THE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS OF ITALY AND SPAIN.
_Classic survival._
As has been already mentioned, the old classical forms survived in the
manuscript miniatures of Italy for many centuries with but little
alteration.
A slow, but steady degradation in the forms of classic art began to take
place about the fifth or sixth century; the fact being that no art can for
long remain stationary; there must be either advance or decay, and when the
habit of copying older forms has once become the established rule an
artistic degradation soon becomes inevitable.
_Italian decadence._
Just as the manuscript art of the Byzantine illuminators first lost its
vitality and then rapidly deteriorated, so in Italy the late surviving
classical style of miniature became weaker and weaker in drawing, feebler
in touch, and duller in composition, till in the eleventh and twelfth
century a very low stage of degradation was reached, at the very period
when the illuminator's art in more northern countries was growing into the
most vigorous development of power and decorative beauty.
The great Renaissance of art in Italy, which led to such magnificent
results in the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, in its first
beginnings lagged behind the artistic movement in the north, so that during
the thirteenth century, when England, France and Germany had almost reached
their climax of artistic growth, Italy had hardly begun to advance[173].
_MS. of Donizo._
As an example of the degraded state of Italian art during the twelfth
century I may mention a manuscript in the Vatican library (_Vat._
4922)[174] of a poem in honour of the Countess Matilda written by a monk of
Canossa named Donizo, which has a number of miniature illustrations. These
are of the lowest type, utterly feeble in the drawing of the human form and
quite without any feeling for the folds of drapery; the figures are mere
shapeless masses without any decorative beauty of colour to make up for the
helpless ignorance of the draughtsman; see fig. 47.
Later on in the twelfth century, and during the first half of the
thirteenth century, art in Italy was mainly a feeble reflection of the then
degraded art of the Byzantines. This was partly due to the introduction
into Italy of mosaic-workers from Constantinople, such as those who
decorated the vault of the old Cathedral of Florence (now the Baptistery)
with badly drawn but grandly decorative mosaics of the Day of Doom[175].
_Oderisi of Gubbio._
Little is known of the two illuminators of manuscripts who are immortalized
by Dante (_Purg._ xi. 79-83). Oderisi of Gubbio, whom Dante calls the
"Honour of the art that in Paris is called _alluminare_," is said to have
been employed by Pope Boniface VIII. to illuminate manuscripts in Rome
about the time of the great Jubilee of 1300, when Dante visited Rome as an
envoy from Florence.
_Franco of Bologna._
Franco (Francesco) of Bologna is the other miniaturist mentioned by Dante
as an artist of great merit; nothing is known of him or of his works.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Bologna was one of the chief
Italian centres for the production of manuscripts, partly on account of its
being the seat of one of the oldest and most important Universities of
Europe.
[Illustration: Fig. 47. Illumination from an Italian manuscript executed
for the Countess Matilda in the twelfth century; this illustrates the
extreme decadence of art in Italy before the thirteenth century.]
_MS. of Giotto's school._
One of the finest manuscripts of the Florentine school, executed by an
unknown _miniatore_ of the school of Giotto, is a _Missal_ in the Chapter
library of the Canons of Saint Peter's in Rome. The arms of the donor,
repeated several times among the floreated borders, show that the
manuscript was illuminated for Giotto's patron Cardinal Gaetano
Stefaneschi, probably between 1330 and 1340. The same volume contains, by
the same illuminator's hand, a richly illuminated _Life of Saint George_,
with large historiated capitals of great beauty and finely decorative
colouring. Fig. 48 shows one of the initials with Saint George slaying the
dragon, and the Princess Saba kneeling at the side.
_Italian art in France._
In some cases, especially during the fourteenth century, skilful Italian
illuminators appear to have worked in France. Many French and even Flemish
manuscripts, such as some of those executed for Philip of Burgundy and the
Duc de Berri towards the end of the century, show distinctly two styles of
painting, French and Italian, the book evidently being the work of two
different artists. Some of these Italian paintings in French manuscripts
suggest the hand of a disciple of Simone Martini (Memmi), or some artist of
the very decorative Sienese school; this was probably in many cases due to
the introduction of Italian painters into Avignon when the Papal court was
resident there; see page 140.
_Late artistic revival._
It was, however, not till nearly the middle of the fourteenth century that
Italy produced many illuminated manuscripts of any remarkable beauty. Those
executed under the immediate influence of Giotto, between 1300 and about
1340, were not as a rule to be compared to the illuminations of northern
Europe either for decorative value or for minute beauty of detail.
By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, the illuminator's art in
Italy, and especially in Florence, had reached a very high degree of
excellence.
[Illustration: Fig. 48. Miniature of St George and the Dragon from a
_Missal_, illuminated about 1330 to 1340 by a painter of the school of
Giotto.]
_Monastic painters._
_Don Silvestro._
Vasari, in his life of Don Lorenzo Monaco[176], mentions a Camaldolese monk
of the Monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli near Florence, who, about the
year 1350, wrote and illuminated a number of magnificent choir-books for
his monastery, which were very highly valued; so much so that after the
death of the monk, whose name was Don Silvestro, his hand was preserved in
a shrine as a sacred relic of the dead monk's piety and skill[177]. Some of
Don Silvestro's manuscripts are now preserved in the Laurentian library in
Florence, and a number of miniatures cut out of his choir-books were
acquired by W. Young Ottley[178].
_MSS. of Don Silvestro._
_Methods of decoration._
The existing works of Don Silvestro show that the enthusiasm of his fellow
monks was not exaggerated. The miniatures are noble in style, finished with
the most exquisitely minute touch, splendidly brilliant in colour, and in
every way masterpieces of the illuminator's art. These choir-books are of
enormous size, being intended to be placed on the central choir lectern so
that the whole body of monks standing round could chant the _antiphonalia_
from the same book, and the initials are proportionately large to the size
of the page. Thus some of the figures of Saints which fill the central
spaces of the large initials are as much as from six to seven inches in
height, and yet they are painted with the minute detail of an ordinary
sized miniature. The grounds of these splendid figures are usually of
burnished gold, decorated by incised tooling of diapers or scroll-work; and
the floreated borders, which surround the letters and form marginal
ornaments to the pages, consist of nobly designed conventional foliage in
vermilion, ultramarine and other fine pigments, relieved and lighted up by
bosses of burnished gold thickly sprinkled among the sumptuous coloured
foliage. Tooled and burnished gold is also used largely for the decoration
of the dresses of the figures, their crowns, jewelled ornaments and the
apparels and orphreys of their vestments. The whole effect is magnificent
in the extreme, and yet, in spite of the dazzling brilliance of the gold
and colours, the whole effect is perfectly harmonious and free from the
harsh gaudiness which disfigures so much of the late fifteenth century work
of the French and Flemish manuscript painters.
_Italian ornament._
The special style of ornament used by Don Silvestro survived in Italian
illumination for nearly a century and a half. In Italy realistic forms of
fruit and flowers, such as were painted with such taste and skill by the
northern miniaturists, were scarcely ever used. All through the fifteenth
century, alike in the manuscripts of the Florentine, Sienese and Venetian
schools, the same purely conventional forms of foliage were used, with
great curling leaves, alternately blue and red, lighted up by the
jewel-like studs and bosses of burnished gold.
_The monk Don Lorenzo._
According to Vasari, the same Camaldolese Monastery produced another
manuscript illuminator whose skill was hardly inferior to that of Don
Silvestro. This was Don Lorenzo, who appears to have been born about 1370,
and to have died about 1425[179]. Examples of his skill, also in the form
of large choir-books, are preserved in the Laurentian library at Florence;
they are rich with miniatures of great beauty, and, like Don Silvestro's
paintings, show a lavish expenditure of time and patience in the exquisite
minuteness with which they are finished. Vasari tells us that his hand also
was preserved as a sacred relic in the treasury of Santa Maria degli
Angeli.
_Visit of Leo X._
In later times Pope Leo X., who, like other members of the Medici family,
was an enthusiastic lover of illuminated manuscripts, when on a visit to
the Monastery, desired to carry away to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome
some of these choir-books by the hand of Don Lorenzo[180].
_Dominican painters._
The Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence, where the famous Florentine
painter Fra Beato Angelico[181] was a Friar, possesses, or till quite
recently did possess, a magnificent collection of choir-books richly
illuminated with miniatures by various members of the Convent. Some of
these are said to have been painted by Fra Angelico himself, others by a
brother of his who was a Friar in the same Convent[182].
The records of the Dominican Convent at Fiesole, where Fra Angelico was
born, show that he was working there as a painter of illuminated
manuscripts in the year 1407 and for some time subsequently.
_Fra Angelico's style._
It is noticeable that Fra Angelico's style, even when painting a colossal
mural fresco, was essentially that of the manuscript illuminator. He is
utterly unrealistic in drawing and still more so in colour; he deals with
no possible effects of light and shade, but paints all his figures glowing
with the most brilliant effects of gold and colour, in a style far earlier
than that of his own date, and with certain technical peculiarities which,
as a rule, are to be found only in the illuminations of manuscripts[183].
_MSS. of northern Italy._
_Renaissance in Italy._
In the fifteenth century the manuscript art of central and northern Italy,
especially Siena, Florence, Venice and Milan, rose to a pitch of beauty and
perfection which left it quite without rival in any country in the world.
As was the case in writing of the glories of such manuscripts as the French
_Apocalypses_ of the fourteenth century, words are inadequate to describe
the refined beauty of the best Italian manuscripts of this period. As has
been already pointed out Italy was late in beginning her artistic
Renaissance; and now, just when the rest of Europe was sinking into a more
or less rapid and complete state of decadence, Italy blossomed out into one
of the most magnificent artistic periods that the world has ever seen[184].
The manuscripts of this period are not unworthy of the general artistic
glories of the time, and in some cases their technical qualities bear
witness to an almost superhuman amount of dexterity and patience.
During the first half of the century, by far the greater proportion of the
manuscripts written in Italy were for ecclesiastical purposes. Among the
most magnificent, but at the same time also the rarest, are folio
manuscript _Pontificals_[185], executed for wealthy ecclesiastics of
Episcopal rank.
_The Fitzwilliam Pontifical._
An Italian folio _Pontifical_, dating from early in the fifteenth century,
in the library of the Fitzwilliam Museum, is of its kind, one of the most
beautiful manuscripts in the world. The delicacy of execution of the
figures and especially the faces is little short of miraculous, and the
numerous historiated initials, each representing some episcopal act of
Consecration or Benediction, scattered thickly all through the volume, are
a remarkable proof of the patient, unwearied skill which through years of
labour must have been devoted to this one superb volume.
_Italian poems._
_The owner's arms._
Among the illuminated manuscripts with secular texts the most important are
copies of Dante's _Divine Comedy_, the works of Boccaccio and the Poems of
Petrarch. The first page of such works as these is usually richly decorated
with a wide border of scroll foliage, studded with the usual gold bosses.
Frequently small miniatures in medallion frames are set at intervals among
the conventional leafage; and at the bottom is a shield to receive the
owner's coat of arms, surrounded with a delicately painted leafy wreath,
which is supported on each side by a graceful figure of a flying angel or
Cupid[186]. In many cases the shield is still left blank; the book not
having been written for any special purchaser and the owner having
neglected to insert his arms[187].
The painting of the wreath which surrounds the shield is usually very
beautiful, and the two flying angels or _amorini_ are models of grace. This
motive of the wreath held by two flying figures was largely used by the
Florentine sculptors of the fifteenth century, such as Ghiberti and Luca
della Robbia; it was suggested by the similar design, of very inferior
execution, which occurs on so many ancient Roman sarcophagi.
_Classical influence._
Some of the most elaborate Italian manuscripts of the second half of the
fifteenth century are decorated with very minutely and cleverly painted
copies of antique classical gems, cameos, coins and medals, or reliefs in
marble and bronze. Wonderful skill is often shown by the way in which the
illuminator has given the appearance of relief and the actual texture of
the metal or stone[188]. Beautiful as the borders of this class are, they
belong to a period of decadence of taste, though not of skill, and they
paved the way for the elaborate futilities of Giulio Clovio and other
miniaturists of the sixteenth century period of decadence.
_Capture of Constantinople._
The influx of Greek exiles into Florence, after the conquest of
Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, led to the famous revival of
classical learning, and for a while made Florence not only the artistic but
the intellectual centre of the world. Many of these fugitive Greeks brought
with them both Greek and Latin manuscripts of ancient date, and a new
development of manuscript art took place in consequence of this.
_Copyism of early writing._
Though manuscripts of Service books and other sacred works continued to be
written in the mediaeval "Gothic" form of character, for secular
manuscripts[189] a very beautiful kind of "Roman" hand was largely used by
the scribes of Florence, Venice and other Italian centres of the
illuminator's art. This newly developed mode of writing was based on the
beautiful clear form of character which had been used by the most skilful
northern scribes of the ninth and tenth century; and at the same time a
style of illumination for borders and initials was imitated or rather
adapted, with the utmost taste and skill from the characteristic interlaced
patterns of England, France and Germany during the twelfth century.
_Celtic style of ornament._
This beautiful kind of ornament consists of delicately interlaced and
plaited bands of white or gold, thrown into relief by filling in the
background, or spaces between the laced bands, with alternating colours,
blue, red and green.
This style of initial was also largely used for the early printed books of
Rome, Florence and Venice[190], many copies of which were illuminated in
the most magnificent way, quite equal to the ornaments of the finest vellum
manuscripts.
Some of the Italian manuscripts of the second half of the fifteenth
century, for delicate beauty and for exquisite refinement of detail, are
unrivalled by the illuminated manuscripts of any other country or age.
_Italian Horae._
Among the greatest marvels of human skill that have ever been produced are
some of the very small _Books of Hours_ which were executed for the
merchant princes of Florence and Venice and for other wealthy Italian
patrons. The borders in these frequently have minute figures of Cupid-like
angels (amorini) playing among decorative foliage, or birds and animals,
such as fawns, cheetahs and the like, designed with an amount of grace and
modelled with a microscopic refinement of touch that no words can
adequately describe.
_Beauty of the text._
And it is not only the unequalled beauty of the painted decorations and
miniatures for which these late Italian manuscripts are so remarkable; the
mere writing of the text in the most brilliant black and red ink is of
striking beauty in the form of the letters and the perfect regularity of
the whole. Last of all the vellum used by the Italian scribes of this
period is far more beautiful, from its ivory-like perfection of tint and
surface, than that of any other class of manuscripts. Though not, of
course, as exquisitely thin as the uterine vellum of the Anglo-Norman
thirteenth century scribes, it is more beautiful in texture, and does much
to complete the artistic perfection of the manuscripts of fifteenth century
Italy, by its exquisitely polished surface and perfect purity of tint.
_MSS. of N. Italy._
The provinces of Florence, Pisa, Siena, Bologna and Venice, including
Verona, were all important centres for the production of fine illuminated
manuscripts. On the whole Florence was the most famous in this as in other
branches of art, and it was especially to Florence that wealthy foreign
Princes sent their commissions when they desired to possess exceptionally
beautiful manuscripts.
_Corvinus a patron of art._
One of the most enthusiastic art patrons of Europe, Matthias Corvinus, King
of Hungary from 1458 to 1490, had a large number of most magnificent
manuscripts written and illuminated for him by various _miniatori_ of
Florence; some of these are now in the Imperial library of Vienna.
So also Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino about the same time,
purchased from a Florentine that most superbly illuminated Bible, in two
large folio volumes, dated 1478, which is now in the Vatican library[191].
_Attavante the miniaturist._
Among the miniaturists who worked for King Corvinus, the most famous was a
Florentine named Attavante di Gabriello, who was born in 1452. Vasari
mentions him as a pupil and friend of Fra Angelico[192], and describes at
great length and with much enthusiasm a sumptuous manuscript of Silius
Italicus, belonging to the Dominican Monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo in
Venice, as being the work of Attavante.
This once magnificent manuscript still exists, but in a much mutilated
state, in the Venetian Biblioteca Marciana (Cl. XII. Cod. LXVIII.); all the
large miniatures have been cut out, but the borders with winged Cupids,
birds and animals among decorative scroll-work are marvels of beauty and
minute delicacy of touch. Though quite worthy of Attavante's fame, this
manuscript cannot be his work, as it was executed many years too early, in
the time of Pope Nicholas V., who reigned from 1447 to 1455.
_MSS. at Venice._
The same library does, however, possess real examples of Attavante's
wonderful illuminations. The borders are specially remarkable for the
minute medallion heads which are introduced among the conventional foliage.
These minute pictures occur in many of the finest manuscripts of this
class; and other _miniatori_ painted them with a microscopic refinement of
detail, quite equal to the best illuminations of Attavante. Fig. 49 gives a
good typical example of this style of border, with two Cupid-like angels
and busts of saints in quatrefoil medallions.
Some of the borders of this class, especially in Venetian and Florentine
manuscripts, are decorated with very cleverly painted representations of
jewels, such as the emerald and ruby, set at intervals along each margin.
These are often wonderful examples of skilful realism, the transparency of
the gem, and its bright reflected lights, being rendered with an almost
deceptive appearance of reality.
_The miniaturists called dai Libri._
In the fifteenth century Verona was one of the chief Italian centres for
the production of magnificent manuscripts. Various members of one family,
known from their occupation as "dai Libri," were specially famous as
miniaturists. Stefano the eldest was born about 1420; he and his younger
brother Francesco were both skilled miniaturists, and Francesco's son
Girolamo dai Libri (1474 to 1556) was famous not only as a _miniatore_, but
also as a painter of altar-pieces and other sacred pictures on a large
scale[193].
[Illustration: Fig. 49. An illuminated border from a manuscript by
Attavante of characteristic north Italian style.]
_Liberale of Verona._
Another Veronese painter, Liberale di Giacomo, who was born in 1451, was in
his youth a very skilful miniaturist.
He spent some years in illuminating large choir-books for the Benedictine
monastery of Monte Oliveto near Siena, and then after 1469 he was for long
occupied in the illumination of similar choir-books for the Cathedral of
Siena[194].
The miniatures in these great _Antiphonals_ are most exquisitely finished,
rich in fancy, brilliant in colour, but wanting decorative breadth of
style. With a far greater expenditure of labour and eyesight, these
wonderful illuminations are far inferior to the works of the fourteenth
century French miniaturists, and show signs of that decadence of taste,
which, in the sixteenth century, led to the destruction of the true
illuminator's art[195].
_MSS. of N. Italy._
In addition to Venice, Padua and Ferrara were both important centres of
manuscript illumination of a very high order during the fifteenth century.
The Paduan miniatures show strongly the influence of Andrea Mantegna and
Gian Bellini, whose styles also appear in the contemporary manuscripts of
Venice. The British Museum possesses a magnificent example of the work of
one of the ablest _miniatori_ of Padua, a _Missal_ by Benedetto Bordone,
who also illuminated the great choir-books of the Convent of Santa Justina
in Padua.
[Illustration: Fig. 50. A miniature from the Bible of Duke Borso d'Este,
painted between 1455 and 1461 by illuminators of the school of Ferrara.]
_School of Ferrara._
Ferrara too produced many very beautiful manuscripts, especially under the
patronage of Duke Borso d'Este. It was for this Duke of Ferrara that the
magnificent choir-books, now in the Municipal library at Ferrara were
executed.
Fig. 50 shows a miniature from a very splendid Bible, which was illuminated
for Duke Borso d'Este between 1455 and 1461 by Taddeo di Crivelli and
Franco di Messer Giovanni da Russi, two very talented miniaturists of the
Ferrarese school, though they were natives of the neighbouring city of
Mantua.
_Parma and Modena._
Parma, Modena and Cremona also were thriving centres of the illuminators
art; in fact wherever in Italy there was a school of painting a subsidiary
school of manuscript miniaturists seems also to have existed. The two
classes of painting acted and reacted upon one another; and in some cases,
as is indicated below[196], the more important art of painting on a large
scale owed more to the manuscript illuminators than has commonly been
acknowleged.
_School of Milan._
Milan, especially under Duke Ludovico and other members of the Sforza
family, was an active centre of manuscript illumination. Some very
beautiful late manuscripts exist with miniatures which show the influence
of Leonardo da Vinci and his pupil Bernardino Luini; a _Book of Hours_ in
the Fitzwilliam Museum is a good example of this.
_Illuminated documents._
One rather exceptional class of richly illuminated manuscripts was largely
produced in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; these were
State documents, University diplomas and licences, patents of nobility and
legal instruments of various kinds, often very elaborately decorated with
illuminations and miniatures in gold and colours.
In Venice especially immense numbers of these were produced; the most
elaborate are Appointments of Governors, Commissions of officials of rank,
Patriarchal Briefs, together with State records and documents of the most
varied kinds. Bologna, Padua, Pisa and others of the chief Universities of
Italy issued diplomas for Doctors degrees, and licences to give lectures,
which were frequently very magnificently decorated with letters of gold and
richly illuminated capitals and borders.
_Retables like MSS._
Before passing on to the Italian _miniatori_ of the last period, it is
worth while to notice the strong influence that the art of manuscript
illumination had on the painters of large retables and other sacred
pictures in Italy and especially in Venice; just as was the case with the
contemporary painters of Germany and Flanders[197]. Many of the Venetian
altar-pieces, from their minute detail, their use of burnished gold
enriched with tooled patterns, their decorative treatment of flowers and
their architectural backgrounds and framework, look exactly like a page
from an illuminated manuscript.
_Retable at Venice._
Fig. 51 shows a characteristic example of this, a magnificent retable
glowing with brilliant colours and burnished gold, now in the Accademia of
Venice, which was painted in 1446 in the little island of Murano by two
painters named Johannes and Antonius de Murano[198].
The same strongly marked influence of the decorative style of illuminated
manuscripts is to be seen in nearly all the works of Carlo Crivelli,
another Venetian painter of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and
in the gorgeous retables of Gentile da Fabriano[199], a follower of Fra
Angelico's richly decorative and brilliantly coloured method of painting.
_The XVIth century._
_Italian manuscripts of the sixteenth century._ By about the end of the
first decade of the sixteenth century the art of manuscript illumination
had ceased in Italy to be a real living art; and, though it continued to be
practised with great technical skill for more than half a century later,
the art, which once had been one of the most beautiful and dignified of all
branches of art, sank into the production of costly toys to please a few
Popes and luxurious Princes who were willing to pay very large prices for
manuscripts illuminated by the skilful hands of Giulio Clovio and other
miniaturists, whose patience, eyesight and technical skill were superior to
their sense of what was fitting and beautiful in an illuminated manuscript.
[Illustration: Fig. 51. A Venetian retable by Giovanni and Antonio di
Murano, in the style of an illuminated manuscript.]
_Giulio Clovio._
Of all the illuminators of this class the Dalmatian Giulio Clovio[200]
(1498-1578) was the most famous and technically the most skilful. He found
many wealthy patrons in Italy and was employed by Charles V. of France.
The Soane Museum in London possesses a characteristic example of his style,
a _Commentary on the Epistles of Saint Paul_, executed for Giulio's early
patron, Cardinal Marino Grimani of Venice, the brother of the owner of the
Grimani _Breviary_ mentioned above. Clovio's miniatures are marvels of
minute execution, but not truly decorative in style, and in design usually
quite unsuited to their purpose. In most cases they resemble large oil
paintings reduced to a microscopic scale; the figures are commonly feeble
imitations either of large pieces of contemporary tapestry or else of
painting in Michel Angelo's grandiose style, both of which of course were
utterly unsuited for miniatures in a manuscript[201].
_The Vatican MSS._
_The Manuscripts in the Vatican Library._ The Archives of the Vatican
library contain a number of records of the development of the library
during the sixteenth century and later[202].
In mediaeval times manuscripts were rare and costly, so that even Kings,
Popes and Universities possessed libraries which in size were very
insignificant compared to those of ancient Alexandria, Rome and Byzantium.
_The Vatican library._
Even in Leo X.'s time (1513-1522) the Vatican library, which was probably
the largest in the world, contained only 4,070 manuscripts and printed
books. A century earlier, before the invention of printing, two or three
hundred volumes would have constituted an enormous library.
As a rule even Royal and Public libraries were contained in a few
iron-bound chests or _armaria_; and borrowers had to deposit a pledge--a
gold ring, a silver cup or some other valuable article, which was retained
by the librarian till the manuscript had been restored. In the Vatican this
practice survived till the sixteenth century, and books exist among the
Archives in which were recorded the date, the title of the book, the
borrower's name and a short description of the deposited pledge. When the
book was returned the word "restituit" was written in the margin.
_Payments to scribes._
The same Archives contain a number of accounts giving the sums paid to
various illuminators of manuscripts, especially in the time of Pope Paul
III. (Alex. Farnese, 1534 to 1553), who was a great patron of Giulio Clovio
and other miniaturists. In 1540 a number of _scriptores et miniatores_
employed in the Vatican library received as pay 4 gold ducats each monthly,
of 10 Julii to the ducat, equal to about £20 in modern value.
In 1541 Messer Paolo received 30 gold ducats for writing and illuminating
four volumes.
_Del Piombo as an illuminator._
It is interesting to note that the famous painter Sebastiano del
Piombo[203] ("Fra Bastiano piombator") received payment "pro libris
miniatis" in the year 1546 from Pope Paul III.
In 1549 Federigo Mario di Perugia received 4½ ducats a month for his labour
"in scribendis et ornandis seu pingendis libris." This is the same
miniaturist who illuminated some choir-books for the Roman Monastery of
Saint' Agostino[204].
It was especially for the great choir-books that the art of the scribe and
illuminator survived, the reason being that no printers' fount of type had
characters of sufficient size to be read by a whole circle of singers. Thus
we find Italian and Spanish manuscript _Antiphonals_[205] and the like,
which have the grand Gothic writing of the fifteenth century executed as
late as the year 1620 or even later[206].
_Spanish MSS._
_The Manuscripts of Spain, Portugal and the East._ Little need be said
about the manuscript illuminations of the Spanish peninsula since they
contain little that is native or original.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many magnificent illuminations
were produced in Spain and Portugal, but they are mainly imitations either
of Italian or of Flemish miniatures. In earlier times in Northern Spain the
influence of France was paramount, and in Southern Spain the beautiful
"Saracenic" art of the Moorish conquerors influenced all branches of the
fine arts, including that of manuscript illumination.
_Moslem influence._
To some extent the same Moslem influence is apparent in the decorative
borders of Sicilian and Venetian manuscripts, especially during the
fifteenth century.
The illuminations of Oriental manuscripts do not fall within the limits of
this brief treatise, but it should be noted that during the mediaeval
period, and down to the present century, Persian and Arabic manuscripts
with decorative illuminations of extraordinary beauty and skilful execution
have been largely produced in Syria, Persia and India under the Moslem
conquerors.
For delicacy of touch, for intricate beauty of ornament, and for decorative
splendour in the use of gold and colour, these Oriental manuscripts are, in
their own way, unsurpassed.
_Persian MSS._
In the orthodox Sunni manuscripts miniatures with figure subjects do not
occur, but are lavishly used in the manuscripts of the Persians and other
members of the Sufi sect. The drawing of the human form is without the
dignity and grace that is to be seen in Western manuscripts, but as pieces
of decoration the Oriental miniatures are of high merit. Copies of the
_Koran_, and the works of the favourite Persian poets are among the most
common kinds of Oriental manuscripts. It is the latter that are so often
sumptuously decorated with figure subjects.