Miniatures

The miniature shows Saint Mary Magdalene, although the same story of long hair covering the nakedness of the penitent is told too of Saint Mary of Egypt. According to Jacob of Voragine’s Golden Legend (Lives of Saints), Mary Magdalene retired to the Sanctuary of Sainte-Baume in the wilderness in southern France, living alone as a hermit for thirty years, without eating or drinking. Every day two angels lifted her up to Heaven, where she received spiritual food instead; this secret miracle was once witnessed by a priest, hiding in the bushes. To protect her modesty, her hair miraculously grew in abundance covering her entire body. The initial here, although it looks like a ‘C’, can only be a ‘V’, for the text must be the response on the feast of Saint Mary Magdalen, 22 July, “Vid[ens erg]o [flentem…]” (Seeing the tears) with the verso from the antiphon “[Speci]e tua et pulcri[tudine tu]a; Responsa, Intende [prospere…]” (Through thee will we push back our enemies). The present cutting thus comes from the type of Choir Book known as an Antiphonal, which comprises the chants from the daily offices performed in the choir from Matins to Compline.

The cutting belonged to James Dennistoun (1803–1855), Scottish antiquary and art historian, who in 1838 on an extended trip to Italy acquired a series of thirty-nine cuttings excised from a dismantled Antiphonal, which came allegedly from the Carthusian abbey of Santo Spirito in Farneto (Lucca), or the Certosa. The entire group of leaves is accepted as related to the patronage of Niccolò di Lazzaro Guinigi, Bishop of Lucca (d. 1435). Dennistoun mounted them into an album, which was acquired much later by the great art historian, connoisseur, and collector Sir Kenneth Clark of Saltwood. Eighteen of them were then sold at Kenneth Clark’s sale in London, Sotheby’s 18, June 1962, and these later appeared in H. P. Kraus’s Illuminations catalogue 172, 1985 (with an additional two, totaling twenty). This group is by Niccolò di Giacomo da Bologna. Another eighteen of them were sold after Kenneth Clark’s death in 1984 in London at Sotheby’s. The present cutting comes from the second series of cuttings from the second Clark sale. The group of miniatures contributes to the early history of collecting manuscript illuminations and cuttings in albums, discussed elsewhere in this catalogue and in more detail by Hindman et al. in 2001.

Dispersed in various collections since the Clark sale in 1984, the eighteen leaves in the second set were initially attributed in their entirety to Martino di Bartholomeo (active 1389–1434), whose primary activity is localized in and around Siena. However, over time scholars have refined our understanding of the sequence and attributions of the Lucchese Choir Books. The Bishop Niccolò is known to have brought artists to Lucca, including Niccolò di Giacomo from Bologna (active 1349–1403) and Martino di Bartolomeo from Siena from whom he commissioned a set of Choir Books. The first set of eighteen leaves by Niccolò di Giacomo were made for him for the Carthusian abbey of Santo Spirito in Farneto (Lucca) between 1392 and 1403. But the death of the former in 1403 and the departure of the latter for Siena in 1405 meant that for the continuation of the series of Choir Books, the bishop donor commissioned another artist, a follower of Martino, to complete the Proper of Saints; one of the cuttings, the Resurrection, bears his arms. This artist, the artist of our cutting, was much influenced by Martino, to whom the preceding Proper of Time is attributed, and Martino in turn was under the influence of Niccolò, who painted the first volumes in the set.

Our artist’s style is readily recognizable. His figures appear frontally, three-quarter length, filling the frame of the initial, and their sculpturesque faces are deeply modeled. One of his most striking features is his use of color, bright orange and fuchsia for the garments and for the acanthus, uniting the figures with the decorative borders. The bold acanthus leaves of the border complement the acanthus of the initial itself, executed in a brilliant, highly burnished gold leaf. A head appears nestled in the acanthus in the present cutting; in others, rabbits or hybrid birds cavort in the margins. Among the sister leaves attributed to the same hand and from the Proper of Saints are the following: the ‘A’ of John the Baptist, the ‘Q’ with Saints Peter and Paul, the ‘S’ with Saint Paul, the ‘E’ with Saint Gregory, the ‘Q’ with the Beheading of John the Baptist, the ‘P’ with Five Saints, the ‘D’ with Saint T homas, and the ‘T’ with Saints Thomas and Philip. Milvia Bollati (1998) provides reproductions and a listing of all eighteen leaves.

Speculation links the origins of our illuminator to two series of contemporary fresco paintings, one finished in 1398 in the Oratory of Sant John in Cascina near Pisa by a workshop of artists under Martino di Bartolomeo’s direction and the other painted in the early 1390s in the Camposanto in Pisa and attributed to Spinello Aretino who is thought to have influenced Martino. The frescoes of the apostles and saints in Cascina seem to have served as a model for the series in the Proper of Saints. These comparisons pose some difficulty due to the different effects of the media – fresco versus tempera and gold leaf. Further research on Tuscan painters and illuminators in and around Lucca may help clarify further the identity of the interesting artistic personality responsible for the striking Saint Mary Magdalene.