Description
This large leaf with an historiated initial ‘S’ containing Saint Peter enthroned comes from an Antiphonal that is close to the illuminated manuscripts attributed to the late style of the Maestri della Bibbia Istoriata Padovana. It introduces the response for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29 with the words “Simone Petre antequam de navi” (Saint Peter before I called you). A sister leaf still in a private collection with similar dimensions, stave height, number of lines, and layout comes from the same parent manuscript. A scene of the Nativity in an initial ‘H’ opens the antiphon for September 8, “Hodie nata est beata Virgo” (Today is born a Virgin). According to Gaudenz Freuler, this second leaf is by the Master of 1411. The collaboration of these two artists in one volume reveals artistic exchanges between Emilian and Paduan illuminators in the opening decades of the Quattrocento.
Developed from the neo-Gothic style of Giotto of the earlier Picture Bible that dates at the latest toward the end of the 1390s to the more decorative late Gothic stylistic trend of the Maestri della Bibbia Istoriata Padovana, Saint Peter sits frontally on a stone throne draped in a decorated green cloth. His luxurious orange-red garment is patterned with feather-like motifs in blue, green, and white. These features, and especially his facial type, are found in the late works of the Paduan artists, for example in the last volume of the Antiphonal made for the Collegiate Church of Santa Giustina in Monselice (Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS E 24) and in the two exemplars of the Divine Comedy dated 1411. Compare folio 96 of the Paris Dante with Saint Peter. Not only is the treatment of the drapery, the faces, and the decorative ground similar, so too is the border decoration with its orange, red, and blue acanthus simply outlined in white and on a gold ground with gold bezants heavily outlined in black.
The artist of the sister leaf, the Master of 1411, is baptized after a striking frontispiece to the Matricola of the Society of Drapers of Bologna dated 1411 (Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale, MS 640). This Emilian artist, probably trained in the last decade of the 1390s drawing on the expressive figures of Niccolò di Giacomo, worked through the third decade of the fifteenth century. His lively narrative style, animated compositions, and more compact figures distinguish him from the softer late Gothic style of his collaborator responsible for Saint Peter. In addition to his Bolognese commissions, the illuminator has been potentially identified with those working in Padua, such as Jacopo da Padua.
We are grateful to Federica Toniolo and Gaudenz Freuler for their expertise.
provenance
literature
Unpublished;
Related Literature:
Huter, Carl. “Panel Paintings by Illuminators: Remarks on a Crisis of Venetian Style.” In Arte Veneta 28 (1974): 9–16., 9–12;
De Marchi in Lorenzoni, Giovanni, Tiziana Franco, and Giovanna Valenzano, eds. De lapidibus sententiae: Scritti di storia dell’arte per Giovanni Lorenzoni. Padua, 2002, 103, no. 13;
Toniolo in Bollati, Milvia, ed. Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: Secoli IX–XVI. Milan, 2004, 424–427;
Toniolo in VValenzano, Giovanna, and Federica Toniolo. Il secolo di Giotto nel Veneto. Venice, 2007, 130–131;
Minazzato in Mariani Canova, Giordana, Marta Minazzato, and Federica Toniolo, eds. I manoscritti miniati della Biblioteca Capitolare di Padova. Padua, 2014, cat. 65, 393–97.
learn
Maestri of the Bibbia Istoriata Padovana, Italy, Padua, active c. 1390–1415/20
This group of illuminators is named for their most significant work, a magnificent Picture Bible now divided in two parts (London, British Library, Add. MS 15277 and Rovigo, Biblioteca dell’Accademia dei Concordi, MS 212). Commissioned perhaps by the Lord of Padua, Francesco Novello da Carrara, the manuscript presents seven books of the Old Testament translated into the Paduan dialect and accompanied by more than eight hundred scenes. Several artists (e.g. First Master of Genesis, Second Master of Genesis) worked on the extensive cycle, and they, accompanied by others in the workshop, also illuminated other volumes for Paduan churches and the Carrara court. Attributed to the same group of illuminators are the following notable commissions: three volumes of an Antiphonal of the Collegiate Church of Santa Giustina in Monselice (Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, MSS E 18, E 19, E 22) and two Psalters in the Estense Library of Modena (MSS lat. 1017 and 1020). One of the Antiphonals E 22 and the Estense Psalters are considered late works, following the Picture Bible. The other two Antiphonals E 18 and E 19 are probably of an earlier date, perhaps contemporary with the Picture Bible. The execution of the Choir Books is thought to extend from 1384 to 1415, commissioned by Domenico da Monselice, at the time when Stefano da Carrara was bishop. The late Gothic style of the artists, working in a softer manner and with a more sophisticated palette under the influence of Gentile da Fabriano active in Venice in 1410, is found in two copies of the Divine Comedy, both dated 1411 (Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, MS XIII C.2, and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS it. 530). The concluding volume in the Monselice series (E 24) of the Common of the Saints belongs with these late works. Six panels, of which the whereabouts of only one are known (La Spezia, Museo Amedeo Lia), are also attributed to the group of artists.