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Masters’ Secrets 7 Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi
he rich hue, delicate texture and palpable volume of the bishop’s blue robe Tin the Metz Pontifical (Cat. 6, ill. 7.1) produce a luminous, three-dimensional effect. How many pigments did the artist use? Did he mix them or apply them in separate layers? Were the same materials used for the blues in the initial and border? Were they painted at the same stage, by the same hand? What do the pigments reveal about the artist’s skill or the patron’s taste and purse? Are they typical or unusual for the time and place of production? Scientific analysis may not answer all of these questions, but it divulges many a master’s secret. The basic palette and painting methods of illuminators are well known from recipe collections, artists’ manuals and meticulous observations (see Essays 2, 5). What we may glean under the microscope or from historic sources can be corroborated, amended and expanded by scientific analyses. Cutting-edge technologies allow us to penetrate beneath the painted surface without touching it. The identifications of illuminators’ materials and techniques that extend beyond the common ones reveal surprising levels of sophistication, ingenuity and experimentation. Technical analyses, long established as scholarly and conservation tools in other artistic media, constitute a more recent, rapidly developing branch of research in the field of manuscript studies.1 As their precision, specificity and pace of development increase, they can advance our knowledge about medieval and Renaissance painting in general – for three main reasons. Firstly, the sheer number of surviving manuscripts – some with hundreds of images within their covers – offers the richest resource for the identification of artists’ materials and techniques; no other types of painted artefacts survive in comparable quantities from the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Secondly, less exposed to the elements, social upheavals and unsympathetic restoration than panel paintings, frescoes, polychrome sculpture or stained glass, most manuscripts preserve their original pigments in a superior condition. Finally, some illuminators were documented as working in other media, notably easel or wall painting, mosaics, glass or metal. Identifying the materials and techniques of their illuminations offers insights into the transfer of technological expertise across media.
Analytical protocol The variety of painting materials employed by illuminators requires the use of multiple, complementary analytical methods in order to clarify their identity. The wish to characterize painting techniques calls for an even larger set of analytical tools. For a comprehensive interpretation of the methods of production, the technical data need to be considered alongside evidence gathered within the fields of manuscript studies and social, political, intellectual and art history. ill. 7.1 Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 298, Since 2012, the MINIARE project has examined fifty-six volumes and an equal number of fol. 73r illuminated fragments – a total of almost four hundred illuminations. Our integrated, cross-
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Near-infrared imaging
Summary of pigments and paint binders identified
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Site-specific spectroscopic methods (FORS and XRF)
Additional methods such as Optical Raman spectroscopy and MA-XRF scanning microscopy ill. 7.2 Analytical protocol used by the MINIARE project for the non-invasive analysis of illuminated manuscripts
121 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts disciplinary study of the manuscripts begins with codicological, textual, palaeographical and art-historical examination of structures, contents, scripts, iconography and style, with identifications of liturgical uses and heraldic devices when relevant. Historical investigation sometimes reveals the specific circumstances of communities and individuals involved in the manuscripts’ creation or early use. This cumulative evidence about places and dates of production provides the broad framework for the technical analyses, while art history and codicology formulate specific questions about artists’ materials, techniques and division of labour. Our technical analyses employ only non-invasive analytical methods – no samples are taken and the instruments approach the painted surfaces without touching them. Sampling is the quickest and most reliable method for the identification of artists’ materials. Commonly used in the investigation of polychrome sculpture, panel and wall paintings, its suitability for manuscripts is debatable due to their smaller painted surfaces and thinner layers of pigments. Sampling is sometimes used, ranging from the rubbing of pigments with a cotton swab or testing of damaged areas, offsets on the facing page and debris in the gutter to the removal of microscopic paint cross-sections.2 These methods are justified by the reliability of the results, the minimal handling of the original and the small samples that leave lacunae almost invisible to the naked eye.3 However, even the tiniest loss of material – visible or not – compromises the integrity of the manuscript, weakens the delicately painted area and could result in further loss of pigment over time. In monumental painting sampling is sometimes required by conservators to inform conservation treatments. Such samples are taken in existing areas of damage that are usually restored. By contrast, damages in manuscripts are not normally repaired, as most manuscript conservators do not infill paint losses (see Essay 8). Even when the conservation of manuscripts involves consolidation of pigments, their identification is welcome as an explanation of the damage observed, but rarely required for the treatment. The choice of the consolidant is determined by the support (parchment or paper) and it is applied to actively deteriorating pigments regardless of their chemical composition. While non-invasive, in-situ techniques involve more handling than the removal of samples, with careful planning and proper support, the scientists’ use of a manuscript is no different from that of manuscript scholars or conservators. Moreover, a sample or two could never build the comprehensive picture offered by non-invasive analyses of the entire painted surface. Finally, the increasingly sensitive non-invasive techniques, especially when used in combination, can identify most inorganic materials as reliably as sampling. The identification of organic colourants and binders as well as complex mixtures still presents challenges, but our intellectual curiosity could exercise patience and spare the illuminations until suitable non-invasive methods are developed. To answer the questions formulated on the basis of the combined evidence, we developed a multi-step non-invasive analytical protocol involving the following methods (ill. 7.2; see Appendix): 1. Near-infrared (NIR) imaging, to investigate the presence and appearance of underdrawing, pentimenti and retouched or inhomogeneous areas; 2. Spectroscopic analysis by fiber-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) in the ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared range (UV-vis-NIR) and by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy to identify pigments and paint binders; 3. Optical microscopy, aimed at supporting and clarifying the spectroscopic results, assessing the conditions of the paint layers, documenting damage, and suggesting the presence of pigment mixtures, layers, glazes and alteration compounds;
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4. Additional methods including Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Macro-XRF (MA-XRF) scanning, Fourier-Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, all carried out in collaboration with colleagues from multiple institutions in the UK, Europe and the United States (see Appendix). Apart from offering answers to pre-formulated questions, the technical analyses can yield unexpected results and raise new questions for manuscript experts and conservators.4
Secrets revealed The technical analyses undertaken by the MINIARE project since 2012 not only confirmed the wide-spread use of common materials and techniques across medieval and Renaissance Europe (see Essay 2), but also revealed shifting preferences for some colourants and increasingly sophisticated use of others over time. Furthermore, they identified a wider range of pigments and binders than previously found or suspected in illuminated manuscripts. Some of these newly detected materials suggest links between illumination and other media, and point to specific artistic centres. For instance, the three blues favoured throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – ultramarine, azurite and indigo/woad – varied in availability and popularity in different periods and regions. They were sometimes used in combination to achieve stunning effects, such as the exquisite gradation of blues in the Metz Pontifical where all three pigments were employed (Cat. 6, ill. 7.1). Indigo provided a cool, blue-grey ground for the raised gold leaf in the initial’s inner background and the miniature’s frame. The initial’s outer background and the border ornament were painted with azurite. The miniature’s blue frame has a light blue base layer of azurite over which darker blue details were painted in ultramarine accompanied by lead white motifs. The bishop’s robe was painted with ultramarine and highlighted with lead white. The Master of the Metz Pontifical painted all figures, regardless of their position on the page, but probably left the ornamentation of the text, frames and borders to an assistant. A fourth, less common blue pigment was identified in Venetian illuminations dating from the early fifteenth through the sixteenth centuries (Cat. 8, Cat. 81).5 Obtained by grinding a blue glass, and therefore likely to have been easily available in Venice, smalt had not been detected in works by Venetian illuminators so far. Its finding in several fragments by the Master of the Murano Gradual c.1420-14506 pre-dates by as much as fifty years its documented use by Venetian easel painters.7 The Murano Master’s origin, training and career remain the subject of debates. The identification of smalt in his illuminations for the Camaldolese monasteries in Murano places him firmly in the Laguna and reveals that he worked in a fertile, cross-media artistic context. In addition to the ubiquitous copper greens, green earths and a variety of blue and yellow mixtures were identified. The technical data gathered by the MINIARE project to date suggest a preference for verdigris by Western medieval illuminators until the end of the fourteenth century. 8 Subsequently, its use appears to decline in favour of malachite.9 Occasionally, artists combined several greens in the same manuscript and even on the same page, juxtaposing or layering them to create a range of hues and textures. The fourteen pages of Claude of France’s Primer (Cat. 39) include no fewer than five green pigments and mixtures. Azurite was combined with lead tin yellow, and in some cases probably with a yellow lead oxide, in the blue-green landscapes. Indigo was added to paint the dark green trees. Vergaut provided background colours for the two full-page miniatures at the beginning and the end (ill. 7.3). The bright green border ornaments were painted with malachite to which lead tin yellow was added in the lighter areas and indigo in the shadows.
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ill. 7.3 Raman spectroscopy reveals the presence of vergaut in the Primer of Claude of France. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, fol. 2v/p. 1 (detail)
While carbon black was the standard source for black and grey hues, several other pigments were employed, suggesting close links between illumination and contemporary easel painting. Antimony black and manganese oxide, integral to the palette of several Italian painters in the early 1500s,10 were identified in two Italian illuminations of the 1490s (Cat. 88, Cat. 97). One of them, painted in Bologna or Rome by a remarkable, but as yet unidentified artist (Cat. 97), also contains a dark yellow arsenic sulphide glass. Almost unknown, this pigment was only recently identified securely on painted objects.11 Analyses of more manuscripts and paintings could establish whether its use was typical of a certain region or workshop, and help place our artist in a specific artistic milieu. As suggested by the previous example, technical analysis is crucial for the characterisation of an artist’s palette. Partiality for unusual materials may represent an artist’s ‘signature’. Even preferences for common pigments could be informative when considered within the manuscript’s specific circumstances of production. For instance, three of the main illuminators of Philip the Bold’s Grandes Heures (Cat. 29) used yellow sparingly and employed vergaut for green. The fourth one painted numerous details in lead tin yellow and combined the same pigment with indigo for his greens (ill. 7.24). Jean
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Poyer favoured azurite over other blues, including ultramarine (Cat. 32). Given his clientele and status as a royal painter-illuminator, Poyer’s choice was hardly dictated by cost concerns. Establishing an artist’s characteristic palette can help detect the appearance of new materials in their works. The Metz Pontifical Master tried mosaic gold in a small section of the Prague volume, but probably found the results unsatisfactory, since he discontinued its use after several pages (Cat. 6). He also introduced an organic dye towards the end of the Cambridge volume which added a delicate violet to his palette. Such novelties may signal a different phase in an illuminator’s career or may represent sporadic trials inspired by encounters with previously unknown materials, masterpieces or artists. Either way, they indicate curiosity and experimentation that would have been integral to the creative process, but are often hidden from us. Scientific identifications grant us the privilege of glancing over the artist’s shoulder, witnessing trials and errors while the manuscripts were in the making. The richer palette aside, technical analyses reveal that illuminators employed another paint binder, egg yolk, alongside the common gums and egg white. Egg yolk appears as early as the end of the eleventh century in a Bavarian Gospels (Cat. 56) whose artist may have added yolk to his vermilion. In most instances, in both Western and Persian manuscripts (Cat. 14, Cat. 38), egg yolk was employed selectively as a binder for specific pigments, notably red lead. This selective use may have been motivated by a desire to ‘warm up’ red hues, giving them a yellow glow and high gloss. Yet, the use of egg yolk paint in illuminations poses technical difficulties, as it has a tendency to crack easily on the curving parchment. Artists who mastered the application of egg yolk in panel paintings may have adapted the technique for use on parchment. Lorenzo Monaco and other members of the Florentine scriptorium based at Santa Maria degli Angeli did precisely that. Their use of egg yolk appears to have evolved during the decades over which they illuminated a set of sumptuous liturgical books (Cat. 27). The sixteenth-century Nuremberg painter-illuminator Jakob Elsner also used egg yolk (Cat. 100). Nevertheless, not all artists who practiced in both media used egg yolk on parchment as well as on panel. It was not identified in miniatures by the prolific fifteenth- century Sienese painter-illuminator Sano di Pietro (Cat. 7, Cat. 83), nor in illuminations by other easel painters including Pacino di Buonaguida, Fra Angelico and Cosmé Tura.12 The current limitations of non-invasive analytical methods seldom allow the identification of paint binders other than egg yolk.13 Egg white and vegetable gums cannot be securely distinguished, due to their chemical similarity with the parchment support. Other organic substances cited by historic treatises as possible additions to paints include parchment size, fish glue, honey, sugar, wine, vinegar and ear wax. To identify non-invasively and correctly each component in such mixtures is possibly the greatest challenge heritage scientists face today. Scientific investigation allows us to peek not only ‘inside’ colourants, but also beneath them. Advanced imaging techniques which exploit the optical properties of pigments under infra-red light reveal the initial stage of the creative process – the underdrawing. If unusual pigments and binders are parts of an artist’s individual ‘signature’, the drawing style is even more so. Underdrawing – or its absence – helps distinguish between the three main artists of the Hours of Isabella Stuart (Cat. 30). The Madonna Master painted free-hand straight onto the blank parchment, without any preparatory sketches (ill. 7.4a). Unlike him, the Giac (ill. 7.4b) and Rohan Masters employed extensive underdrawing. That of the Rohan Master is highly idiosyncratic, using streams of doodle-like circles and grey ink washes to define drapery folds (ill. 7.4c). This distinctive style helps identify not only the six images that he painted himself, but also a seventh one which he sketched, but left for an assistant to paint (ill. 7.5).
125 ill. 7.4a Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul painted by the Madonna Master without underdrawing. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 136v (infrared image detail)
below left ill. 7.4b Adoration of the Magi sketched and painted by the Giac Master. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 76r (infrared image detail)
below ill. 7.4c Christ at the Last Judgement sketched and painted by the Rohan Master. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 199r (infrared image detail)
126 ill. 7.5 Virgin and Child sketched by the Rohan Master and painted by an assistant. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 24r (detail with infrared image detail)
The division of labour between artists can also be clarified by the presence of instructions specifying subject-matter and occasionally still visible (see Essay 5, Cat. 28, ill. 5.4), but normally erased or hidden underneath the paint layers. Infrared imaging allowed the visualisation of instructions for colours in five of the nineteen miniatures painted by the Mazarine Master in a Parisian volume in 1414 (Cat. 1).14 The instructions were penned inside the background areas, specifying what their colour or pattern should be: ‘rot’ and ‘root’ (‘red’ in German and Middle Dutch respectively), ‘himel’ (‘sky’ in German), and a phrase possibly including the word ‘bos’ (‘bouquet of flowers’ in Middle Dutch) which may refer to the background’s white lilies, the patron’s device (ill. 7.6a-e).15 We know from unfinished manuscripts that the backgrounds of miniatures were often executed first, presumably by assistants, and then the figural scenes were completed by the main artists. The Mazarine Master probably designed the compositions and wrote instructions for his assistant to paint the backgrounds. Both of them must have come from German- or Dutch-speaking areas. This information lends material support to the stylistic and documentary evidence about the international artistic community in Paris c.1400, dominated by immigrants from the Low Countries.16 Together, advanced imaging, pigment analyses and historical research can help us date alterations, understand the reasons behind them and even identify their instigators. In the case of Isabella Stuart’s Hours (Cat. 30), two stages of overpainting took place in close succession. Isabella’s arms were added to miniatures, initials and borders throughout the volume. Her portrait was painted over that of the original owner kneeling before the Virgin and Child (ill. 7.7). Isabella acquired a companion, St Catherine: infrared imaging of the
127 ill. 7.6a–e Artist’s instructions. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 251 (details with infrared images)
ill. 7.6a fol. 174r
ill. 7.6b fol. 163r
ill. 7.6c fol. 166v
128 ill. 7.6d fol. 247v
ill. 7.6e fol. 104r
reverse and close observation under magnification confirmed the saint’s absence from the original design. It seems that Isabella retained the original patron’s elaborate head dress at first and St Catherine’s cloak was painted around it in ultramarine. The head dress (the dark oval shape in the infrared image) was later overpainted in azurite and Isabella received the ducal coronet that we see today. The alterations were most probably commissioned by Isabella’s husband, Francis I of Brittany. The first step – the overpainting of what was probably the portrait of his first wife, Yolande of Anjou (1412-1440), and the addition of Isabella’s arms and St Catherine – would have been prompted by preparations for Francis’ wedding to Isabella on 29 October 1442. In the meantime, on 29 August 1442, Francis succeeded to the duchy of Brittany. Isabella would have become a duchess upon her marriage two months later, so the coronet must have been added in September or October 1442. By detecting the two-stage alteration, raising new questions and prompting additional historical research, technical analyses shed light on the dynastic concerns that motivated this manuscript’s continuous updating. Advanced imaging coupled with pigment analyses can help identify modern interventions, forgeries and replicas (see Essay 8), while optical microscopy and spectroscopic analyses reveal the masters’ greatest secrets – their painting techniques (see Essays 10, 11, 12).
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ill.7.7a Virgin and Child with overpainted patron’s portrait. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 20r
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ill. 7.7b Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 20r. top: visible and infrared image details. bottom: short-wave infrared image of verso; microscope image showing the Virgin’s blue mantle underneath St Catherine’s robe (original magnification 20x)
A slightly bigger picture Technical analyses help us establish not only individual artists’ methods of work, but also their modes of collaboration. The latter are sometimes more complex and the strategies adopted for the completion of specific projects more varied than the scenarios described under scriptorium, workshop or court artists’ practices. The five manuscripts presented in this section illustrate some of these variations and complexities. The analysis of the four initials belonging to the Santa Maria degli Angeli Choir books (Cat. 27) allows only a partial view into what was certainly a monumental project, involving numerous artists over a long period of time. The fragmentary state of the volumes, from which over seventy illuminations were excised in the early nineteenth century,17 makes it hard to establish patterns of collaboration between masters and assistants.
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The selective use of egg yolk as a paint binder, however, suggests two different patterns of collaboration. In the earliest volumes, produced in the 1370s and early 1390s under the supervision of Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, egg yolk was chosen as a binder only for certain pigments, irrespective of whether they were used in figures or ornament. This suggests that Don Silvestro collaborated closely with – and presumably trained – the assistants who shared his materials and emulated his techniques in the ornamentation. In the volumes produced c.1400 under the supervision of Lorenzo Monaco figures and ornament were painted by different hands. In all twelve illuminations analysed from five of the volumes,18 egg yolk was identified in the scenes within initials and in the small human figures present in some of the borders, but not in the letter shapes or the border foliage (ill. 7.8). Monaco and other major artists involved in the commission at this stage painted the figures using the technique they knew from panel painting, leaving the ornamentation to assistants who were not trained to handle egg yolk tempera. This suggests a different, rigorously hierarchical distribution of responsibilities between masters and assistants. A similarly strict distribution of tasks was adopted by the artists responsible for the illumination of Cardinal Angelo Acciaiuoli’s Missal (Cat. 28). This is hardly surprising, since two of them – Bartolomeo di Fruosino and Matteo Torelli – were Lorenzo Monaco’s frequent collaborators, associated with Santa Maria degli Angeli. In fact, the selective use of egg yolk as a binder reveals that the division of labour in the Missal was not simply between the main images and the borders, but also between the figures and ornament within the borders. Egg yolk was found in all figures – both within the historiated initials and in the borders – but not in the foliage ornamenting the initials and borders. The Hours of Isabella Stuart (Cat. 30) displays a remarkably close collaboration between three itinerant artists – the Giac, Rohan and Madonna Masters – and their assistants. The mutual dependence, exchange and emulation that characterize all aspects of the decorative programme are evident in the shared palette, techniques, compositions and motifs. The design and production were carefully planned and managed by the Giac Master. He entrusted the Rohan and Madonna Masters with some of the most prominent images, recognising their exceptional talents, but continued to work closely with both, contributing marginal vignettes to the miniatures painted by them. The Rohan Master emulated the Madonna Master’s methods of painting flesh and modelling fabrics, but his debt to the Giac Master is obvious in the figure and facial types as well as the use of extensive underdrawing. Moreover, the Giac and Rohan Masters shared an assistant: he painted an image sketched by the Rohan Master, but replicated the Giac Master’s schematic tile floors and bland faces in the finished miniature (ill. 7.5). Its poor condition indicates that the assistant had not yet mastered the preparation and application of pigments. The technical refinement, imposing scale and limited number of the Rohan and Madonna Masters’s images may suggest that they made no more than guest appearances in this manuscript. Yet, the codicological analysis reveals that their images are integral to the volume’s structure. The stock motifs, assistants, painting materials and techniques that they shared with the Giac Master demonstrate that all of them worked in immediate proximity and continuous contact. Unlike the mechanical execution often seen in workshop products or the uneven quality of manuscripts graced by the sporadic appearance of celebrated masters, the Hours of Isabella Stuart demonstrate an almost symbiotic relationship between the artists. The original campaign of the Grandes Heures (Cat. 29) preserves the work of prominent, if anonymous, professionals in the Parisian book trade, favoured by Charles V and Philip
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ill. 7.8 – Christ the Bold. Their collaboration on this manuscript displays three distinct patterns. The Master forming initial I with of the Bible of Jean de Sy and his talented disciple, the Master of the Grandes Heures, reflectance spectra showing selective formed a tightly-knit team, using identical underdrawing style, palette, painting technique, presence of egg yolk. compositions and iconographic motifs. The Master of the Throne of Mercy shared models Fitzwilliam Museum, with them and favoured the same colour harmonies, but expanded their palette slightly Marlay cutting It. 13ii and had a somewhat drier drawing and painting style. The fourth artist, the Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V, differs from the first two artists in his linear style, and from all three in his choice of alternative yellow pigments. His reputation as one of Charles V’s favourite illuminators and the ambitious illustrative programme of the Grandes Heures may account for his involvement, but he was not invited to contribute a single large miniature. Since the style of the Coronation Master barely changed throughout his long career and he was still enjoying Charles V’s patronage, he may have felt little need to adapt his working methods to those of his collaborators in a manuscript made for the king’s brother. One might suspect a fair amount of self-confidence in the Coronation Master’s highly distinctive work. Alternatively, he might have been left in isolation by the artists clustered around the Jean de Sy Master. There may have been an element of competition between CharlesV’s favourite illuminators, despite – or perhaps because of – their collaboration in other volumes produced for the royal circle.19 Future analyses of such manuscripts, integrating art-historical and technical investigations, may shed more light on the artists’ relationship.
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Unlike the examples above, the Breslau Psalter (Cat. 26) is a meeting point of two artistic traditions – Italian and Central European. It illustrates the varying impact a Paduan illuminator made on Silesian artists. Some of them emulated the Italian style, others borrowed individual motifs, a few remained indifferent. If the style of this Psalter is eclectic, its materials are even less homogeneous. Even the artist that followed the Paduan Master’s style most closely used different colourants. The choice of pigments and techniques is equally diverse among the local artists, revealing that they were not members of a single workshop. Some of them worked in pairs on the same quires, as the codicological structure indicates, and may have been regular collaborators, given their shared palette and style, distinct from those of others. It seems that the services of these small units and of individual artists, including the Paduan Master, were enlisted for the completion of this ambitious ducal commission. The complex collaboration was probably managed by the most accomplished Silesian artist, likely a panel painter. The Paduan Master made a brief, if brilliant guest appearance.
Challenges and Opportunities The non-invasive analysis of illuminated manuscripts is as challenging as it is promising. The analytical methods and equipment available do not currently allow for a reliable identification of most organic materials, including paint binders and colourants of both vegetable and animal origin. Yellow dyes, in particular, have so far defied attempts at even broad discrimination, due to their variability, the wide range of possible preparation methods and the insufficient specificity of the analytical probes. Very complex mixtures – such as those often encountered in flesh tones (see Essay 12) and in brown paints – also pose challenges. The presence of different types of materials requires the combined use of a range of analytical methods, not all of which may be available in a single laboratory. Pigments present in small amounts may be below the detection limit of a certain instrument. Finally, the need to keep experimental parameters within well-defined values in order to avoid damage to the manuscripts can further reduce sensitivity to specific materials. Technological challenges aside, there are practical constraints. Very few institutions have large manuscript collections, comprehensive scientific equipment and cross-disciplinary expertise. The transportation of equipment is expensive, that of manuscripts often impossible. This has largely precluded the systematic analyses of illuminations so far. Scientists and curators often embrace chance opportunities, such as the gathering of manuscripts for exhibitions or the short-term loan of equipment. With limited time and funding available, the focus is usually on iconic manuscripts. Occasionally, groups of manuscripts receive attention. For instance, early Insular and Carolingian material is particularly attractive, since the finite number of extant volumes makes a representative overview a feasible task. To attempt the same with the thousands of thirteenth-century Parisian Bibles, fourteenth- century Bolognese law books or fifteenth-century French Hours would take multiple teams collaborating across continents for several generations. Nevertheless, what we could gain from long-term collaborations goes well beyond the characterisation of an artist’s palette or the distinction of hands in individual manuscripts. The systematic investigation of statistically significant quantities of material would establish patterns of distribution and use of colourants both within and across different periods and regions. Diachronic and synchronic analyses of geographically and chronologically meaningful groups of manuscripts would detect continuity and change in the use of
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colourants in, let’s say, English illumination from the eighth to the sixteenth century, or the similarities and differences between Florentine and Venetian manuscripts made c.1400. Integrating results obtained from different artistic media would offer more accurate and comprehensive knowledge about exchange, innovation and experimentation in painting generally. Taken together, these approaches may allow us to tackle complex issues, such as the inter-dependence or dissociation between the availability of certain colourants and shifts in tastes. Casting the net wider, we may begin to sketch the big picture.
Notes 8 The analytical data confirm the 12 Ricciardi, Facini and Delaney 2013, 7. 1 Clarke 2011b; Neate et al. 2011. prominence of verdigris among green 13 Even the identification of yolk can 2 For drilling a small cylinder through colourants in twelfth- and thirteenth- be difficult; the analytical evidence the parchment, see Fredrickx, century recipe books, which also often allows only to recognize the Wouters and Schryvers 2003; for mention plant extracts (mostly added presence of a lipidic-containing using a microchisel or tungsten to modify verdigris’ colour) and material, which is most likely egg needle, see Coupry et al. 2005; green earths. From the late fourteenth yolk. Castro et al. 2014. century, the green palette mentioned 14 For other examples of instructions 3 Orna and Matthews 1981; Clarke in treatises expands to include on colours, see Stirnemann 1982; 2001b; Clarke 2011b; Melo and malachite, sap green and vergaut. See Stirnemann and Gousset 1989; Claro 2010; Porter 2011. Ricciardi et al. 2013. Gousset and Stirnemann 1990. 4 A telling example of our integrated 9 This is a preliminary suggestion 15 These words have variant spellings approach is the detection of a two- based on data gathered mainly from in Middle Dutch and German. stage overpainting in Isabella Stuart’s French and Italian illuminations. We thank Elsbeth Geldhof, Hours, discussed below. Further research is needed on the Kathryn Rudy and Dominique 5 Smalt was also identified in the blue use of greens in England, the Low Vanwijnsberghe for their advice. areas of the peacock feathers in Cat. Countries, Central Europe and the 16 Avril 2004. 108. Iberian Peninsula. The systematic 17 Levi D’Ancona 1994. 6 The research was carried out in analysis of a larger number of 18 The volumes are Corali 1, 3, 5, 7 collaboration with the National manuscripts from across Europe is and 8. They were analysed by the Gallery of Art in Washington DC, required to establish chronological MINIARE project and during a and the Getty Museum and Getty and geographical patterns with previous research project; Ricciardi, Conservation Institute in Los reasonable certainty. Facini and Delaney 2013. Angeles. 10 Spring, Grout and White 2003. 19 Sherman 1995; Leo 2013. See also 7 Poldi and Villa 2011, 34. 11 Grundmann et al. 2011; Vermeulen, Essays 10 and 13. Sanyova and Janssens 2015.
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26 Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 36-1950, fols. 49v-50r
Christ with Apostles and Entry into Jerusalem Psalter Silesia, Breslau, c.1255-1267 artists: Associate of the Master of Giovanni da Gaibana and Breslau Master
o expense was spared in the production of Nthis manuscript, one of the most extensively illuminated surviving Psalters. It boasts hundreds of marginal scenes and grotesques, and thirty-eight major illuminations, full-page miniatures and large historiated initials usually facing each other in pairs. Here, Christ is shown surrounded by disciples on the left and entering Jerusalem on the right. Liturgical evidence suggests that the Psalter was made between 1255 and 1267 in Breslau, Silesia (Wroclaw in modern-day Poland). A prayer composed for a woman and mentioning ‘God’s servant Henry’ (fol. 146r) has been linked to the daughter of Duke Albert of Saxony, Helen, who married Henry III, Duke of Breslau, around 1257. While relatively few saints specific to Saxony feature in the Calendar, several saints associated with Prague grace the Litany, pointing to Helen’s mother-in-law, Anna Premyslid (d.1265). Sister of Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Anna was the Duchess of Henry II of Breslau (d.1241) and mother of Henry III (d.1266) and Vladislav, Archbishop of Salzburg (d.1270). Helen’s marriage and Anna’s death may narrow the date range to 1257-1265, if the manuscript was intended for the young bride and commissioned by her mother-in-law. The Breslau Psalter belongs to a group of manuscripts made north of the Alps, but containing the work of an artist who illuminated an Epistolary copied in 1259 for Padua Cathedral by the scribe Giovanni da Gaibana (Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS E 2). The northern migration of the Paduan style has been associated with Anna Premyslid’s younger son, Vladislav, who studied in Padua before becoming archbishop of Salzburg in 1265 and presumably brought the Gaibana Master with him. If the Psalter was begun before 1265, the year Anna Premyslid died and Vladislav arrived in Master, crediting him with a varying number of illuminations Salzburg, it would be the earliest of the deluxe – from one to eleven. All remaining figural scenes – well over Gaibana-style manuscripts illuminated north of the 200 – have been ascribed to Breslau artists and have received Alps. Given its extensive pictorial programme, work little attention. may have continued for some time, perhaps under Of the thirty-eight major illuminations, three are often Vladislav’s patronage (Bossetto 2010). attributed to the Gaibana Master, including the miniature of Scholarship has focused exclusively on the Gaibana Christ and the Apostles and the Beatus initial (ill. 7.9). Though
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the Gaibana Master’s style, his choice of pigments is markedly different. If they were working on this manuscript side by side, they were dipping their brushes in different paints. Out of the eleven illumi- nations often attributed to the Gaibana Master, he painted only the Beatus initial. The rest, two large and eight small images, were executed by his associate (fols. 41r (two images), 47v, 49v, 51r, 52r, 52v, 53r, 54r, 55r). The remaining thirty-five major illuminations, were painted by at least seven artists working in a Central European style. None of them used azurite. The most accomplished among them, the Breslau Master responsible for the Entry into Jerusalem and the Adoration of the Magi (ill. 7.10), used large amounts of indigo (woad) in the flesh tones and ultramarine in the beards of older protagonists. He provided eight other large images, all sharing features with the Gaibana Master and his associate: nestled folds, impasto contours and glazes on fabrics, red outlines of flesh and facial features. However, there are substantial differences. The Breslau Master favoured bright pink robes, light yellow areas painted with an organic dye, white scumble on blue fabrics and tri-chromatic highlights on green drapery. His modeling of flesh areas shows the different layers of pigments, unlike the smooth blending of paint characteristic of the Gaibana Master and his associate. The Breslau Master’s imposing figures and gold- tooled halos imply experience with monumental painting. His accomplished work, prominent role throughout the volume and stylistic influence on his collaborators suggest that he was an established artist, probably entrusted with managing the provision of the major illuminations. Perhaps a painter at the ducal court, he may have overseen the project, but without imposing a uniformity of style, materials or techniques. His choice of pigments was not followed by the other artists, not even by those who adhered most closely to his style or collaborated with him on adjacent images. Conversely, a shared palette did not always result in a stylistic homogeneity. Some of the Breslau artists employed the same pigments, but retained their individual styles (Ricciardi and Panayotova 2016). The illumination of the Breslau Psalter was not entrusted to an established workshop. Some of the local artists may have been close collaborators, but others were intimately related in style, they differ in painting materials and independent illuminators. They were all recruited to techniques, suggesting the involvement of a master and an ensure the timely completion of the ambitious decorative associate. The violet colour in the initial, a mixture of vermil- programme, but did not share materials. ion and ultramarine blue, is unique in the manuscript; the The guest appearances of the Gaibana Master and flesh tones are painted with earth pigments. By contrast, the his associate were probably intended to speed up the miniature shows prolific use of azurite in flesh tones and beards, process and enhance the quality of the final product. in blue areas and green mixtures. While the associate emulated Rather than a two-way exchange of ideas and technical
137 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
ill. 7.9 Master of Giovanni da Gaibana, Beatus initial. Fitzwilliam ill. 7.10 Breslau Master, Adoration of the Magi. Fitzwilliam Museum, Museum, MS 36-1950, fol. 23v MS 36-1950, fol. 18r
skills, their interaction resulted in borrowing of isolated stylistic and iconographic features by some, but not all of the local artists. Perhaps it was this diversity of materials, styles and traditions that the ducal patrons appreciated and sought – a provenance: made for a Duchess of Breslau between 1255 and 1267; juxtaposition of accomplished local works with prestigious Bertram, fourth earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878), Ashburnham Appendix, no. XXXIV; purchased from him by Henry Yates Italian imports. Thompson (1838-1928) in May 1897 (his bookplate inside upper SP/PR cover); his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 23 March 1920, lot 60; purchased by Thomas H. Riches (1856-1935); his bequest, 1935 (received in 1950). Parchment, i modern parchment flyleaf + 147 fols. + i paper flyleaf + exhibitions: London 1908, no. 174; Cambridge 1966, no. 42; i modern parchment flyleaf, 326 × 227 (203 × 132) mm, 23 long lines, Cambridge 1989-1990b, no. 34; Padua and Rovigo 1999, no. 5; ruled in brown ink Cambridge 2005, no. 71. language: Latin literature: Hänsel-Hacker 1952; Wormald and Giles 1982, 414-29, pls. 18-20; Mariani Canova 1990, 174-76; Valagussa 1991, 12-13; script: Gothic bookhand (textualis) Morgan and Panayotova 2009, no. 75 (with additional literature); binding: nineteenth century, yellow morocco over wooden boards; Bossetto 2010; Morgan, Panayotova and Reynolds 2011, no. 44; earlier gold covers said to have been melted down and manuscript Bossetto 2015, passim; Ricciardi and Panayotova 2016. sold by the Mint in Munich (Ashburnham Appendix, no. XXXIV)
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27 Fitzwilliam Museum
Initials from Choir books 27c Italy, Florence, 1370s-c.1409 Marlay cutting It. 13.i artists: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (1339-1399) St Laurence and associates Historiated initial from an Antiphoner Italy, Florence, 1390s 27a Marlay cutting It. 13A 27d Marlay cutting It. 13.ii Presentation in the Temple Historiated initial from a Gradual Christ the Redeemer Italy, Florence, 1370s Historiated initial from a Gradual Italy, Florence, c.1409 with additions of c.1450 27b MS 5-1979
St Clement Historiated initial from a Gradual Italy, Florence, 1370s
Cat. 27a Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cutting It. 13A
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Cat. 27b Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 5-1979 Cat. 27c Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cutting It. 13.i
he Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli that he probably trained as a painter in the workshop of Jacopo TAngeli, a major centre of intellectual activity and di Mino del Pellicciaio in Siena during the 1350s; the close manuscript production in the decades on either side of 1400, links between the Camaldolese convents in Florence and Siena prepared sumptuous liturgical books for its own use and for would have facilitated such moves during his early career religious houses in Tuscany and the Veneto. A magnificent set (Freuler 1997, 280-90). of Choir Books copied at the Santa Maria degli Angeli The model for the Presentation in the Temple enclosed within scriptorium for its own community was illuminated between the initial S which introduced the Mass for the feast of the 1370 and 1506 by successive generations of artists. The volumes Purification of the Virgin (2 February) inCorale 2 is based on (Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Corali 1-19) were mutilated Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s eponymous altarpiece completed in during the Napoleonic campaigns of 1797-1809 and many of 1342 for the Crescentius Chapel in Siena Cathedral (now in their images are scattered across the world. the Uffizi). Mary and Joseph have entrusted the infant Christ These four initials belonged to the first campaign of to Simeon and Anna, while the priest behind, knife in hand, illumination. It was led by the head of the scriptorium, Don is ready to perform the circumcision. Don Silvestro has Silvestro dei Gherarducci, who had entered the monastery in combined the powerful monumentality of a large panel with 1348 and became its Prior in the 1390s. He was praised by the exquisite delicacy of manuscript illumination. The tiled Giorgio Vasari as the most distinguished Florentine illuminator floor imparts a sense of depth to the pictorial space. The of his time (Freuler in Bollati 2004, 937-40). His scriptorium intricate designs on the haloes, each displaying a different trained some of the leading artists in late Trecento and early pattern, emulate the pioneering punchwork of Sienese artists Quattrocento Florence, notably Lorenzo Monaco, Matteo di from the early Trecento (Skaug 1994). Filippo Torelli and Bartolomeo di Fruosino (see Cat. 28). The image of St Clement, which would have opened the Corale 2, from which the Presentation in the Temple and Mass for his feast (23 November), draws on Simone Martini’s St Clement were excised, is his earliest dated work produced facial types and the individualised physiognomy is in line with in or shortly after 1370-1371, the years inscribed within the the work of his followers. volume. The impressive sum of 100 florins paid in 1375 for St Lawrence is shown with a book, a martyr’s palm branch Corale 2 reflects the precious materials used in its production and his distinctive attribute, the gridiron on which he was and the high esteem for Don Silvestro’s work. Both initials tortured. The initial belonged to the office of Matins for his reveal his considerable debt to Sienese altarpieces, suggesting feast (10 August) in an Antiphoner (Corale 19) from the Santa
140 section seven: masters’ secrets
Maria degli Angeli’s set. The image has been attributed to various artists: Mariotto di Nardo (Boskovits 1975, 390, fig. 483); the Maestro delle Canzoni, named after his work in a Book of Songs (Paris, BnF, MS ital. 568), who collaborated with Don Silvestro in several of the Santa Maria degli Angeli Corali (Levi D’Ancona 1994, 20-25); and Don Silvestro himsef (Freuler 1997, 442). The figure of Christ the Redeemer forms the initialI which may have opened the Mass for Easter Monday in Santa Maria degli Angeli’s Corale 3. Christ holds an image of the Earth, the so-called T map from Ptolemy’s Geography, inscribed with the three continents known at the time: Asia, Vropia, Africha. There is no consensus regarding the authorship or provenance of this image either. It has been attributed to the Maestro delle Canzoni (Levi D’Ancona 1994) or to Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni who was based at San Pietro Maggiore in Florence in the 1380s and may have contributed to a (now lost) set of Choir Books illuminated between 1373 and 1382, whose first volume provided a model for Santa Maria degli Angeli’s Corali (Boskovits 1975, 285; Freuler 1997, 298; Parenti in Bollati 2004, 150-51). Whoever painted Christ’s figure, he was not responsible for the letter shape and the surrounding acanthus. These may have been supplied later, probably by Niccolo Rosselli (1407- 1471), an illuminator who became a monk at Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1429, contributed to other leaves in Corale 3, and was paid for his work at the scriptorium in 1454 (Levi D’Ancona 1994, 65-69, 92-93, 161). The range of pigments used to paint these four initials is remarkably similar. Some differences can, however, be observed, as may be expected for works painted over four decades. The common pigments include carbon black, lead white (used on its own and mixed with other pigments to modify their hue), vermilion, red lead, ultramarine blue and organic pinks. Gold leaf was laid over a ground containing gypsum and a red bole, and burnished to a high shine. The two initials from Corale 2 are further characterised by the use of azurite and indigo in addition to ultramarine in the border decorations, and by small amounts of ultramarine added to white areas, providing a cooler hue. The flesh tones were painted mixing and layering variable amounts of lead white and vermilion on a green earth base, with a technique which closely resembles contemporary easel painting. These same two initials, as well as the St Lawrence, also contain a dark red earth pigment which was used to outline the shiny Cat. 27d Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cutting It. 13.ii decorations painted in mosaic gold. All three are characterised by the use of a yellow lead oxide, which was also mixed with azurite to provide green hues. The yellow initial D surrounding Equally interesting is the comparison of the paint binders St Clement, however, was painted with lead-tin yellow. This used in the four fragments. Recent research (Ricciardi, Facini pigment characterises the palette of Christ the Redeemer where and Delaney 2013) has established that egg yolk tempera was it also appears mixed with azurite in green areas. Additional used in many of the illuminations of the Santa Maria degli peculiarities of this fragment include the presence of a purple Angeli books, including these four initials. The latest technical hue obtained with an insect-based dye, as well as the use of examination of these fragments has confirmed that egg yolk umber in the darkest portions of Christ’s flesh tones and of was used in areas painted with red lead, and probably also with yellow ochre to provide highlights in his hair. vermilion, in the two initials by Don Silvestro for Corale 2.
141 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
The image of St Lawrence also contains small amounts of egg yolk in orange and red areas, but the same binder also appears 28 to have been employed in the initial and border ornament, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 148r irrespective of the pigments used. The opposite is true in the fragment from Corale 3, where the figure of Christ was painted Pentecost with patron’s portrait and arms with egg tempera, but not the initial and its ornamentation. Missal, Use of Rome The latter paradigm is consistent with the results of technical Italy, Florence, 1402-1405 analyses carried out on other contemporary books from the artists: Bartolomeo di Fruosino (1366 or 1369-1441), Santa Maria degli Angeli set as well as on the Acciaiuoli Missal Matteo di Filippo Torelli (1365-1442), Bartolomeo di (Cat. 28), all of which are linked to the work of the later Filippo Torelli (doc. 1386-1421/27) and Bastiano di Niccolò generation of Florentine illuminators led by Lorenzo Monaco, di Monte (doc. 1380-1433) namely Matteo di Filippo Torelli and Bartolomeo di Fruosino. SP/PR his is one of the best documented and least studied Parchment TFlorentine manuscripts. It is also one of the most richly Marlay cutting It. 13A 300 × 270 mm, mounted on cardboard illuminated Missals in existence. Its sixty-six historiated initials Marlay cutting It. 13.i 220 × 195 mm, 2 lines of fragmentary text are filled with imposing figures or dense narrative scenes, set ruled in plummet and two fragmentary four-line musical staves ruled against burnished gold grounds, surrounded by exuberant in red ink on reverse borders, and accompanied by hundreds of ornamental initials, Marlay cutting It. 13.ii 260 × 120 mm, 3 lines of fragmentary text most of them painted in brilliant colours, a few penned with ruled in plummet and two and a half four-line musical staves ruled in exquisite flourishes (ill. 7.13). Originally, the volume would red ink have been even more splendid. The three missing leaves must MS 5-1979 cutting 170 × 165 mm, initial 150 × 145 mm, mounted have contained a Nativity for Christmas (fol. 10), a Crucifixion on cardboard for the Canon of the Mass (fol. 118), and an image of Saints language: Latin Peter and Paul for their Mass (fol. 203). script: Gothic bookhand (textualis) The initial S opening the Mass for Pentecost Sunday shows provenance the Virgin and the twelve apostles receiving the Holy Spirit The initials belonged to three Choir Books made for the Camaldolese in an interior above and, below, the peoples of the world, to Monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence: Marlay cutting whom the apostles will soon begin to preach in tongues, It. 13A and MS 5-1979 were fol. 42 and fol. 159 respectively in gathered outside. The portrait and arms in this and other Corale 2 (Gradual), Marlay cutting It. 13.ii might have been fol. 19 in Corale 3 (Gradual), Marlay cutting It. 13.i was fol. 62 in Corale 19 borders (ills. 7.11, 7.12) identify the patron as Cardinal Angelo (Antiphoner); excised during the Napoleonic campaigns, 1797-1809; Acciaiuoli, a member of the prominent Florentine family that thereafter: supplied intellectuals and diplomats for the Medici rulers Marlay cutting It. 13A Sir Samuel Meyrick (1783-1848); acquired throughout the fifteenth century (see Cat. 82). before 1886 by Charles Brinsley Marlay (1831-1912); his bequest, The Missal does not include the local saints of Florence. It 1912. is for the use of Rome where Acciaiuoli resided often after Marlay cuttings It. 13.i and 13.ii Museo Cavaleri, Milan (ink stamp becoming Chancellor of the Holy See in 1387 and even more on the reverse of Marlay cutting It. 13.i); Charles Brinsley Marlay so after he was appointed Archpriest of St Peter’s in the Vatican (1831-1912); his bequest, 1912. in 1404 and Dean of the College of Cardinals in 1405. MS 5-1979 J.H. Fitzhenry; Sir Thomas Ralph Merton (1888-1969), acquired by 1950; purchased by the Museum in 1979. Nevertheless, from 1385 until his death Acciaiuoli was also the commendatory abbot of the Badia in Florence, a Benedictine exhibitions: London 1886, no. 6; Cambridge 1966, no. 65; London 1983a, nos. 45, 51; Cambridge 1989-1990b, nos. 15-17; New York monastery actively involved in manuscript production. He 1994a, nos. 16b, 16j; Cambridge 2005, no. 59. was a major patron of Florentine artists, including Gherardo literature: Boskovits 1975, 114, 216, 285, 390, 421, pl. 315, fig. 483; Starnina who included Acciaiuoli’s portrait in an altarpiece Wormald and Giles 1982, 109-110, 611-12, fig. 45; Levi D’Ancona he painted for the Santa Maria chapel in the Certosa 1994, 14-25, 90-92, 101, 179-181, 185, 187, 191, 197-98, 205, 208, (Bernacchioni 2007). It is hardly surprising that Acciaiuoli fig. 11; Freuler 1997, 352, 361-62, 364-65, 372, 378-80, 409, 411, 437, entrusted his Missal to artists associated with the Badia and pls. XLI.29, XLI.43; Morgan, Panayotova and Reynolds 2011, no. 225 (with additional literature); Ricciardi, Facini and Delaney 2013. also with the leading Florentine scriptorium of the time based at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli (see Cat. 27). The account books of the Badia documenting Acciaiuoli’s payments to the artists, first mentioned in 1878 (Milanesi 1878) and then considered lost, have been rediscovered (Florence, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Corporazioni religiose soppresse dal
142 section seven: masters’ secrets
143 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
ill. 7.11 Christ blessing with patron’s portrait and arms. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 1r
144 section seven: masters’ secrets
ill. 7.12 Nativity of St John the Baptist, the young St John going into the desert, with patron’s portrait and arms. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 201r
145 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
governo francese, 78, vol. 302, fols. 100v (1405), 152 (1405), 199 (1405), 212 (1406); Bernacchioni 2007, 49, 54 n. 29; Labriola 2012, 76, 81 n. 23; Labriola 2015, 217, 219 n. 31). They reveal that the illumination of the Missal, already under way by 1402, was completed in 1405. Four artists were responsible for it: Bartolomeo di Fruosino, Bastiano di Niccolò, and the brothers Bartolomeo and Matteo di Filippo Torelli. In January 1405, the Cardinal paid a total of over 32 golden florins for this aspect of the work – the equivalent of around £3,500 today, comparing retail prices in England, or £30,000, comparing average earnings (ex-info Martin Allen). On 30 September 1405 Bartolomeo di Fruosino dipintore was paid one golden florin for twenty-seven illuminations in a single quire; this is the only payment to him recorded in the accounts. They do not specify the individual contributions of the other three artists who are paid simply for parts of the illumination (parte de mini) and are always quoted as miniatori. Bastiano di Niccolò received most of the total payment, over 31 florins. This suggests that he either provided most of the illumination in the volume or received payment for the work of others. However, the contribution of the Torelli brothers was also significant - Bartolomeo received 58lire and Matteo over 47. In fact, the financial arrangements were more complex than the payments to individual artists suggest. The accounts reveal that Matteo Torelli and Bastiano di Niccolò rented their workshops from the Badia monks. Starting in 1393, Bastiano rented a workshop with a house (una bottega con casa) for 10-15 florins a year. From 1401, Matteo paid 8 lire 5 soldi a year for a workshop only; by 1400 he was renting a house from the Camaldolese monks at Santa Maria degli Angeli. From 1402 until 1405, Matteo and Bastiano deducted from their rents sums that Acciaiuoli owed them for work on the Missal (Florence, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Corporazioni religiose soppresse dal governo francese, 78, vol. 301, fol. 28r (1402); vol. 302, fols. 18r (1402-1403), 27v (1402-1403), 10v (1403-1404), 13v (1403-1404), 19r (1404-1405).
ill. 7.13 Pen-flourished initial. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 105r (detail)
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What is known about the four artists? Bartolomeo di Fruosino’s illuminations are closely related to those of Lorenzo Monaco. Both artists had trained in the atelier of the fresco and panel painter Agnolo Gaddi. They continued to collaborate into the 1420s on prestigious projects, notably the Corali made for Sant’ Egidio, the church of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. While the number of documented payments to Fruosino and works associated with them increase from the 1410s onwards, earlier illuminations attributed to him remain the subject of debates (Levi D’Ancona 1961; Levi D’Ancona 1962, 44-5; Boskovits 1972; Eisenberg 1989, 149, 157, 177-80, 189-90; Kanter in New York 1994a, 307-310; Levi D’Ancona 1994, 163-78; Levi D’Ancona 2003; Zambrelli in Bollati 2004, 64-7; Labriola 2015). None of the major figural decoration in Acciaiuoli’s Missal corresponds to Fruosino’s only signed work – the Gradual for Sant’ Egidio dated 1421 – or to other illuminations attributed to him from the 1410s onwards. However, the caricature-like facial types in the Antiphoner he painted for the church of Santa Maria del Carmine (Florence, San Marco, Inv. 576; Levi D’Ancona 1961, 92, fig. 159) bear resemblance to some of the grotesque heads sprouting out of foliage in the Cambridge volume (ill. 7.14). The latter feature in two bifolia added to complete the Missal’s first part (fols. 131-132) and its end (fols. 273-274). They contain a total of twenty-seven initials, the number for which Bartolomeo di Fruosino was paid (Labriola 2015, 217). The bifolia do not, however, form a quire – the quaderno mentioned in the account of Fruosino’s payment. Fol. 131v Bastiano di Niccolò is documented in Florence from 1380 until 1433 as dipintore, miniatore and cartolaio, but no artworks have been associated with him so far except this Missal (Jacobsen 2001, 519-21; Brambilla 2007, 214-16, 243; Labriola 2012, 76, 81 n. 23). Likewise, Bartolomeo Torelli is a name without extant works; documents usually mention him as collaborating with his better known brother, Matteo Torelli (Jacobsen 2001, 514; Galizzi in Bollatti 2004, 956; Labriola 2012, 76, 81 n. 21). Matteo Torelli is credited with a disparate, continuously redefined corpus of illuminations (Levi D’Ancona 1958; Levi D’Ancona 1962; Boskovits 1972; Levi D’Ancona 1992; Freuler 1991; Kanter in New York 1994a; Boskovits 1995; Jacobsen 2001, 602-603; Kanter in Bollati 2004, 958-60; Freuler 2009, 83-5). The lack of consensus about his oeuvre may be due partly to stylistic developments throughout his long career under the influence of more prominent collaborators: Lorenzo Monaco until the early 1420s and Rossello di Jacopo Franchi subsequently. Among Matteo’s few documented works that have been identified with extant manuscripts are two sets of Choir books. No figural work in Acciaiuoli’s Missal corresponds to the images attributed to Matteo – and identified with payments made to him in 1413 – in the Corali produced by Lorenzo ill. 7.14 Ornamental initials with grotesques. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 131v (with magnified detail) Monaco and his collaborators for Sant’ Egidio (Florence,
147 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
Bargello, MS E 70, MS H 74; Levi D’Ancona 1992, 169-70; Corali made for Santa Maria degli Angeli, Santa Maria Nuova, Kanter in New York 1994a, 287-96, 308-10; Labriola in and the church of Santa Maria Annunziata in Orbatello (Kanter Florence 2006, 292-95). By contrast, the dominant figure style in New York 1994a, 241-43, 288-89, no. 29d, figs. 94, 114; and ornamental vocabulary in Acciaiuoli’s Missal find close Labriola 2015, fig. 7). parallels in the Antiphoner and Gradual that Matteo illuminated Don Simone Camaldolese is credited with training the in 1402-1404 for the Olivetan monastery in Pistoia (Pistoia, Master of the Breslauer Epiphany, an artistic personality Biblioteca de Seminario Episcopale, MSS A, B; Maraviglia recently ‘splintered’ from the young Matteo Torelli. The newly 1982; De Benedictis 2011, 164-65, figs. 27-30). Moreover, the created master is named after a page with an Adoration of the Resurrection initials in the Pistoia Gradual (MS B, fol. 73r) and Magi, formerly in the Breslauer collection, which may have the Missal (ill. 7.15) are identical in composition, colour come from the Corali painted by Don Simone and his associates scheme and minute details, even though the one in the Missal in the 1380s for the Olivetan monastery of San Miniato al does not seem to have been painted by Torelli. Monte in Florence whose documents refer to Matteo Torelli While Matteo Torelli is generally considered the main artist (New York 1992-1993, 190-91; Kanter in New York 1994a, of Acciaiuoli’s Missal, his artistic personality is still the subject 216-17; Parenti in Bollati 2004, 577). Several manuscripts of debate (Freuler 1991, 211-13; Boskovits 1995, 384; De previously associated with the young Matteo Torelli (Freuler Benedictis 2011, 168, 170; Labriola 2015, 219 n. 30). As 1991) have been reassigned to the Master of the Breslauer mentioned above, Matteo rented a house from the Camaldolese Epiphany: Acciaiuoli’s Missal; a copy of Dante dated 1403 monks at Santa Maria degli Angeli and was described as their (Paris, BnF, MS it. 73; now reattributed to a Sienese artist in ‘friend’ in 1407. He must have been familiar with the Freuler 2009, 84); and the opening initial in Fra Lionardo iconographic and stylistic vocabulary established at the Bonfredi’s rules for the nuns of the hospital of San Niccolò Camaldolese scriptorium by the leading artists of the previous whose convent was founded in 1392 (formerly in the collection generation, Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci and Don Simone of Major Abbey, now Geneva, Bibliothèque publique et Camaldolese. universitaire, Fonds Comites Latentes, s.n.; Alexander and de Don Silvestro and Don Simone’s works provided the models la Mare 1969, 23-5, pl. XIIIa). The figure style and facial types for the lush borders with curling acanthus and fantastical birds in the nuns’ volume and the ex-Breslauer Adoration of the Magi seen in Acciaiuoli’s Missal, and for the unusual iconography show strong affinities with the figures painted by two of the of several initials, including that showing Pentecost. The latter Missal’s main artists (hands A and B below). It remains to be is a faithful replica of the Pentecost painted by Don Silvestro determined whether they could be identified as Matteo Torelli in the Corali produced by his scriptorium for the Venetian and Bastiano di Niccolò, and which of them might have been Camaldolese houses in Murano in the 1390s (London, V&A, the Master of the Breslauer Epiphany. inv. no. 3045; Kanter in New York 1994a, 162, fig. 62). Less Although the Fitzwilliam’s volume was identified as the crowded versions of the same composition would be reused Acciaiuoli Missal recorded in the Badia’s accounts long ago later by Lorenzo Monaco and Bartolomeo di Fruosino in the (Boskovits 1972, 44-6), it has received little attention. A comprehensive study of the Missal could advance knowledge about the artists involved. The observations below are offered as the foundation for such a study. Given the absence of works by Bastiano di Niccolò and Bartolomeo Torelli, and the lack of consensus about Bartolomeo di Fruosino and Matteo Torelli’s early careers, the main artists responsible for the Missal’s figural decoration (historiated initials and border figures) will be referred to as Hands A, B, C and D. A clear distinction between them is often problematic because of the volume’s overall homogeneous style, the considerable differences in scale between historiated initials and border figures on the same page, and the fact that all of the main artists shared the same painting materials and techniques. The technical analyses revealed extensive use of carbon-based black for outlines and black backgrounds, and iron-gall ink for the text; earth pigments for brown areas; lead white for white areas and in admixtures with other colourants, modifying their hues; ultramarine for most blue areas, whose darker passages are
ill. 7.15 Resurrection. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 133r (detail)
148 section seven: masters’ secrets shaded with indigo; red lead for orange areas in initials and and borders contain lead oxide or an organic yellow, except border ornament; and vermilion for red areas in historiated on fols. 181v and 222v where all yellow areas are painted with initials and border figures, notably the Cardinal’s robes, as well lead-tin yellow. as the Calendar text and rubrics throughout. Vermilion robes Most green areas contain azurite mixtures. In the historiated are shaded with a dark organic red. initials, the yellow component is lead-tin yellow except on Two types of organic dyes are used consistently in light and fols. 12v (lead oxide) and 195r (organic dye). In the ornamental dark pink areas respectively. Both seem to be insect-derived initials and borders, the yellow component is variable: organic, and may contain the same raw material prepared in different lead oxide or lead tin yellow. Small triangular leaves in the ways to achieve a dark and a light colour. Purple was identified borders contain indigo and an arsenic sulphide pigment. in only one of the fifteen folios analysed: it is a mixture of an Gold leaf and silver leaf are laid over a ground containing organic red and ultramarine blue. gypsum and a red earth. Mosaic gold is used liberally in Lead-tin yellow is employed for the yellow areas in historiated ornamental initials, border foliage, birds and angels’ wings. initials and border figures whose glowing yellow robes are Flesh tones are painted with lead white, traces of vermilion highlighted in lead white and shaded in vermilion and an and, occasionally, of an iron oxide pigment. A higher amount organic red dye (ill. 10.5). Lead-tin yellow is also used for of iron oxide is added to obtain the dark tones and more highlights over green leaves. Otherwise, the ornamental initials vermilion for the pink highlights.
A B
C D
ill. 7.16 Historiated initials. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fols. 75v (hand A), 148r (hand B), 201r (hand C), 214r (hand D)
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A B C
ill. 7.17 Patron’s portraits with infrared images. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fols. 1r (hand A), 148r (hand B), 201r (hand C)
150 section seven: masters’ secrets
Egg yolk is used as a binder only in the historiated initials and border figures or heads (the Cardinal, prophets, angels, putti). Among the few exceptions are the head in the border of fol. 188v, which contains no egg yolk, and the orange leaves on fol. 131v, which contain yolk. Ultramarine areas never contain egg yolk, not even in the historiated initials or large border figures, with the apparent exception of fol. 11v. The binder used in all other areas remains to be identified. The selective use of egg yolk suggests a division between those responsible for the figural decoration and the ornamentation – a division observed also in the contemporary phase of execution of the Santa Maria degli Angeli Corali (Cat. 27). The style of the ornamental initials and borders is homogeneous, though differences in scale and the execution of individual motifs indicate the presence of several hands (compare the borders on the Pentecost page and in ills. 7.11, 7.12). As their alternation does not always coincide with changes in the figure style, it seems likely that the foliate ornamentation was painted separately from the figures in initials and borders, and probably by different hands – a conjecture supported by the absence of egg yolk from the foliage. The style of ornamentation differs from the rest of the volume in only three sections. The initials in the penultimate quire 29 (fols. 263-272; ill. 7.18) are by a hand not found elsewhere in the Missal. Another artist who does not feature elsewhere in the volume – probably Bartolomeo di Fruosino, as suggested above – was responsible for two bifolia (fols. 131- 132, 273-274; ill. 7.14). The homogeneous palette and consistent use of egg yolk reveal a very close collaboration between the artists responsible for the Missal’s figural decoration and do not help distinguish ill. 7.18 Ornamental initials. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 267r among them. Nevertheless, examination under the microscope (detail) allows four main hands to be discerned on the basis of subtle differences in facial types, the scale of figures, and the level of execution (cf. the Pentecost page and ills. 7.11, 7.12, 7.15, 7.16, 7.17, 7.19). Two of them, hands A and B, were responsible for of them are accompanied by border figures, just by occasional most of the pages with major illumination, including two of heads (ill. 7.20). It is conceivable that some of the differences the patron’s portraits. Hand A painted slender figures and observed above represent developments in the style of fewer delicate, melancholic faces with long eye lashes and complex than four artists over time, given that they began work on the flesh-tone layers modelled with remarkable finesse. His Missal in 1402, but did not complete it until 1405. historiated initials contain legible compositions and clearly The Missal preserves sixteen instructions in Italian written articulated figures despite the often dense narrative. Hand B for the artists on pages with historiated initials (fols. 12v, 16r, favoured monumental figures with voluminous drapery and 16v, 71v, 75v, 81v, 86v, 90r, 225v, 226v, 228r, 231r, 234r, 244r, intense facial expressions. His historiated initials contain figures 249v, 252v). Erasures beside other initials suggest that there executed in a summary fashion within crowded compositions, may have been more instructions originally. All extant suggesting that this artist was more comfortable when working instructions occur beside images whose subject matter would on a large scale. Hand C, who emulated Hand A’s legible not have been obvious to the artists from the text rubrics narrative scenes, and delicate figure and facial types, but did because they were too heavily abbreviated or too far from the not achieve the same level of execution, contributed very few initials (sometimes on the previous page or in the previous images, the most prominent being the third page with the text column, see ill. 5.4), because their Latin terms were too Cardinal’s portrait (ill. 7.12). Hand D’s large busts and robust different from the Italian equivalents or too vague for the facial types exhibit the loose idiom favoured by this artist, artists to know what to paint. For instance, the abbreviation though they approximate the work of hand B. Hand D was of Epyphania above the initial with the Adoration of the Magi responsible for a large number of historiated initials, but none was not considered a sufficient clue, since the instruction la
151 colour – the art and science of illuminated manuscripts
A B C D
ill. 7.19 Details of heads. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fols. 1r (hand A), 148r (hand B), 201r (hand C), 221v and 222v (hand D) storia dei magi was penned beside it (ill. 7.21). All but one of the instructions are for historiated or figural initials. The Parchment, ii paper flyleaves + ii medieval parchment flyleaves + exception – vramo d’olivo – resulted in the inclusion of an olive 280 fols. (foliated iii-xii in modern pencil, I-CCLXXIIII in contemporary red ink, contemporary foliation followed here, but branch in the initial for a prayer on Palm Sunday (fol. 71v). rendered in Arabic numerals for convenience) + i medieval Thirteen of the instructions were written in ink by the same parchment lyleaf + ii paper flyleaves, 352 x 250 mm (216 x 157 mm), hand beside initials painted by different artists. Two of these two columns, 32 lines, ruled in plummet, catchwords, fols. 10, 118 and – simone e giuda (fol. 225v) and apostoli (fol. 231r) – were ignored 203 excised and the initials beside them were filled with ornament. The binding: Eighteenth century, gold-stamped brown leather over remaining three instructions were written in faint metal point wooden boards, two leather straps (modern replacements) with metal clasps on upper cover, two catchplates (modern replacements) on in the upper margins of the pages that were to receive the lower cover, rebacked and repaired initials (fols. 244r, 249v, 252v). These are the last three figural language: Latin initials in the volume, all painted by the same artist in quire script: Gothic bookhand (textualis) 27. The instructions demonstrate the meticulous planning of the Missal’s production, down to iconographic details of provenance: completed for Cardinal Angelo Acciaiuoli (1340-1408) in 1405; Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion liturgical significance. They also reveal that the artists were (1745-1816), acquired in 1814; his bequest, 1816. accomplished professionals who had ready access to workshop exhibitions: Cambridge 1966, no. 64; Cambridge 1989-1990b, no. 18. patterns for figural compositions and could be trusted to literature: Milanesi 1878, 213-214; James 1895a, 80-84; Levi choose the most appropriate designs. D’Ancona 1962, 42, 44, 51, 186; Boskovits 1972, 45, figs. 33-34; Freuler SP/PR/AL 1991, 211-13, fig. 1; Boskovits 1995, 384, fig. 9; Freuler 1997, 475 N.4; Labriola 1999, 196, 202 n. 50; Zambrelli in Bollati 2004, 64; Parenti in Bollati 2004, 577; Bernacchioni 2007, 49, 54 n. 29; Freuler 2009, 83-85; De Benedictis 2011, 168, 170; Morgan, Panayotova and Reynolds 2011, no. 226 (with additional literature); Labriola 2012, 76, 81 nn. 22-23; Ricciardi, Facini and Delaney 2013; Labriola 2015, 216-17, fig. 15.
152 section seven: masters’ secrets
ill. 7.20 Archangel Michael. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 222v (detail)
ill. 7.21 Instruction to the artist. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 30, fol. 16v (details)
153 Cat. 29 Master of the Grandes Heures Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3-1954, fol. 102r
154 section seven: masters’ secrets
The palette of the 1370s illuminations is remarkably homo 29 geneous: ultramarine was used in all blue areas, minium Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3-1954, provided orange, organic dyes pink. All black and dark grey areas are carbon-based. Brown areas were painted with earths fol. 102r or ochres. Lead white was employed for whites and mixed with other pigments to modify their hues. Vergaut – a mixture Adoration of the Magi of indigo and orpiment – was applied extensively in green Book of Hours, Use of Paris robes, trees and dark green-grey landscapes. Purple, used rather France, Paris, 1376-1379, 1390; Flanders, Bruges, c.1445-1450 sparingly, was obtained by applying an organic red glaze over and Brussels, 1451 a thin layer of mostly ultramarine blue (see Essay 13, ill. 13.2). scribe: Jean L’Avenant (doc. 1350-1386) Near-infrared imaging allowed the visualisation of extensive underdrawing in several styles which contributed to the artists of the original campaign: Master of the Bible of differentiation of hands. Three artists were responsible for the Jean de Sy (act. c.1350-1380), Master of the Grandes Heures eleven large miniatures with their accompanying bas-de-page (act. c.1350-1380), Master of the Throne of Mercy (act. scenes: the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy; his accomplished c.1370-1380), Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V associate, the Master of the Grandes Heures; and the Master of (act. c.1355-1380); for the artists of the fifteenth-century the Throne of Mercy named after his full-page miniature in additions see Morgan and Panayotova 2009, no. 175 this volume. They shared the work load on the 128 small miniatures with the Master of the Coronation Book of Charles he Grandes Heures, one of the most complex and richly V and at least three assistants. Tilluminated manuscripts in the library of the Burgundian The Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy, named after a volume Dukes, was produced in two main campaigns. The original begun in 1355 for John II of France (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 15397), one was initiated by Philip the Bold (1363-1402). The second was among the favourite artists of John’s heir, Charles V, for campaign was completed in 1451 for his grand-son, Philip the whom he illuminated numerous manuscripts. He painted only Good (1419-1467). one image in the Grandes Heures – the Annunciation at the start The Grandes Heures, Philip the Bold’s crowning achievement of the Hours of the Virgin, with the duke praying in the initial as an art-loving bibliophile, is an important witness to his below and the nearly erased lions and arms of Burgundy in spiritual life: he is reported to have prayed from it daily in his the border (ill 7.22). The Annunciation displays the artists’ salient chapel. The nearly 150 images illuminated for him constitute features: a dynamic, but carefully balanced composition; delicate a magnificent gallery of portable paintings. In 1376, he figures, small in proportion to the overall picture space, with entrusted the commission of the Grandes Heures to his dainty limbs and courtly gestures; intense facial expressions, Dominican confessor Guillaume de Valen whose involvement conveying powerful, though controlled emotions; elegant may account for the volume’s sophisticated textual and visual drapery with peculiar patterns, including serpentine- or contents. The project was managed by Jean L’Avenant, a pretzel-like hems and V-shaped folds resembling pouches; member of the Parisian book trade and royal scribe; he acted extensive underdrawing; a sophisticated palette, contrasting as both scribe and libraire for the duke, and received payment saturated blue and bold orange with soft pink, violet, grey and for the manuscript’s completion in 1379. The ducal accounts pastel green; and a subtle painting technique, with smooth recording Guillaume de Valen and Jean L’Avenant’s roles in flesh tones achieved by careful blending of shading and the manuscript’s production offer no information on the highlights, and exquisitely modelled fabrics with stippled dots illuminators. and directional strokes (see Essay 10). Between 1440 and 1451, numerous texts and images by some The remaining nine large miniatures, including the Adoration sixteen artists were added for Philip the Good, showcasing his of the Magi, and their bas-de-page scenes, were painted by the piety, art patronage and political use of ostentatious display. Jean de Sy Master’s most talented disciple. He was also By 1451, the manuscript had become so thick that the Duke responsible for most of the 128 small miniatures, painting many paid his illuminator and valet de chambre Dreux Jean for its himself, sketching others for assistants to illuminate, and rebinding in two volumes. The first, displayed here, preserves occasionally entrusting them with the full task (Panayotova all 150 images of the original campaign and seventeen added and Ricciardi 2016). Given his substantial contribution, he illuminations. The second volume (Brussels, Bibl. Royale, MS deserves to be called the Master of the Grandes Heures. 11035-37) contains only fifteenth-century images. Few of the He painted other manuscripts for Charles V in the 1370s, fifteenth-century artists inserted more than a miniature or two including a Bible historiale offered to the king by his councillor, each. By contrast, the images of the original campaign Jean de Vaudetar, in 1372 (The Hague, Meermanno Museum, constitute three quarters of the manuscript’s visual content, a MS 10 B 23) and a volume of astronomical works by the substantial proportion of the Parisian illuminators’ total oeuvre, prominent Aristotelian scholar and royal adviser, Nicole and the focus of attention here. Oresme, datable to 1377 (Oxford, St John’s College, MS 164;
155 in his choice of materials and techniques. He is the only artist to use vermilion alongside the minium employed by all others. His facial types show minimal modelling. The stippling favoured by the other two artists is absent from his blue and violet robes – he used directional strokes only. His linear underdrawing contributes little to the simulation of volume. The fourth main artist, the Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V, was another royal favourite, named after his masterpiece commissioned in 1365 by the recently crowned king (London, BL, Cotton Tiberius MS B.viii). The salient features of his style, which evolved little throughout his long career, are present in the Grandes Heures (ills. 7.24, 7.25). He used an emphatically linear underdrawing and minimal stippling. His stiff, puppet-like figures have disproportionately large heads with vacant expressions. His palette contrasts opaque red, blue and white with light pink. He is the only
ill. 7.22 Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy, Annunciation. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3-1954, fol. 13r see Essay 13). Numerous motifs from the Meermanno Bible re-appear in the Grandes Heures, revealing Charles V’s artists’ use of pattern sheets in their efforts to complete the ambitious illustrative programmes. The Master of the Grandes Heures differs from the Jean de Sy Master in several aspects: he tends to leave out architecture, even when the subject-matter requires it; his solid figures are larger in proportion to the overall picture space; faces, often expressive and at times grim, are heavily modelled, but less carefully blended, with the shading and highlights clearly visible and creating a somewhat rugged appearance. In all other respects, he follows the Jean de Sy Master: we recognize the extensive underdrawing; the pretzel- and pouch-like drapery folds; the palette contrasting deep blue and striking orange with soft pink, violet, grey and pastel green; and the stippling technique combining dots with directional strokes (ills. 10.6, 13.3). The last large image in the Grandes Heures, the Throne of Mercy for the Canon of the Mass (ill 7.23), is the work of a different artist, who also painted numerous small images. He made creative use of models available to the Jean de Sy Master and the Master of the Grandes Heures. His colour scheme is ill. 7.23 Master of the Throne of Mercy, Throne of Mercy. Fitzwilliam comparable to that of his colleagues, but there are differences Museum, MS 3-1954, fol. 77r
156 section seven: masters’ secrets illuminator in the manuscript’s original campaign to employ lead-tin yellow which he also mixed with indigo to paint green landscape areas. The Coronation Master provided no large miniatures and only eighteen of the 128 small scenes. Sixteen are in quires that have no images by the other three artists; two occur in quires containing images by the Master of the Grandes Heures and his assistants, hinting at the all-hands- on-deck approach adopted towards the end of the campaign. Nevertheless, the distinctive style and materials of the Coronation Master emphasize the degree of independence he retained while collaborating with his colleagues on the Grandes Heures. SP/PR
Parchment, i modern parchment flyleaf + 275 fols. + i modern parchment flyleaf, 250 × 180 mm (163 × 105 mm), 24 long lines, ruled in brown or pink (fifteenth-century additions) ink, offsets of some 25 devotional tokens and bracteates once attached to margins on fols. 226r-228r, 236v-252r, 262v-263v, leaves lost between fols. 69-70, 78-79, 105-106, 152-153, 243-244, 250-251, 252-253, 265-266 languages: Latin and French scripts: Gothic bookhand (textualis) and Gothic bookhand (hybrida) binding: 1983, red leather over cushioned oak boards, by the Cockerell Bindery ill. 7.24 Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V, Deposition. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3-1954, fol. 162r (detail) provenance: Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1363-1402), his portrait in historiated initial (fol. 13r) and in small miniatures throughout, arms of Burgundy erased on fol. 13r; John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (1402-1419), recorded in inventory of the Burgundian library made in 1420; Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1419 – 1467), his portrait and arms on fol. 253v, his devices in miniature frame on fol. 256r; rebus or device, In Re O le In do Re, with heraldic decoration added in fifteenth century in lower margins of fols. 1v, 2v, 3v, 4v; Mrs W.F. Harvey, Purbrook Heath House, Hampshire, 1867 (information included in title of poem ‘on an ancient illuminated Missal’ written on two paper sheets bound at end of manuscript and signed ‘E. Scott, 1867’), she was probably wife of William Francis Harvey of Parbrook (sic), Hampshire who married in 1849 Mary Joanna, daughter of Major-General James Patrick Murray, C.B., and widow of Andrew Newton, doctor of medicine; in the possession of Mrs Streatfield, wife of the rector of Symondsbury, Dorset, by November 1939 when Sydney Cockerell re-discovered it; purchased from her by Lord Lee of Fareham (1868 – 1947) in June 1940; bequeathed by him and presented to the Museum by his widow in 1954. exhibitions: London 1953-1954, no. 570; Cambridge 1966, no. 67; Cambridge 1989-1990a, no. 36; Cambridge 1993, no. 46; Dijon and Cleveland 2004, no. 34; Cambridge 2005, no. 85. literature: Meiss 1967, 109, 128, 156, 175, 188, figs. 546, 608-609; Wormald and Giles 1982, 479-99, pls. II, III, VI, figs. 39-41; de Winter 1985, 189-94; Avril, Dunlop and Yapp 1989, 69, 72, 86, 97-98, 207-208, 252, 269, 275, 295, 304, 340, 348; van Buren, Marrow and Pettenati 1996, 443, 448, 479, 481-485, 521, 533, 539, 548, 550; Bousmanne and van Hoorebeeck 2000, 229-242, 264-272; Rouse and Rouse 2000, II, 75-76, 267-68; van Buren 2002, 1377-1414; Manion 2007; Morgan and Panayotova 2009, no. 175 (with additional literature); Manion 2010, 43, 45, 48-49. fig. 5; Wijsman 2010b, 131-37; Vanwijnsberghe 2013, no. IV, 229-37, 248-349, 359; Panayotova and Ricciardi 2016. ill. 7.25 Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V, Philip the Bold praying at Mass. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 3-1954, fol. 213r (detail)
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30 Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 136v
Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul, the Trinity and Angels Book of Hours, Use of Paris France, Angers, c.1431 artists: Rohan Master (act. c.1420-1440), Giac Master (act. c.1400-1440), Madonna Master (act. c.1420-1440) and associates
he Virgin and Child are cradled within a Tcrescent moon, a depiction inspired by the Apocalyptic Woman (Rev. 12:4). Holding the keys to Paradise and pointing at Christ, the way to salvation, St Peter leans over the crescent. A con- templative St Paul, his sword sheathed, flanks the Virgin on the right. Angels descend from heaven. Their gesturing hands link the group below to the Trinity above, half circled by red seraphs whose arrangement echoes the crescent’s shape. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit seem to share a body, but they have distinct physiognomies. This ingenious visualisation of a central tenet in Christian theology – the triune nature of the three Persons – is embedded here in a devotional image. It introduces the prayer to the Lord on the facing page, Creator celi (‘Creator of the sky’). This manuscript was adapted as a wedding gift for Isabella Stuart, daughter of James I of Scotland, upon her marriage to Francis, future Duke of Brittany, in 1442 (see Essay 7, ill. 7.7). Its original owner was most probably Francis’ first wife, Yolande of Anjou (1412-1440), or her mother, Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442), widow of Louis II of Anjou and a sophisticated patron of the literary and visual arts. The texts and images characteristic of Hours are aligned with four cycles of marginal images inspired by the Apocalypse and Guillaume de Digulleville’s French allegorical poems – Cat. 30 Madonna Master, Virgin and Child. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 136v Pilgrimage of Jesus Christ, Pilgrimage of the Human Life and Pilgrimage of the Soul – all favoured at the Angevin court. Work on the extensive and complex illustrative programme, the Belles Heures appear in the Virgin and Child on the crescent comprising well over 500 figural scenes, would have begun moon seen here, and in two closely related manuscripts asso after 1417 and may have continued until Francis’ and Yolande’s ciated with Yolande’s patronage: the Hours that belonged to wedding in 1431. A post-1417 date is suggested by three her son, René of Anjou (Paris, BnF, MS lat. 1156A), and the marginal images of a widowed woman and by Yolande’s Rohan Hours (Paris, BnF, MS lat. 9471) that bear the arms of purchase in that year of the Limbourg brothers’ Belles Heures the Rohan family of Brittany and give their name to the group (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, of artists responsible for all three manuscripts. Another MS 54.1.1) from the Duke de Berry’s executors. Motifs from celebrated image in the Fitzwilliam’s manuscript, the Madonna
158 section seven: masters’ secrets
ill.7.26 Giac Master, Adoration of the Magi. Fitzwilliam Museum, ill.7.27 Rohan Master, Christ at the Last Judgement. MS 62, fol. 76r (detail) Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 199r (detail)
and Child in the Church (ill. 10.7), echoes Limbourg designs thought of as an older relative and named after a Book of which were in René of Anjou’s collection by the 1430s. Hours completed c.1410 for Louis de Giac’s wife (Toronto, The integrated art-historical, codicological and technical ROM, MS 997.158.14; Villela-Petit 2010b). Following a sojourn analyses reveal that the manuscript was illuminated by three in Paris c.1415-1420, interspersed with visits to Troyes in the main artists – the Giac, Rohan and Madonna Masters – and late 1410s and early 1420s, he ended his career in Anjou, their assistants. The Rohan Master, the leading artist of the working for Yolande of Aragon c.1425-1435 (Troyes, Châlons- eponymous Hours in Paris who probably worked as both a en-Champagne and Reims 2007-2008, 41, nos. 6-7; Villela-Petit panel painter and illuminator, was one of the most expressive 2010a). He designed the illustrative programme of this Hours and individualistic artists in fifteenth-century France. The and painted large parts of it (ill 7.26, ill. 7.4b). emergence of the style traditionally associated with his name In addition to several assistants the Giac Master enlisted the preceded him. Originating c.1400 and spanning the first four support of two exceptional artists. The Rohan Master painted decades of the century, it underwent a decisive development six large miniatures: the Evangelists’ portraits (fols. 13v, 14r, in Paris c.1415-1420 before spreading to Anjou and Brittany 16v, 18v), the Virgin and Child with the owner (ill. 7.7), and as part of the artistic diaspora that followed the Treaty of Troyes Christ at the Last Judgement (ill. 7.27). His characteristically in 1420 and the English occupation of Paris in 1423. skeletal, elongated figures have mannered poses, attenuated One of the earliest proponents of the style is the Giac Master, limbs and fingers, and expressive facial types. The Rohan previously identified with the young Rohan Master, but now Master’s bold, dramatic images signal a highly individualistic
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ill.7.28 Madonna Master, microscope image showing the modelling on the robes. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 136v (details)
talent as well as a departure from the mellow finesse of the necessity for the parchment-white Madonna (ill. 10.7), this International Gothic style. His peculiar drawing, visible to the was hardly the case for the richly layered pigments of the naked eye in areas of thinly applied pigments, is clearly revealed Apocalyptic Virgin. The confident and highly accomplished by near-infrared imaging (see Essay 7, ill. 7.4c). work suggests the hand of an experienced painter. The Giac Master’s other accomplished collaborator, the All artists favoured identical chromatic harmonies, mostly Madonna Master, painted the only two full-page miniatures achieved by employing the same pigments and set against a in the volume: the Apocalyptic Virgin seen here and the range of metals: gold leaf, gold ink, mosaic gold and silver. The Madonna and Child in the Church (ill. 10.7). They are three main artists juxtaposed smooth, solid areas of opaque characterised by elegant restraint, calm introspection and sweet blues and reds with translucent pinks, greens and violets. The tenderness, harking back to the International Gothic style and palette is dominated by ultramarine, malachite, minium, lead the Limbourg brothers’ painting techniques. The soft modelling white, brown earth and an organic, insect-based pink, and of fabrics, and the rhythmical sway of torsos and limbs create occasionally supplemented with vermilion, azurite, organic an illusion of palpable presence, the three-dimensional figures green, yellow earth and a light purple admixture of an organic seemingly displacing the matter around them. The Madonna dye and ultramarine. Signalling that no expense was spared in Master’s consummate technical skill, made ever more impressive this prestigious commission, ultramarine features extensively: by the economy of his materials, creates tension between the in the main images, marginal scenes, ornamental initials, border materiality and spirituality of the image. Rendered in soft grey foliage and even in blue captions throughout the volume. In charcoal over the bare parchment, the Madonna in the Church the original campaign, azurite was used to shade blue leaves appears to be carved out of the page or the viewer’s imagination. in the borders and in the diapered backgrounds of some In the Apocalyptic Virgin we find luminous pigments handled miniatures. with similar delicacy, creating a pleasing variation between the All artists used the same painting techniques. Fabrics are soft stippling on the saints’ cloaks, the fully blended, directional modelled with highlights progressing from white mixed into brush strokes and the glazes enhancing the deep folds on the base pigment to pure white and shaded with darker tones Mary’s robe (ill. 7.28). Surprisingly, the Madonna Master of the base pigment or with translucent glazes. Fully blended, painted both miniatures freehand – neither shows any directional brush strokes are combined with stippling that underdrawing (see Essay 7, ill. 7.4a). Perhaps an aesthetic creates a textured effect or results in optical mixtures.
160 section seven: masters’ secrets
ill.7.29 Madonna Master, Modelling of flesh on the faces of the Virgin and St Paul. Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 62, fol. 136v (details)
Parchment, i modern paper flyleaf + i contemporary parchment flyleaf + 232 fols. + i contemporary parchment flyleaf, 250 × 184 mm (120 × 75 mm), 15 long lines, ruled in red ink, catchwords In flesh areas, a thin grey wash was laid down as an under- languages: Latin and French layer (ill. 7.29). An even pink base tone, an admixture of lead script: Gothic bookhand (textualis) white, red earth and vermilion, was applied next. The main binding: seventeenth century, brown calf over pasteboards, sewn on facial features, the nose, mouth and eyes, were outlined with five supports, gold-stamped corner pieces and central oval with brown, iron-based ink, and highlighted in an organic red Crucifixion on both covers, edges gilt pigment. The same brown ink and red pigment were used to provenance: made for the woman originally portrayed on fol. 20r; define the skin texture with emphatically vertical strokes, while Isabella Stuart (1427-after 1494), her arms added throughout the volume and her portrait painted over that of the original owner on greenish-brown earth was used for shaded areas and lead white fol. 20r; to her daughter, Margueritte of Brittany (1443-1469); for highlights. Finally, a thick impasto of lead white simulates Isambert family of Paris, whose register for the period 1578-1619 is the texture of bushy eyebrows. The vertical brown and red on fols. 231v-233; Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion strokes are the most characteristic feature shared by all artists. (1745–1816), acquired in 1808; his bequest, 1816. They were either used sparingly to create youthful, porcelain- exhibitions: Cambridge 1966, no. 68; Cambridge 2005, no. 88. smooth complexions or laid down in a dense pattern, resulting literature: James 1895a, 156-74; Heimann 1932, 5-12, 16, 22, 24, 58, in the ruddy faces of older men. The illuminations of the Giac, 60, figs. 6-9; Meiss and Thomas 1973, 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, 246; Meiss Rohan and Madonna Masters, and of their assistants, are 1974, 263-66, 306-307, figs. 857, 862, 863, 865-67; Harthan 1977, 114-117; Büttner 1983, 10, 127 n. 196, 146 n. 54, 167, 210, fig. 190; comparable in materials and techniques, if not in level of Camille 1985a, 227-46; Emmerson 2007; König 2007b; L’Estrange execution and refinement. 2008, 114-52, 201-219; Panayotova 2014 (with earlier literature). SP/PR
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