This exquisite initial “Q” depicts Saint Peter with a book and his attribute, the keys, from a Choir Book.  It introduced the chant for the first antiphon at Vespers of the Feast of the apostles Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).  The full prayer from the Gospel of Matthew (16:13, 16, and 18) reads “Quem dicunt homines esse Filium hominis? dixit Jesus discipulis suis. Respondens Petrus dixit: Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi. Et ego dico tibi qui a tu es Petrus, et super han petra aedificabo Ecclesiam meam.” (“Whom do men say that the Son of man is, said Jesus to his disciples. Peter answered and said: You are Christ, the Son of the living God. And I say to you, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”). The painter, named after a set of Statutes of the Commune of Siena he illuminated between 1337 and 1339, was one of Siena’s leading illuminators in the decade leading up to the Black Death of 1348.  His style compares well with the Gothic elegance of his contemporary Simone Martini (c. 1284-1344).

The artist’s first known works reveal an awareness of the so-called Master of Massa Maritima, an illuminator rooted in the stylistic tradition of Duccio.  Over the years, his miniatures reveal a growing interest in Simone Martini’s Gothic elegance as well as the expressive power of the Sienese goldsmiths Guccio di Mannaia and Ugolino di Vieri. The present initial with Saint Peter reveals all the characteristics of his later works. Unusual is his choice of a green garment for the saint instead of the traditional yellow mantle.  This preference is already discernible in the Saint Peter enthroned in his earlier Antiphonal in the Archivio Capitolare in Pistoia, formerly in the Church of San Pietro in Vitolini (Ms A ss.2, f. 206 v).

The style of our initial allows us to assign it to a large series of more than a dozen fragments from a set of Franciscan Antiphonals, possibly illuminated for the Basilica of San Francesco in Siena. The first identification of this series was undertaken by Freuler in 2002 and 2013; the group is presently the subject of a study by Beatrice Alai, who includes our Saint Peter in her forthcoming publication. They date not long before his illuminated Statutes, confirmed by the initial with the scene of Martyrdom of Sienese Franciscans in Ceuta, an event not known in Siena before 1330 and subsequently depicted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for the Franciscan convent in Siena.  The Master of the Statuto del 1337 was the most brilliant and vibrant illuminator before Niccolò di Ser Sozzo’s ascendance to become Siena’s leading illuminator. The biographical data of our illuminator, based on the style of his miniatures which roughly embrace the years 1315-1340 have led to the suspicion, that our anonymous illuminator could be possibly Niccolò’s father, Ser Sozzo di Stefano, whose activity as an illuminator is documented for the years between 1293 and 1321.

Sister Leaves:

Antiphonal (Proper of Saints):

• Milan, private collection, initial V with the Assumption of the Virgin
• Milan, private collection, initial F with the martyrdom of Franciscan Friars
• Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, single leaf with an initial F and the Death of Saint Francis (Fig. 1)
  
  

Antiphonal (Common of Saints):

• Switzerland, private collection, single leaf with an initial T and the Calling of Saint Peter (Fig. 2)
• Montepulciano, Archivio della Curia Vescovile initial A with Christ wiping away the tears
• Switzerland, private collection single leaf with initial E Christ and the Good Servant (Fig. 3)
• United States, Private Collection, single leaf with the Initial V and the Coronation of the Virgin
• Moscow, Russian State Library, f 722 no 460 fol 2, initial B with Christ blessing David
• Weimar Kunstsammlungen KK 9194, single leaf with Initial IL and Saint Matthew Enthroned
  
  

Antiphonal C (Proper of Time):

• Montepulciano, Archivio della Curia Vescovile initial M with Mary Magdalene and her sisters at the empty tomb
• Vienna, Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst Ms K J.1542/ II, fol 1, Single leaf with an initial D and Christ with a book
• Liege, Musée d’art religieux et d’art mosan single leaf with initial P with the Ascension
• Liege, Musée d’art religieux et d’art mosan, initial E with Christ blessing
• Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie (c.1922-69), single leaf with initial I with John the Evangelist

We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for his expertise.

Provenance:

Private collection, United Kingdom.

Literature:

Published:

Alai, Beatrice. Tre inediti ritagli del Maestro dello Statuto del 1337 e due iniziali del Maestro del Graduale I di Montepulciano (e su altri cuttings già in collezione Ramboux del Germanisches Nationalmuseum di Norimberga) (forthcoming 2024)

Related Literature:

Labriola, Ada, Cristina De Benedictis, and Gaudenz Freuler (eds.). La Miniatura senese 1270-1420, Milan, 2002, pp. 53 -67, 291-95 (with earlier literature).

Freuler, Gaudenz. Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, vol. II, Cinisello Balsamo, 2013, pp. 478-85

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