Medieval illuminated manuscripts

The article studies the typology and evolution of the initial to the prayer “Vere Dignum” based on the material of the southern Italian liturgical scrolls. The chronological scope of the study is limited to the period from the second half of the 10th century to the end of the 11th century, when all three types of initials appeared. The special political and artistic situation prevailing in Southern Italy at that time was a fertile soil that gave rise to such peculiar cultures as Lombard principalities, Greek Bari and the Montecassino Abbey during the reign of Abbot Desiderius. Three main types of initials and their genesis have been identified, described and analyzed. The first type – a monogram "VD" – came to the decoration of southern Italian scrolls from Carolingian sacramentaries, having inherited the symbolic meaning of the monogram from its source. The second type – a letter "V", which has an outline of an inverted Greek letter Omega, indicates a conscious attempt to give a "Greek" look to the Latin liturgical scroll, which is related to the peculiarities of the territory of Bari that had both Latin and Greek clergy and churches on its territory for a long time. The third type – a letter "V" – is used in manuscripts of Montecassino scriptorium during the reign of Abbot Desiderius. The peculiarities of decoration of this type of initials indicate the desire to combine features of different decorative traditions (in particular, to combine the local Montecassino artistic tradition with Ottonian and Byzantine art). This striving for creating new and international art, going beyond the local artistic tradition, is related, among other things, to the strengthening of the role of Montecassino abbots in the subordination of the territories of Southern Italy to the papal throne and to the orientation towards a wider range of artistic sources. Thus, the article reveals the links between a certain type of initial and the cultural environment that gave rise to it, which allows the authors to more clearly see the general patterns in the art development in Southern Italy.

This article examines in detail a psalter for the use of Sarum executed in Rouen c. 1490-1500, to which a series of unexpected additions have been made. These include sections painted in the style of the Netherlandish Dark Eyes Masters and added leaves in various hands copied after engravings by Martin Schongauer. The original content of the manuscript has thus been enhanced and re-shaped through a process of customization and recycling, which was not uncommon practice in England at the time, as it can also be observed in the so-called Hours of the Earls of Ormond (Harl. 2887).

Livre d’Evangiles (Einsiedeln Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 17(405)); Lectionnaire de Saint-Gall (Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. Lat. 37a); Deux dessinateurs pour le cycle astronomique de l’Aratus Latinus (Saint-Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 250); Une longue tradition illustrée des Phainomena d’Aratos de Soloi (Saint-Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 902); Une Psychomachie illustrée de Prudence (Saint-Gall, Stifstbibliothek, cod. sang. 135)

This is a complete copy of my doctoral dissertation, completed in 1995 and defended in 1996, and supervised by Jonathan J. G. Alexander. Thanks to all of you who have expressed an interest in it. Since 1996 it also has been available via UMI and ProQuest. If you do use information from it, please do acknowledge it. You may also wish to consult my articles on Egerton 2781, the Neville of Hornby Hours (1997/98, 1999), and my 2003 book, 'Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England,' which include additional interpretations of and information about Egerton 2781 and other manuscripts.

Il volume è dedicato ai corali di San Giorgio Maggiore a Venezia, una delle principali testimonianze della miniatura italiana del Rinascimento, fortunatamente ancora in gran parte conservati nell'Abbazia che li commissionò. Testi e musica destinati alla preghiera quotidiana dei monaci sono accompagnati da illustrazioni condotte a mano con colori a tempera e lamina d'oro da miniatori quali Belbello da Pavia, Jacopo del Giallo, il Maestro dell' Antifonario Q e il Secondo Maestro dell'Antifonario M, artisti che proprio dal loro lavoro a San Giorgio derivano il nome. I saggi, le biografie dei miniatori e le schede di catalogo a firma di studiosi e specialisti di settore guidano il lettore, assieme a uno straordinario e inedito apparato iconografico, nella conoscenza dei corali, esaminati per la prima volta con uno sguardo interdisciplinare. Le nuove ricerche sulla storia, la liturgia, la musica dei volumi, assieme alla puntuale lettura stilistica e alle indagini scientifiche sulle miniature, restituiscono la grandezza della committenza benedettina e degli artisti che per essa operarono.

This volume is devoted to the choir books of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which represent some of our most important evidence for Italian Renaissance illumination and are fortunately still in large part preserved at the Abbey that commissioned them. The texts and music for the monks' daily prayers are accompanied by hand-painted tempera illustrations embellished with gold leaf, produced by such illuminators as Belbello da Pavia, Jacopo del Giallo, the Master of Antiphonary Q and the Second Master of Antiphonary M, the names of the latter artists deriving from their work at San Giorgio. The essays, biographies of the illumina-tors and catalogue entries written by scholars and specialists together with the lavish illustrations guide the reader through the discovery of the choir books, examined here for the first time from an interdisciplinary perspective. New research on the volumes' history, liturgy and music, along with meticulous stylistic analysis and scientific study of the illuminations, reveals the greatness of the Benedictine patrons and the artists who worked for them.

My talk introduces the grand yet understudied multilingual manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1)—the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illustrated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the “first full prose vernacular Bible produced in England” (Russell).  Building on the work of biblical and literary scholars, and through analysis of key elements of the manuscript’s visual and textual programs, I argue that both the Bible and its revised, modernized translation were produced c. 1365–c. 1370 on the order of a lay woman: Maud de Ros (d. 1388), widow of John, 4th Baron Welles (d. 1361) of Welle, Lincolnshire and other estates; and that the book was intended to serve as a primer, mirror, family archive, and source of spiritual consolation for Maud’s adolescent son, John, 5th Baron Welles (d. 1421). I discuss the circumstances of the commission, presenting evidence for Carmelite sponsorship and composition of the translation. I further show that the manuscript’s main artist read the biblical text assiduously, carefully adapting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to synchronize the illustrations with the particularities of the translation, as well as to personalize the biblical text for its intended reader-viewer.

My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration; the history of Bible translation and reception; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, health, and memory; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death. In addition, in illuminating some of the possible contours of the collaboration that fueled the “making” of the Welles-Ros Bible, my talk demonstrates what the methods and concerns of art history can contribute to literary and religious studies.