The Dormition of the Virgin, in a historiated initial on a very large

GIUSTINO DI GHERARDINO da Forlì

The Dormition of the Virgin, in a historiated initial on a very large leaf from an Antiphonary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. [Italy (Venice), mid to late 14th century]

14TH-CENTURY VENETIAN ILLUMINATION

Illuminated initial ‘U’ depicting the Virgin Mary on her deathbed, with two candles in the foreground, the haloed heads of the apostles in the background, above whom Christ rises in a radiant mandorla holding her soul, represented as a swaddled infant.

Single leaf, c. 580 x 395mm, ruled for five four-line staves ruled in red, with square musical notation, and five lines of text written in a fine rounded gothic textura script, one rubric in red, the recto with 17th(?)-century folio number ‘176’.

£8,500.00

Text and illumination:

The rubric reads ‘In laudib[us] et p[er] hor[um]. A[ntiphona]’ (the antiphon for Lauds and [the following] hours) and the initial introduces the text ‘Viri Galilei quid aspiciatis in celum …’ (Acts 1:11, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking toward heaven?’).

According to medieval Eastern tradition, the Virgin Mary did not die, she fell asleep and was assumed (raised) to heaven, so the iconography of her final hour is usually called her ‘Dormition’ rather than death, but the corresponding feast-day in western Europe is usually called the ‘Assumption’. Surprisingly, the artist of the present leaf has made a mistake. This text does not belong to the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, but the Ascension of Christ (when he ascended into heaven, forty days after the Resurrection).

The style of illumination is Venetian, heavily influenced by Byzantine art – especially in the use of green to model the shadows of the figures’ faces – due to Venice’s role as the main trading port with Byzantium (later renamed Constantinople). Specifically the style is shared with a group of manuscripts produced in Venice in the 1360s–80s; they are attributed to Giustino di Gheradino da Forlì, whose name occurs in a Gradual dated 1365 made for the Scuola Grande di Sant Maria della Carità, Venice. It is not certain whether Giustino was the artist, however, or if the name perhaps refers to the scribe. Nonetheless, until the issue can be more thoroughly investigated, Giustino has been accepted as a name of convenience for the group. On the style and works attributed to Giustino see Susy Marcon, in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX–XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), pp. 315–16, with further bibliography, and Andrew Chen, ‘Giustino di Gherardino da Forlì and the Antiphoners of Pavia Cathedral’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 59 (2017): 409–19.

Condition: Slight darkening at the extremities, slight rubbing to the gold, but generally in a fine state of preservation.

Stock No.

255938

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The Dormition of the Virgin, in a historiated initial on a very large leaf from an Antiphonary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. [Italy (Venice), mid to late 14th century]

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