This leaf comes from a Missal created for Benedict XIII, the last anti-pope in Avignon. The recto is decorated with a historiated initial ‘E’ depicting Saint Peter kneeling before an altar – a subject which no doubt held special importance. Saint Peter’s hands are held in prayer while holding a chain with two keys, the saint’s attribute. A diptych with two saints is shown on a red altar cloth, and the scene is set in a chapel with a circular vaulted ceiling and arched windows. The text contains the liturgy for the introit of the Major Litany, or Rogation, celebrated on April 25^th. The initial ‘E’ opens the liturgy “Exaudivit de templo sancto suo” from Psalm 17, a plea to God to hear the voice of the penitent.

The bright colors and modeling of the figures is typical of Italian illumination, but the painted foliage and tendrils of the initials, as well as the white penwork, recalls French or Flemish book illumination from the early 14^th-century. This mixing of styles is indicative of the so-called International Gothic Style, which prevailed in book illumination (and panel paintings) across Europe around 1400, and point to the region around Avignon in southern France, not too far from Italy, where Italian, French and Netherlandish influences merged. Avignon had been the city of the pontiff’s seat from 1309 to 1418/1423, after power struggles in Rome resulted in the transfer of the papal throne known as the Western Schism. Lasting from 1378 to 1418, the Schism was caused by French cardinals who disapproved of the election of Urban VI in Rome and instated Clement VII as anti-pope in Avignon. The last pope to reside and reign from Avignon was Benedict XIII from 1394 to 1415. 

In her exhaustive study on book illumination in Avignon, Francesca Manzari was able to identify a multi-volume Missal, which originally must have consisted of eight or nine volumes, that was made for Benedict XIII. She first identified three of these volumes, two in the Vatican Library (Vat. lat. 4764 and 4765) and one in Montecassino (Archivio dell’Abbazia, MS 539). While the two Vatican volumes were discovered in 1995, the third volume in Montecassino was relatively new find, which convinced Manzari that all these volumes were part of the set produced in Avignon in the first decade of the fifteenth century, presumably between 1405 and 1409. Her examination of contemporary library inventories and of the papal payments revealed various mentions of a multivolume missal and a record for a payment to a scribe, Guillaume Coma, who was paid in 1408 for writing one volume of a Missal in Avignon. Furthermore, she found that all three volumes appear in the inventory of Benedict XIII’s library made in 1423 in Peñiscola after his death (cf. Manzari 2006, p. 295f.). The Montecassino volume can be shown definitively to be part of the same Missal as the Vatican volumes and the set was certainly commissioned by Pope Benedict XIII, whose arms appear on in the frames of various historiated letters both in Vat. Lat. 4764 and in the Montecassino volume (cf. Manzari 2006, p. 304, fig. 155).  The dimensions, justification, ruling, and number of lines (12) are the same in the three volumes in question, as well as on the present leaf and on another detached leaf, with the incipit of “Sabbato in albis”, also from the Montecassino volume (Christie’s, 18 June 2013, lot 4: Manzari 2018, pp. 130-131). A fourth volume from the same set, illuminated by Sancho Gonther, has been discovered in Toledo (Archivo Capitular, Ms. 38.13). Sancho, a Spanish illuminator, working in a Bolognese style, widely documented in the papal registers, appears in the decorated initials in the Montecassino volume, alongside the work of an anonymous Central European artist who was the author of most of the illumination in this manuscript. Foliate letters illuminated by Sancho furthermore appear on the back of a cutting coming from another volume of the same multivolume Missal (New York, The Metropolitan Museum, inv. 28.140); the front of this fragment displays a Crucifixion illuminated by the Maître d’Orose, a Bohemian artist who, as shown by Manzari, stopped in Avignon to work for Benedict XIII, on his way to Paris, in the early 15^th century (Manzari 2018, pp. 130-132; Manzari 2020, pp. 152-153). 

Montecassino MS 539 covers the masses from Easter to fourth Sunday after Easter, suggesting that the present leaf was once part of this manuscript, as it contains the liturgy for the introit of the Major Litany celebrated April 25^th, falling after Easter. This volume suffered many losses already in the nineteenth century at the beginning of the codex and throughout the text. This leaf now emerges as another of this group.

In Avignon, workshops and ateliers were apparently constituted and dissolved around individual projects.  With regards to Missal of Benedict XIII, Manzari notes that different hands were responsible for the illumination. Benedict’s papacy, as shown by Manzari, was characterized by an interesting phase of the international gothic style, involving artists trained in Catalonia, Italy, Bohemia, Northern France and the Guelders, many of whom worked in the multivolume Missal for the pope (Manzari 2006, pp. 293-325; Manzari 2018, pp. 129-131). Among them Manzari identified a collaborator of the most distinguished of the Northern artists working in Avignon in the late 14^th century, stemming from Guelders and connected to the style of Jean Malouel (Manzari 2006, figs. 160-161, 164-166, 168). This excellent Northern artist was identified in 1991 by Jeffrey Hamburger in a richly illuminated Missal for the bishop Jean d’Armagnac (Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Ms. 1909 and Windsor, Royal Library, RI 25009-25010; Hamburger 1991, pp. 161-173). According to Hamburger, this artist should be associated with a group of illuminations produced in Paris or Burgundy by Jean Malouel and the Limburg brothers (cf. Hamburger 2005, pp. 336-341; Manzari 2006, pp. 307-323; Manzari 2020, p. 154). A close collaborator of this extraordinary artist appears in the Casanatense Missal, in one of the volumes of Benedict’s Missal (BAV, Vat. lat. 4764) and in a Breviary (BAV, Ross. 125), also assigned to Avignon by Manzari. Of the two Vatican volumes, only one (Vat. lat. 4764) contains miniatures from the first and original campaign; those in Vat. lat. 4765 were designed but remained unfinished until completion at a later stage (Manzari 2006, pp. 299-323; Manzari 2007, pp. 63-64).

Only the name of one illuminator, among the various artists identified in Benedict’s Missal, is known: Sancho Gonthier, systematically present in the papal payments and documented both in Avignon and traveling with the pope in the first decade of the century. This painter collaborated with the scribe Guillaume Coma, who was based in Avignon and may have been responsible for the script in Benedict’s Missal (Manzari 2006, pp. 293-294).

In the Montecassino volume, Sancho Gonther, probably a Spaniard trained in Bologna, only appears in the decorated initials, while the main artist was probably Central European, with traits pointing to Rhenish training. This artist, responsible for all the historiated initials in the manuscript, including those on the two known detached leaves, does not appear in the other known volumes of the set, where illuminators displaying styles from Northern and Central Europe collaborated with others with Italian and Catalan styles. A third illuminator, the collaborator of the artist of the Casanatense Missal, possibly trained in Northern France, or in Flanders, worked alongside others closer to the international style in Catalonia in Vat. lat. 4764. Sancho further appears in Toledo, 38.13 and MET 28.140, while the Maître d’Orose, trained in Bohemia and later active in Paris, illuminated the Crucifixion on MET, 28.140 (cf. Manzari 2006; Manzari 2018).

The leaf is ruled for 12 lines written in black ink in a Gothic rotunda script, the rubric written in red, “In letaniis maioribus / Statio ad s(an)c(ta)m petru(m). Introit(us),” continuing “Exaudivit de templo…”, the text ending “… dominus firmamentum[…].” The verso (originally the recto) is decorated with a 1-line initial ‘C’ and 2-line initial ‘T’ with flowers and foliates, with text for the sacrament of Mass, beginning “Cantate d(omi)no al/lelyua…” and ending “…et des/iderata p(er)cipere. Per (Dominum).” Written in modern pencil in top right of verso: “201” (former folio number). The miniature has one small loss of paint, the initials some very minor losses of gilding and some flaking of blank ink from the text; some average cockling to the parchment, and overall in good condition.

Literature:

On the multivolume Missal for Benedict XIII: F. Manzari, “Da Avignone a Roma. Commitenza e decorazione di alcuni codici liturgici,” in G. Morello and S. Maddalo (eds.), Liturgica in Figura. Codici liturgici rinascimentali della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, 1995, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 1995, pp. 59-73, 98-102; F. Manzari, La miniatura ad Avignone al tempo dei papi (1310-1410), Modena, 2006; F. Manzari, “Libri liturgici miniati nel palazzo di Avignone: tre serie di messali solenni per l’uso del papa,” in Medioevo: la Chiesa e il Palazzo, Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi (Parma, Palazzo Sanvitale, 20-24 September 2005), Milano, 2007, pp. 604-611; C. A. Fleck, “Seeking Legitimacy: Art and Manuscripts for the Popes in Avignon from 1378 to 1417,” in A Companion to the Great Western Schism (1378-1417), ed. J. Rollo-Koster and T. Izbicki, 2009, pp. 297-299; F. Manzari, Mobilité des artistes et migration des styles: les cours papales d’Avignon et de Rome durant le Grand Schisme, in Les transferts artistiques dans l'Europe gothique (XIIe-XVIe siècles). Repenser la circulation des artistes, des œuvres, des thèmes et des savoir-faire, sous la direction de J. Dubois, J.-M. Guillouët, B. Van den Bossche, Paris, 2014, pp. 289-302; F. Manzari, More on Illumination at the Time of the Great Schism: Book Patronage in the two Curias and a Long-Lasting Stage of Gothic Illumination in Rome, in Vom Weichen über den Schönen Stil zur Ars Nova. Neue Beiträge zur europäischen Kunst zwischen 1350 und 1470, herausgegeban von J. Fajt und M. Hörsch, Wien, Köln, 2018, pp. 129-146; F. Manzari, L'enluminure à Avignon et à Rome pendant le Grand Schisme d'Occident: images de Dieu en pape et représentations du vêtement du pontife, in Imago Papae. Le pape en image du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine, sous la direction de C. D’Alberto, Rome, 2020, pp. 151-157.

On the Missal for Jean d’Armagnac (Rome, Bibl. Casanatense, Ms. 1909; Windsor, Royal Library RI 25009-25020), see J. Hamburger, “The Casanatense and the Carmelite Missals: Continental Sources for English Manuscript Illumination in the early Fifteenth Century,” in Masters and Miniatures: Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands, ed. by K. Van der Horst and J.-C. Klamt, Dornspijk 1991, pp. 161-173; J. Hamburger, “Casanatense Missal,” in The Limbourg Brothers. Nijmegen Masters at the French Court. 1400-1416, ed. Dückers and Roelofs, Nijmegen 2005, pp. 336-341 [exhibition catalogue]; F. Manzari, La miniatura ad Avignone al tempo dei papi (1310-1410), 2006.