Text and illumination:
The initial on the verso of the leaf introduces a passage from Tobit 3:15, set to music: ‘Peto domine ut de vinculo improperii huius absolvas me …’ (I ask you Lord, in order that you absolve me from the fetter of this burden …); the recto has the preceding antiphon ‘Ne reminiscaris domine delicta mea vel parentum meorum …’ (Do not remember, Lord, my misdeeds or those of my parents …), introduced by a rubric ‘Sabbato .iiij. dominice mensis Septembris. Ad matutinas. Antiphona.’ (i.e. the Matins antiphon for the Saturday of the 4th Sunday of September). About half of the Church year has feasts that relate to the birth (Christmas) and death (Easter) of Jesus: from the beginning of Advent (four Sundays before Christmas), until Pentecost (seven Sundays after Easter). The rest of the year, from Pentecost until the following Advent, typically comprises twenty to twenty-four more weeks (depending on whether Easter in a particular year falls late or early); the liturgical texts for this period are known as the ‘Summer histories’, and are drawn from the Old Testament books of Kings, Wisdom, Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Ezra, and Maccabees. From late September the readings are from the Old Testament book of the prophet Tobit, as on the present leaf, which explains why he is depicted in the present initial.
The figure is depicted in an active stance, as if turning his head away from the bright rays that shine down from heaven, and raising one hand, either in surprise or to shield his eyes. His draperies are modelled with a fairly loose brushwork, contrasting with the precise delineation of his features, with the joints of his fingers and the creases in his forehead and around his eyes drawn with crisp black lines. The palette consists primarily of a pink modelled with white and grey for the flesh; green with darker green shadows and yellow highlights, and pale rose with white highlights for the draperies; and a block of bright orange for the headgear; all set off against a clear unmodulated bright blue background enlivened with intricate white ornament.
The style is close to that of to Giovanni di Antonio da Bologna, and our initial may be by him; see Massimo Medica in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX–XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), pp. 283–85, with older bibliography. More recent is Maria Ferroni, ‘Primi appunti per i corali quattrocenteschi di San Michele in Bosco a Bologna’, Rivista di storia della miniatura, 18 (2014), pp. 105–17, and Milvia Bollati, ‘Noterella per Giovanni di Antonio da Bologna’, Arte a Bologna: Bollettino dei Musei Civici d’Arte Antica, 9–10, Studi in onore di Massimo Medica*,* ed. by Silvia Battistini and Mark Gregory D’Apuzzo (2024), pp. 330–33.
Condition: an expertly repaired tear in the upper margin (not affecting the text or decoration), a medieval repair to the irregular edge of the lower margin, some flaking and smudging of the ink, but the initial itself in remarkably good condition
