. Lollini, Il Trecento Riminese tra scrittura e pittura, exh. catalogue, 1995, pp.164-171.
The present leaf was already missing from the Amati Antiphonal in 1982 (according to the catalogue 'lacking single ll. after ff.77, 142, and 158' – the present leaf with '76' written in pencil in the margin); in 2016 Gaudenz Freuler suggested that a leaf in Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis E M 73:06, was either f.142 or 158 from the same volume. This volume contains the Proprium de tempore (from the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost to the fourth Sunday in September) and the Proprium de sanctis (from the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June to the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 15 September).
(2) Koller, Bücher & Autographen, 19 March 2016, lot 398.
Illumination:
The antiphonals produced for San Francesco are the pinnacle of Neri da Rimini’s activity as an illuminator: compared to his earliest works, the figure of St Peter here and those throughout the Amati Antiphonal are more articulated and expressive – doubtless a result of his coming into contact with the art of Giotto and Pietro da Rimini. The palette is restricted to deep blues and bright reds; the figures clothed in a single colour with lilac highlighting: all characteristics of the Master's experimental and innovative treatment of colour in his finest work.
St Peter, historiated initial 'T' on a leaf from the Amati Antiphonal [Italy, Church of San Francesco a Rimini], 1314.
A leaf from one of the choirbooks produced for the Church of San Francesco a Rimini in 1314 by Neri da Rimini, one of the greatest exponents of Gothic miniature painting in Italy and an enthusiastic assimilator of Giotto's expressive style.
458 x 387mm. The initial 'T' with St Peter opening the antiphon for Vespers for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June: 'Tu es pastor omnium', reverse with five lines of text and music on a 4-line red stave, two large initials in red and blue with penwork flourishing of the opposite colour, initials touched in yellow, rubrics in red (trimmed at the lower margin, some marginal staining, else in good condition). Mounted and framed.
Provenance:
(1) The miniature is the characteristic work of the great illuminator of the early 1300s Neri da Rimini, and is part of a documented set of signed choir books made for the Church of San Francesco a Rimini in 1314. The Church was known as the 'Tempio Malatestiano': in 1312 it became the family chapel and burial site of the famed Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini, founded by Malatesta da Verucchio, father of Giovanni, whose infamous murder of his wife Francesca and brother Paolo was immortalised by Dante in his Inferno. Doubtless the choirbooks were commissioned by the Malatesta family from Neri himself. In one of the surviving volumes in Bologna (see below), the figure of a kneeling Franciscan in the lower margin of f.3v shows the caption 'Riu[s]/ne', an anagram of Nerius. The volumes were signed by the scribe 'Frater Bonfantinus antiquior de Bononia' and dated 'm. ccc. xiiij' (1314). The convent was suppressed in the 17th century and the library dispersed. The surviving four volumes (of six) from this set are now Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale, MS. 540; Krakow, Czartoryski Library, MS. 3464 (acquired in 1882 in Ancona by Prince Vladislav Czartoryski); a now dispersed volume, once in the collection of Josef Baer, recorded intact in 1905 (Handschriften und Drucke, cat.500, pp.7-8) but broken up in 1921 with leaves now in Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis, E M 68:7-9 and Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, Acc. No. 28.183, among others; and the so-called Amati Antiphonal, acquired by Raffaello Amati at Sotheby's, 7 December 1982, lot 98 and now Rivoli, Fondazione Cerruti, Inv. 0746. On the choirbooks, see G. Dauner, Neri da Rimini und die Rimineser Miniaturmalerei des frühen Trecento, 1998, pp.97-144 and 236-237; F. Lollini, Il Trecento Riminese tra scrittura e pittura, exh. catalogue, 1995, pp.164-171.
The present leaf was already missing from the Amati Antiphonal in 1982 (according to the catalogue 'lacking single ll. after ff.77, 142, and 158' – the present leaf with '76' written in pencil in the margin); in 2016 Gaudenz Freuler suggested that a leaf in Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis E M 73:06, was either f.142 or 158 from the same volume. This volume contains the Proprium de tempore (from the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost to the fourth Sunday in September) and the Proprium de sanctis (from the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June to the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 15 September).
(2) Koller, Bücher & Autographen, 19 March 2016, lot 398.
Illumination:
The antiphonals produced for San Francesco are the pinnacle of Neri da Rimini’s activity as an illuminator: compared to his earliest works, the figure of St Peter here and those throughout the Amati Antiphonal are more articulated and expressive – doubtless a result of his coming into contact with the art of Giotto and Pietro da Rimini. The palette is restricted to deep blues and bright reds; the figures clothed in a single colour with lilac highlighting: all characteristics of the Master's experimental and innovative treatment of colour in his finest work.
榮譽呈獻
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts