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Girolamo dai Libri, Italy, Verona, c. 1495–1500
Saint John the Baptist, in an Initial ‘D’ from a Gradual
167 x 126 mm
Girolamo dai Libri
Saint John the Baptist, in an Initial ‘D’ from a Gradual
Italy, Verona, c. 1495–1500
167 x 126 mm
$50000.00
In a delicately painted composition, John the Baptist stands full-length in a
landscape that is meant to be Jordan, where he conducted his baptisms, and
points to the lamb he holds in his left hand, presumably at the moment when
he states “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”
(John 1:29).
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Description
In a delicately painted composition, John the Baptist stands full-length in a landscape that is meant to be Jordan, where he conducted his baptisms, and points to the lamb he holds in his left hand, presumably at the moment when he states “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Dressed in a red cloak covering the sparser brown tunic, the youthful John appears calm and serene. The initial ‘D’ introduced the Introit at Vespers for the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24, with the words from Isaiah 49:1: “De ventre matris meae” (From my mother’s womb [the Lord called me by name]). Ornate acanthus leaves in purple-pink and green encircle the initial, articulated at the midpoints of its ascenders with a blue bauble and a blue grotesque face.
We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for pointing out that the present illumination most likely comes from the same series of Choir Books as an initial ‘M’ of Saint George and the Dragon (location unknown; London, Sotheby’s, 10 July 2012, lot 9), with which it shares stylistic similarities. Both take place in a deep ample landscape, the figure, finely painted and delicate, occupying the foreground. Of similar, substantial dimensions (George measures 165 × 123 mm), both initials are composed of purple-pink acanthus leaves with comparable decorative components on a rich gold leaf ground. Eberhardt connected the miniature of Saint George to fragments of a dismembered Antiphonalof the Congregation of San Georgio in Braida in Verona, the Saint George honoring the patron saint of the community (1986). T his must be the same series of Choir Books to which Vasari refers: “Miniò Girolamo… molte cose…ai frati di San Giorgio” (Girolamo illuminated … many things…for the monks of San Giorgio). The Choir Books no longer exist, but Luigi di Canossa records seeing forty initials from them in 1911 in an album belonging to Count Miniscalchi Erizzo (1912).
We can now bring together a group of cuttings, mostly of similar dimensions, comparable refined figural style and landscapes, and virtually identical construction of the initials, that most likely come from the same series of Choir Books. These include the Three Mary’s at the Tomb in an initial ‘A’ (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 62.122.17), the Holy Family in an initial ‘C’ (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cutting Z.3), and Christ Calling Saints Peter and Andrew in an initial ‘D’ (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cutting It. 66).
At least one of these initials displays the same blue grotesque on the ascender, a feature also found in some surviving cuttings of decorated initials that seem therefore to have the same origin. A bas-de-page fragment of the Dormition of the Virgin is similar and should be assigned the same date range; compare the apostle second from the right to Saint John the Baptist. Although undated, the cuttings from San Giorgio were most likely painted around the same time as those from the series of Choir Books intended for Santa Maria in Organo, so well reconstructed by Castiglione (2008) and with documented payments to both Francesco and Girolamo between 1495 and 1501. Liberale da Verona (1441–1527) collaborated on the Organo Choir Books, as he did on those for San Giorgio.
We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for his expertise.
provenance
London, Sam Fogg, 1994/95;
Switzerland, Private Collection.
literature
Related literature:
Canossa 1912;
Eberhardt in Verona 1986, esp. pp. 267ff, and for the Liberale companion pieces, pp. 220–21, cat. 37.1 and 37.2;
Quattrini in Bollati 2004, pp. 389–90;
Verona 2008, p. 104, fig. 26, on p. 206;
Castiglioni 2011; Szépe in Hindman and Toniolo 2021, pp. 399–401.
learn
From a dynasty of painters in Verona, called the “dai libri” (of the books), Girolamo dai Libri was the most prominent. Girolamo trained with his father Francesco (c. 1452–1505), who was an illuminator, the son of another illuminator Stefano (documented 1403–1473), making Girolamo the third generation of artists in the family. A brother Calisto (1483–1541) likewise became an illuminator. Carrying on the family tradition into the fourth generation, Girolamo’s son, Francesco (c. 1510–1544), also took up the profession. In the second edition of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, he devotes a section to the dai Libri family, praising especially Girolamo as a child prodigy who became the most valued of his era both in Lombardy and the Venetian territories. Yet, there is only one documented work attributed to either Francesco the elder or Girolamo, a manuscript in Padua (Biblioteca del Seminario, MS 432, fol. 112v), whose colophon states “Et magister Franciscus miniator de sancto paulo Veronae miniavit” (And Master Francesco illuminator of Saint Paul’s of Verona, illuminated this). Nevertheless, based on this signed miniature and the body of seven works that Vasari credits to Girolamo, an accepted corpus and a chronology have been advanced mostly by Gino Castiglioni and Hans Joachim Eberhardt initially in 1986, although it is still not certain which works are by Francesco and which by Girolamo especially in the 1490s. Active as both as an illuminator and as a painter of monumental works, Girolamo’s manuscripts date primarily before 1505 and after about the late 1520s. Among the Choir Books Vasari assigns to Girolamo are manuscripts from San Michele Arcangelo of Montescaglioso in the Kingdom of Naples, Santissimo Salvatore and the Cathedral of San Michel e Arcangelo at Candiana near Padua, the monasteries of Santa Giustina of Padua and Santa Maria Assunta in Praglia, as well for the “frati di San Giorgio” (brothers of Saint George), possibly San Giorgio in Braida in Verona itself. Others have since been identified as well. Influences on his style include Andrea Mantegna and the father and son Domenico and Francesco Morone.