As specimens of local centres the British Museum offers many examples. Thus Add. 15813, though ordered for Sta. Justina of Padua, was probably illuminated at Venice; 15814 at Bologna; 15260 probably at Ferrara; 18000 at Venice; most of the fragments in 21412 in Rome; 20927 in Rome; 21591 at Naples; 28962 at Naples; 21413 at Milan; the majority of the Ducali, of which the museum contains a large collection, in Venice. Some of the Spanish-looking MSS. executed for Alphonse V. of Aragon were actually produced in Naples.



It is not safe to assert that because a work is ordered for a monastery or a prince that the copyists or illuminators always went to the monastery or palace to do the work, though frequently they did so. Most of the MSS. executed for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, were produced in Florence. There was more than one atelier of illuminators in Florence. There were others in Bologna, others in Rome, and quite a large establishment in Naples. Others resided in Milan, Ferrara, and Verona. Those at Ferrara lived chiefly at the Ducal Palace. Those at Verona were the guests of the great Ghibelline leader, Can della Scala, and his immediate successors. Those at Naples, in the time of Alphonso the Magnanimous, and especially of his son, Ferdinand I., were maintained solely for the augmentation and embellishment of the Royal Library.[45] A list of seventeen copyists, including the famous names of Antonio Sinibaldo, Giovanni, Rinaldo, Mennio, and Hippolito Lunensis, and of fourteen or fifteen illuminators, all of distinguished ability, is given by Signer Riccio from the archives of the city. The splendid work they achieved may still occasionally be met with. In the British Museum (Add. 21120) there is a beautiful copy of the Ethics of Aristotle, with very peculiar initials and ornaments; and in the National Library, at Paris, many other very fine examples of Neapolitan work. Of the handwriting of Mennius we have a fine example in Add. 11912, which is a quarto copy of Lucretius, written on 160 leaves of vellum. Fol. 1 has a grand border on a gold ground, with a miniature containing a handsome initial E suspended over the author's head, who is seated at a desk writing. The first three lines of the text are in Roman capitals, alternately gold and blue. The illumination is of a transitional character, inclining rather towards the candelabra style of the Milanese and Neapolitan Renaissance—the Heures d'Aragon, executed for Frederick III., show a similar taste for candelabra, etc. On the other hand, the initials are of the older white stem type, with coloured grounds. The writing is a small and very neat Roman minuscule, and dates probably about 1485, or between 1480 and 1490. The penmanship of Hippolito Lunensis appears in Ficino's Translation of Plato; also in the British Museum, Harl. 3481, and in Add. 15270, 15271.

[45] Riccio, C.W., Cenno Storico dell Accademia Alfonsina. Naples, 1865.

The Heures d'Aragon referred to above are a rich example of the Neapolitan Renaissance preserved in the National Library at Paris. Writers on Italian miniatures are very numerous, and a good deal of interesting information about Italian MSS. may be found in M. Delisle's Cabinet des MSS., etc.

There is one style of Italian illumination made very popular by the illuminators of the works of Petrarch, many of which are found in various libraries. That is the one called the vine-stem style. It consists of gracefully coiled stems, usually left uncoloured or softly tinted with yellow, and bearing here and there peculiar ornamental flowerets, while the grounds are picked out with various colours, on which are fine white triads of dots or traceries in delicate white or golden tendrils. A later variety of this style makes the stems of some pale but bright tint, and the grounds of deep colour. The vine-stem style seems to have prevailed throughout the whole of Italy just previous to the classic revival brought about by the Medici in throwing open their museums of sculptures, coins, and other antiquities, and by the liberal patronage of the new classic work by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and the Dukes of Urbino. After 1500 the vine-stem style seems to have gradually died out, and thenceforward only varieties of the revived antique became the fashion.

To the Italian Renaissance we shall revert in a later chapter.



CHAPTER VII

GERMAN ILLUMINATION FROM THE THIRTEENTH TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Frederick II., Stupor Mundi, and his MS. on hunting—The Sicilian school mainly Saracenic, but a mixture of Greek, Arabic, and Latin tastes—The Franconian Emperors at Bamberg—Charles of Anjou—The House of Luxembourg at Prag—MSS. in the University Library—The Collegium Carolinum of the Emperor Charles IV.—MSS. at Vienna—The Wenzel Bible—The Weltchronik of Rudolf v. Ems at Stuttgard—Wilhelm v. Oranse at Vienna—The Golden Bull—Various schools—Hildesheimer Prayer-book at Berlin—The Nuremberg school—The Glockendons—The Brethren of the Pen.

In a former chapter we brought up the story of German illumination to the time of the Hohenstaufen emperors. We may now make a new start with Frederick II., the eccentric, resolute, intractable, accomplished Stupor Mundi (1210-50). Not only was he a patron and encouraged art, but also an author. The work which he composed is still extant, and is preserved in the Vatican Library under the title De arte venandi cum avibus. Paintings of birds and hunting scenes embellish its pages. The art is not specially high class, and though in courtesy it may be called German, seeing that he was the German Emperor, and in some respects is like the Imperial MSS. of the Saxon period, in point of fact it is Italian or Sicilian.[46] This Sicilian school is peculiar, and exhibits very slight traits of relationship with the rest of Italy. After the Arab conquest of the island in 827, whilst new ideas were imported, still the old Greek cities kept their ancient traditions and methods in art, especially in those branches we term industrial, and just as both Greek and Arabic tongues existed as vernaculars beside the Latin, so the arts and industries bore the features of three artistic tastes.

[46] (Bibl. Vatican, Palatina, No. 1071). Notice in Kobell, Kunstv. Miniaturen, p. 44.

The silk-weaving of the Greek craftsmen was embellished with the designs of embroidery from Damascus, and these were mingled with patterns in which the foliages of Carolingian and German origin are distinctly traceable. Examples of the kind of manufacture here referred to may be seen in the robes of the Emperor Henry II., still preserved in the Cathedral Treasury at Bamberg. Also the coronation mantle of St. Stephen of Hungary, husband of Henry's sister Gisela—originally a closed casula covering the body, but now an open cloak richly embroidered with figures of prophets, animals, and foliages, and even portraits of the King and Queen. It has sometimes been thought, from the inscription on its border, that, like the Bayeux tapestries of Queen Matilda, the needlework was from the Queen's own hand; but no doubt both these attributions are mistaken.[47] Still more Saracenic in taste are the mantle and alb now in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna, of the twelfth century, and executed at Palermo. Sicilian in some respects is intermediate between Italian and German, hence we deem this a proper place to speak of it, and rather as a transient phase than a style, for it perished with the Hohenstaufen dynasty.

[47] See description in Bock, Die Kleinodien des heiligen Rmisches Reichs, pl. 17.

The cruel tyranny of the cold-blooded despot, remembered, but execrated, in Sicily as Charles of Anjou, extinguished the last scintilla of native art, and when the Italian revival of the thirteenth century took place, it was confined entirely to the North, except when such patrons as Robert or Ferdinand or Alfonso encouraged Tuscan artists by inviting them to Naples. Palermo was no longer of importance, though a capital, and Sicily existed merely as a portion of the kingdom of Naples.

Let us pass, then, to the great German capital. Changes here, too, have taken place. It is not Bamberg but Prag, for the Imperial crown has passed from the House of Suabia through the Hapsburgs to that of Luxembourg, and among its territories is the picturesque old city with its historic bridge and gate-towers, a Slavonic not a German city in its origin. The ten German circles of Suabia and Franconia, Westphalia, Bohemia, and the rest did not as yet exist—they were the later creation of Maximilian; the Fatherland consisted of some two or three hundred dukedoms, counts, marquisates, and lordships, all absolute sovereignties, but all pledged to support the Holy Roman Empire. Very thinly, perhaps, but still the Imperial sceptre meant a real supremacy, and in the hands of such emperors as Henry of Luxembourg, a supremacy maintained with real and becoming dignity.

Prag, as we have said, is in a Slavonic country, and one sometimes hostile to the Empire. It was the capital of Bohemia. In 1310 its King was John, the restless son of the new Emperor Henry VII. of Luxembourg. Hence we find it at the moment we begin the study of its art a nominally German city. Shortly before this time were produced several examples of German work; as, for instance, the "Minnelieder," with more than a hundred miniatures of hunting scenes and similar outdoor amusements, which are useful as studies of costume, but otherwise of little interest. But it is not until 1312—the new King being then, for the sake of acquiring the crown, though only, it is said, thirteen years of age, already the husband of the Princess Elizabeth, the late King's second daughter, yet neither a favourite with his wife nor with her father's people—that the Abbess of St. George's in Prag, the Princess Cunigunda, composed a Passionale, richly illustrated with interesting miniatures. The saints, histories, and allegories are painted in tender water-colours, the architectural details being in Gothic taste. It is still preserved in the University Library at Prag, No. xiv., A. 17.[48] The Emperor Charles IV., son of the valorous but impracticable John (born 1316, died 1378), and who has already been spoken of in connection with English illumination, was the founder of the Bohemian school, or, rather, of the school of Prag. Owing probably his fine tastes and many accomplishments rather to his mother than his father, he devoted himself to art and literature, inviting painters and scholars from other countries to reside in the Bohemian capital. For the Collegium Carolinum, of which he was the founder, he caused many noble volumes to be executed, and among the vast treasures and curiosities of his celebrated Schloss Karlstein was a fine collection of illuminated MSS. In the Museum at Prag and other local libraries are still kept some relics of his library. The "Liber Viaticus" of Bishop John of Newmarkt—the "Orationale" of Bishop Arnestus (under French influence)—the "Pontificale of Bishop Albert von Sternberg" (in the library of the Prmonstrant Monastery of Strahow)—the Missal of Archbishop Ozko von Wlaschim (library of the Metropolitan Chapter in Prag)—the Evangeliary of Canon John von Troppau (Johannes de Oppavia), written and illuminated at Brunn, in Moravia, now in the Imperial Library at Vienna. All these illuminated MSS. are examples of the great variety of styles in which the Bohemian colony produced their work under the auspices of their liberal patron, yet not without peculiarities which mark the individuality of the artist. Thus while the Orationale of Arnestus is almost French, the Passionale of Cunegunda is entirely free from French influence. For costumes the Weltchronik of Rudolf von Ems, 1350-85, and now in the Royal Private Library at Stuttgard, is almost an encyclopdia. Similar is the "Legenda Aurea" of 1362 in the Public Library at Munich (Cod. Germ. 6). A very interesting MS. with miniatures of costumes and curious usages is the "Bellifortis" of Conrad Kyeser (Gttingen, Public Library, Philos., No. 63). The Evangeliary of Troppau is most beautifully written; its text is a model of elegant and perfect penmanship; its ornaments distinctly Bohemian. Three or four Prag MSS. executed for Charles's son Wenzel (1378-1409) are, it may be said, typical. Of these the grandest, though incomplete, is the illuminated Bible, called the Wenzel Bible, executed by order of Martin Rotlw for presentation to the Emperor. The choice of illustrations in this singular performance are rather more than on a par with the woodcuts of the great English Bible of Cranmer. The "Wilhelm von Oranse" of 1387, now in the Ambras Museum at Vienna (No. 7), affords splendid examples of the fine embroidered and richly coloured backgrounds we so often see towards 1400 in English MSS., and the Golden Bull of Charles IV., also in the Imperial Library at Vienna (j. c. 338), has the softly curling foliages variously coloured, which form the characteristic difference between the French and English illumination of the fifteenth century.

[48] Wocel, Mittheil. der Central.-Commiss., v., 1860, p. 75, with illustrations.

Another rich example of German as distinct from French or Italian work of this period is the grand Salzburg Missal now at Munich (Lat. 15710). When we reach the fifteenth century German illumination begins to grow gaudy, especially in the revived taste for parti-coloured border-frames, in which green and scarlet are often to be seen. The Kuttenberg Gradual at Vienna (Imp. Lib., 15501) is of the Bohemian type. Now and then a MS. will show the influence of Westphalian treatment of foliage—and, again, of the school of Cologne or Nuremberg or Augsburg. These all differ, whilst still keeping an unmistakable German character. The Hildesheimer Prayer-book at Berlin points to Cologne. The Frankendorfer Evangeliary at Nuremberg is characteristic of that city. The Choir-book of St. Ulrich and Afra in their abbey at Augsburg is typical of its locality. The Missal of Sbinco, Archbishop of Prag, inclines to Nuremberg rather than Prag (Imp. Lib., Vienna, No. 1844). It is eighty years earlier than the Augsburg and Hildesheim MSS. Passing actively onwards, we find illumination still in vogue in the sixteenth century, notwithstanding that Germany was the cradle of the printing press.

In fact, it seems to wax more and more sumptuous—the books more profusely ornamented than ever. The Missal and Prayer-book of Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, once at Aschaffenburg, executed about 1524 are among the finest productions of the illuminator's art. While perhaps we may complain that design has given way to profusion and the border flowers and insects—a contemporary characteristic of Netherlandish art also—are neither more nor less than portraiture applied to flowers, fruits, and the insect world. The larger miniatures are modern paintings, including portraits, differing in nothing but dimensions from the works of the greatest masters of the schools of painting. In ignorance of the strict rules of the gilds, some writers have gone so far as to say that miniatures also such as these were the work of the Van Eycks, the Memlings, and the Lucas van Leydens of our public galleries. This particular MS. was the work of a famous Nuremberg miniaturist, one of a distinguished family of artists—Nicolas Glockendon.

A very similar, but perhaps still richer, MS., is the Prayer-book of William of Bavaria, still kept in the Imperial Library at Vienna (No. 1880), painted by Albert Glockendon. It is one of the most exquisite volumes possibly to be met with. A Prayer-book in the British Museum (Add. 17525), though far inferior, may give some idea of the sumptuous character of the Glockendon work.

The first Archbishop of Prag, Arnestus or Ernest von Pardubitz, was an industrious collector of MSS. and employed many scribes. Another of the famous patrons in Prag was Gerhard Groot, who employed one of the best penmen to copy St. John Chrysostom's Commentary on St. Matthew. In 1383 he founded at Deventer the famous House of the Brothers of the Common Life, who made a business of transcribing books; and, indeed, so profitably, that, for instance, Ian van Enkhuisen of Zwolle received five hundred golden gulden for a Bible. On account of the goose-quill which the brothers wore in their hats, they were familiarly known as the Brethren of the Pen.[49]

[49] Wattenbach, Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, p. 264.



CHAPTER VIII

NETHERLANDISH ILLUMINATION

What is meant by the Netherlands—Early realism and study of nature—Combination of symbolism with imitation—Anachronism in design—The value of the pictorial methods of the old illuminators—The oldest Netherlandish MS.—Harlinda and Renilda—The nunnery at Maas-Eyck—Description of the MS.—Thomas Kempis—The school of Zwolle—Character of the work—The use of green landscape backgrounds—The Dukes of Burgundy—Netherlandish artists—No miniatures of the Van Eycks or Memling known to exist—Schools of Bruges, Ghent, Lige, etc.—Brussels Library—Splendid Netherlandish MSS. at Vienna—Gerard David and the Grimani Breviary—British Museum—"Romance of the Rose"—"Isabella" Breviary—Grisailles.

In speaking of the Netherlands we have to bear in mind that some portions of what are now called the Netherlands were once parts of Germany, while others were parts of France. In the thirteenth century Netherlandish art was simply a variety either of Northern German or Northern French. The earlier schools of Flanders and Hainaut, and perhaps of Brabant, belong rather to France, while Holland, Limburg, Luxembourg, and the Rhine districts were more inclined towards Germany. But as soon as the schools of Ghent and Bruges and other Burgundian centres began to assert their claims, it was speedily apparent that they had an individuality of their own. In no country had the study of nature a more direct influence on the character of illumination. The allegorical method which so long had characterised both French and German art was promptly abandoned, and direct realism both in figure and landscape became the prevailing characteristic. Symbolism, it is true, remained in the representation of cities and other generalities of pictorial composition, but the details were in all cases direct imitations of contemporary facts. Half a dozen soldiers or houses might indicate an army or a city, and even some particular army or city named in the text, but the individual soldiers, though representing the army of Alexander or Roland, would wear the equipment or armour of the artist's military acquaintances, or his overlord's own company. The city, whether Ghent or Bagdad, would consist of the same sort of houses peaked and parapeted, the same towers and pinnacles that the illuminator saw before him in his daily walks. His conception of a scene from Scripture history would probably be framed more or less upon the traditions of the schools transmitted from the Sphigmenou Manual or the master's portfolio of "schemes," but while a prophet, an angel, or a divinity would wear ideal raiment, Abraham and Pharaoh would be arrayed in the costume of a contemporary burgomaster, and an almost contemporary French king. In one memorable instance, we are told, so realistic was the scene that Isaac was about to be despatched with a horse-pistol; and in another, representing the birth of Cain, Adam was bringing to the French tester bedside a supply of hot water from the kitchen boiler in a copper saucepan. This kind of anachronism, it is true, is to some degree chargeable on all early work; we see it among the early Italian painters no less frequently perhaps, but mostly accompanied with so much of allegory or imagination that we scarcely notice it, or if we do, we wink at it as part of the times of ignorance. It is really a mark of over-haste to be truthful, or at least to be understood, and at the worst it is no more than the natural rebound from the evil constraint of the old Byzantine tyranny over scheme and costume and invention. It is often truly diverting in its very insouciance. But its priceless value to us—and here the same remark applies to all styles of pictorial art before the fifteenth century—is the ocular record of dress, architecture, implements of peace and war, incidents of daily life, etc., for which no Encyclopdia Britannica of verbal explanation could ever be more than the poorest makeshift. As we say, this same happy anachronism is common to other schools of illumination, and we cannot fail to notice it from Byzantium to Britain, but it is the intense realism of the Netherlands that forces it upon us so strongly that we are bound to speak of it.

The oldest notice of illuminated work in the Netherlands is in a Benedictine chronicle of the ninth century, where mention is made of two ladies, daughters of the Lord of Denain, named Harlinda and Renilda,[50] who were educated in the convent of Valenciennes. "In 714 they left their native province to found a monastery on the banks of the Maas—among the meadows of Alden and Maas-Eyck. They there consecrated their lives to the praise of God and the transcription of books, adorning them with precious pictures."[51] About the year 1730 an Evangeliary of great age was discovered in the sacristy of the church by the Benedictine antiquary, Edmond Martne, which on good ground has been attributed to the two sisters. The MS. is still in existence, and was exhibited in Brussels in 1880. It is a small folio, and contains a great number of miniatures in the Carolingian or, perhaps more strictly, Franco-Saxon manner. On the first leaf is a Romanesque colonnade of arches surmounted by a larger one. Under the smaller arches are the figures of saints, demons, and monsters, and in the tympanum scrolls of foliage and birds. Between the columns are the reference numbers to the chapters.

[50] Or Relinda.

[51] Bradley, Dict. of Miniaturists, ii. 87.

The evangelist portraits are dignified and saintly, recalling the earliest work of the Byzantine school and that of the catacombs. Draperies and other details are heavy, dull, and ill drawn. In short, the work is of the same class as the early Carolingian. The blue, red, green, and gold of the borders, etc., have all kept their brilliancy.[52] It is somewhat curious that the Van Eycks, the founders of Flemish painting, were natives of this little town—then, doubtless, pretty and rural, now a busy place of breweries, oil-factories, tanneries, and other fragrant nuisances. Some miles further northward lie Deventer and Zwolle and Kempen, the land of the Brothers of the Pen, and of the immortal Thomas Kempis. There is a style of calligraphic ornament deriving its origin from these Northern Hollandish foundations such as Zwolle, which is confined almost entirely to the painting of the initial letters and the decorating of the borders with flourished scrolls of penwork very neatly drawn and terminating in equally neat but extremely fanciful flowers finely painted. It seems to have been brought at some time from the neighbourhood of Milan, where a similar kind of initial and exceedingly neat penmanship also is found in the choir books. Many South German choir books are similarly ornamented, so that it is not easy to say at once where the work was done. The Dutch illuminators, however, may usually be recognised by the Netherlandish character of the miniatures combined with neat and sometimes rigidly careful penmanship in the scrolls and tendrils and a hardness in the outline of the flowers. Sometimes the large initials are entirely produced by the pen, the labyrinthine patterns in blue or vermilion being filled in with circlets, loops, and other designs with infinite patience and excellent effect. Some of the border scrolls are exceedingly pretty, and the borders differ from Flemish in mixing natural flowers painted in thin water-colours with the more conventional flowers painted with a different medium, not in the later Flemish manner where the flowers are frankly direct imitations of nature, and painted in the same medium as the rest of the illumination.

[52] See Messager des Sciences, etc., 110, 1858, and Deshaines, L'Art Chrtien en Flandre, 34 (Douai, 1860, 8).

After the Maas-Eyck Evangeliary the work of these northern foundations may well reckon either with the French or German schools until the fifteenth century. Where otherwise they are not distinguishable, the Netherlandish miniatures are usually such as prefer plain burnished gold backgrounds to diapered ones, or have a plain deep blue paled towards the horizon, and lastly replace the background by a natural, or what was intended to be a natural, landscape. As a test between French or German influence generally, the use of green shows the latter, that of blue the former. Not that this was any sthetic point of difference in taste, but somehow the Germans had the green paint when the French had not, and so they used it. It is an open question whether Flanders or Italy first introduced the landscape background, but Flemish artists were so numerous, so ubiquitous, that we can hardly say where they were not at work—in France, Italy, or Spain. Plenty of so-called Spanish illumination is really the work of Flemish craftsmen. This was largely owing to the political conditions of the times. The Dukes of Burgundy and the Austrian Archdukes both ruled over Flemish municipalities, and employed the gildmen as their household "enlumineurs." And, of course, the success of the Van Eycks, Rogier van der Weide (de la Pasture), Derrick Bonts, and Hans Memling, stirred up the spirit of rivalry among the illuminators. They all worked in the same minutely, careful manner, and one could almost take a corporal oath on the identity of illuminations and panels which are really the work of different artists. Even yet the illuminations of the Grimani Breviary are attributed in part to Hans Memling—and no wonder! Only the best qualified judges can distinguish them. It is known that Gerard David of Oudewater, in Holland, a master painter, belonged also to the gild of miniaturists. But no miniatures are known to be from the hands of either Ian, or Hubert, or Marguerite van Eyck, or Hans Memling. The supposed identifications are merely guesses. But while this is so there is still no lack of illuminators, not to mention the illustrious few who were employed by the brothers of Charles V., King of France; and when we come to the days of his grandson, Philip of Burgundy (1419-67), we might name quite a crowd of distinguished illuminators. From 1422 to 1425 Ian van Eyck was "varlet de chamber" to Duke John of Bavaria, first bishop of Lige, and Regent of Luxembourg, Holland, and Brabant. In 1425 he passed into the service of Philip. He died in 1440. In court service there were besides, Jean de Bruges, David Aubert, Jean Mielot, Jean Wanguelin, Loyset Lyeder, and others connected more or less closely with the Maas valley and the province of Limburg. This valley seems to have been the cradle of Netherlandish miniature art. It is from this neighbourhood that Paris was supplied with craftsmen in the days of the brilliant if reckless administration of the uncles of Philip the Good. There were schools of illuminating artists in Maestricht and Lige, and within a very brief period the style of the Netherlander surpassed that of all competitors for facility, clearness, and realism. A marked feature in this mastery is the free use of architectural and sculptural design. All Gothic draperies are in some degree sculpturesque, and in miniatures we find sculpture to be the ruling principle. Perhaps it was the practice of uniting the crafts of painter and "imagier" in one person that fostered this peculiarity. But certain it is that Netherlandish illumination, in its border foliages, after the taste for the larger vine and acanthus leaf had superseded the ivy, the drawing is studiously sculpturesque. Many of the Gantois borders are like undercut wood carvings. Even as to colour we find either the gilded wood brown or the stone grey, quite as frequently as gayer colours, and much more so than any natural green. The after-fashion for grisailles or camaieu gris has reference probably rather to stained glass than to carving. Before the fifteenth century we do not often meet with individual illuminators by name, but in the Limburg Chronicle under 1380 is this entry: "There was at this time in Cologne a celebrated painter (he was probably a native of Herle in Limburg), the like of whom was not in the whole of Christendom," and more to his praise. His name was Wilhelm. In the municipal expense book, under 1370-90, page 12, is written, "To Master Wilhelm for painting the Oath Book, 9 marks." The Oath Book still exists, but unfortunately the miniature has been cut out.[53]

[53] Woltmann, Hist. of Painting, Eng. transl., i. p. 412.

Of course, it may be expected that some of the best examples of Netherlandish illumination are to be found in the Royal Library at Brussels. The Bibliothque de Bourgogne, as it is called, contains, indeed, a great number of them. Some, of course, may be classed as Burgundian. There are, for instance, the grand "Chroniques de Hainaut" in three immense folio volumes, written from 1446 to 1449 (Nos. 9242-4). Also Jean Mansel's "Fleur des Histoires" in three grand folios (Nos. 9231-3), written about 1475. The frontispiece to the "Chroniques" shows the Duke Philip with his son the Count of Charolais receiving the work from the author, perhaps the best illumination in all three volumes.

Another (9245), the Book of the Seven Sages of Rome, is an example of the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Still another (9246), the History of St. Graal, or of the Round Table, is dated 1480. A Missal and Pontifical (9216, 9217) shows miniatures dating about 1475.

But other public libraries also possess admirable examples. The Imperial Library at Vienna possesses a most masterly production in the fragments of a folio Chronicle of Jerusalem (No. 2533), in which both figures and architectural details are most delicately and minutely finished, so that the miniatures form a most valuable treasury of costumes, armour, and architecture, correctly drawn and exquisitely painted. The figure of Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, shows the pointed toes which Anne of Bohemia is said to have introduced into England. At Vienna, also, is the richly illuminated History of Grard de Roussillon in French (No. 2549). At Paris we find the "Champion des Dames" (No. 12476). Round the first miniature in this MS. are splendidly emblazoned the armorials of the various countries and cities of his dominions—Burgundy, Brabant, Flanders, Franche-Comt, Holland, Namur, Lower Lorraine, Luxembourg, Artois, Hainaut, Zealand, Friesland, Malines, and Salins. On either side are scenes from the story, and beneath a symbolical crown is the motto of Philip's grandfather, Philip le Hardi, aultre n'aray. The same motto appears in the Chronicle of Jerusalem at Vienna, and on the velvet of the das of Isabella of Portugal, Philip's third consort.

It may be interesting to note, as a means of distinguishing these Burgundian princes or their MSS., that the arms of Philip II. the Good differ from those of his father, during the latter's lifetime, by having in chief a label of three points, and from those of his grandfather, Philip the Bold, by having an inescutcheon of pretence on the centre of the arms of Margaret de Maele, first assumed by his father, John the Fearless, that is, "or, a lion rpt. sa; for Flanders." As we have just said, many of the MSS. claimed as Netherlandish may be classed as Burgundian. The difference lies mainly in the miniatures. Where the latter are manifestly French with the mixed Brugeois borders, they may pass as Burgundian; but with similar borders yet distinguishably Netherlandish, that is, broad-nosed, square-jawed, and excited faces as compared with the finer features and placid expression of the French artists, the work may still be Burgundian, but it will be also Netherlandish. The individuality of Netherlandish illumination above every other quality establishes its identity. Look at the expression of the onlookers in a Crucifixion, or a Christ before Pilate, or a Stoning of St. Stephen—the diabolical ferocity, the fiendish earnestness, the downright intentional ugliness put on some of the characters are in direct contrast to the sweet indifference, the calm complaisance, and blank unconcern of a crowd as shown in similar scenes by French illuminators.



We have seen something of the earlier kind of Netherlandish MSS. in those already referred to. It now remains to take a rapid glance at a few of the later ones, and here the difficulty is that of selection.

In 1484 Gerard David appears on the list of illuminators of Bruges,[54] and it appears that he, and not Hans Memling, was the painter of those marvellous miniatures in the Grimani Breviary at Venice usually attributed to the latter, and therefore may be considered as one of the founders of the school of Bruges, or at least of the later style that may be referred to the Grimani Breviary as its most perfect example. Executed in much the same manner is a Book of Offices in the British Museum, containing portraits of Philip the Fair and his wife, the unhappy Juana la Loca, son and daughter-in-law of the Emperor Maximilian. Similar, again, are the "Offices of the Elector, Albert of Brandenburg," possibly the work of the same artists who produced the Grimani Breviary. There are also some fragments in a guard-book in the British Museum (Add. 24098), which may compare with any of the preceding examples. But perhaps to many book-lovers no better specimen of the highest class of Netherlandish art could be more welcome or more interesting than the celebrated copy of the "Roman de la Rose," also in our great national collection (Harl. 4425). This justly famous MS. is a real masterpiece in every department, whether we consider the expression in its miniatures or the consummate technical skill displayed in the drawing and colour of the borders. These secondary embellishments consist of fruit, flowers, birds, beetles, and butterflies. But, of course, the great interest of this book lies in its miniatures, scenes from the poet's allegory, and in the little statuesque figures of the various characters in the poem.

[54] Cf. his "Judgement of Cambyses" in the museum at Bruges.

Two marvellous little volumes there are in the National Museum at Munich (861-2) which are surely unapproachable. One of the borders in 861 consists of the eyes of peacock feathers so absolutely perfect that we can only wonder at its rainbow hues and pearly sheen of colour. Something similar to it exists in a fragment (No. 4461) in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. The "Isabella Breviary" of the British Museum (Add. 18851) ought not to pass unmentioned, but space forbids us to add more on this inexhaustible topic. There is, however, the class of work alluded to early in the chapter, and in that on French work, which must be at least mentioned. We refer to what the Italians call chiaroscuro and the French grisaille; i.e. painting executed in tones of grey, in which the lights are given in white or gold and the backgrounds in rich blue. Occasionally the draperies and ornaments also are touched with gold, and the flesh tints as in life. Grisaille is not limited to Netherlandish illuminations. We find it both in French and Italian, but perhaps it is among the Netherlandish books we meet with it most frequently. Several examples are to be seen in the Royal Library at Brussels, and there is at least one in the British Museum (Add. 24189).



CHAPTER IX

THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE

Communication with Italy—Renaissance not sudden—Origin of the schools of France and Burgundy—Touraine and its art—Fouquet—Brentano MSS.—"Versailles" Livy—Munich "Boccaccio," etc.—Perral and Bourdichon—"Hours of Anne of Brittany"—Poyet—The school of Fontainebleau—Stained glass—Jean Cousin—Gouffier "Heures"—British Museum Offices of Francis I.—Dinteville Offices—Paris "Heures de Montmorency", "Heures de Dinteville," etc.

When the new ideas derived from the Italian revival first reached France, it would be difficult to say. There must have been communication with Italy going on the whole time that Cimabue and Giotto, Memmi and the rest were astonishing their fellow-citizens with their divine performances. The roads from Lyons, Poictiers, Dijon, and Paris were well known, and frequently trodden by both artists and merchants as well as by soldiers. The Renaissance, therefore, was no sudden convulsion. Perhaps a very careful examination of some of our Burgundian MSS. might reveal the presence of notions derived from Italian travel, for it is in the details of ornament that we find the traces of a new movement, and when the great change of style is clearly noticeable it is when the habits of society themselves have been remodelled, and when the once strange and foreign element has become a familiar guest.

In the fixing of schools and centres much is owing, of course, to the residential choice of princes, on whose patronage depends the very existence of art. This explains the schools of Bruges and Dijon, of Paris and Tours, for while the earlier dukes of Burgundy and the earlier kings of France had lived at Bruges and Paris, the later dukes had preferred Dijon, and Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII. lived mostly at Tours. So that while Dijon became the new centre of Burgundian illumination, Tours became to the new movement from Italy what Paris had been at the commencement of the Gothic period. Tours, in fact, became the centre of the Renaissance. The influence of Dijon was on the wane, Burgundy itself was going down. Michel Coulombe, the great Breton sculptor, who had been trained at Dijon, left it for Tours, and probably illuminators and other artists followed his example. As we know from examples, the Burgundian art of Dijon had the Flemish stamp strongly marked—the Flemish artists had a way of making strong impressions.

Tours, on the other hand, had had an entirely different training. The artists of Touraine had no shadow of Flemish influence in their practice. Their sculptures, enamels, colour-scheme were of another bias. Their stamp came from Italy, and if not so deep as that of Flanders or Dijon, it was equally inevitable and more permanent.

The first name that we meet with among the illuminators of Touraine who are expressly connected with the Renaissance is that of Jean Fouquet. Of his origin or training nothing seems to be known, but he was born probably about 1415. He must have acquired distinction even as a youth, for some twenty-five years afterwards (1440-3) he was invited to Rome to paint the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV., and he stayed in Italy until 1447. On his return to France he was made valet de chambre and painter to Charles VII. at Tours, and continued in the same office under Louis XI. It was part of the business of the paintre du roy to design and provide decorations and costumes, banners and devices for all state ceremonies, and this became Fouquet's duty at the funeral of Charles VII., and when Louis instituted the Order of St. Michel in 1470, and the last trace of him as an artist occurs about 1477. His sons, Louis and Francis, were both painters, and, like himself, worked much at the illumination of books. It is curious that this great master—one of the greatest miniaturists of any school, and one of the founders of the French school of painting—became entirely forgotten until the discovery of some fragments of a Book of Hours painted for Estienne Chevalier, the King's treasurer.

Forty miniatures of the most masterly description came into the hands of M. Louis Brentano-Laroche, of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Their uncommon excellence led to a most diligent search for information respecting the artist, which resulted in the unearthing of many other examples of his unequalled pencil. We now know of a dozen most precious examples. Besides the Brentano miniatures, two other fragments of the same Book of Hours have been found, and several large and important MSS. Among these we may name the "Antiquities of the Jews," by Josephus, in the National Library at Paris (MSS. Des. 6891), and a Book of Hours, executed for Marie de Clve, widow of Charles Duke of Orleans, in 1472. Attributed to him are the "Versailles" Livy (Nat. Lib., Paris, 6907); the "Sorbonne" Livy (fds. de Sorb. 297). A Livy in the public library at Tours also passes under his name, and the famous "Boccaccio" of Estienne Chevalier at Munich, containing ninety miniatures, is also confidently assigned to him. Other MSS. that are imputed to him are probably the work of his sons or scholars.

The Paris Josephus is generally considered his masterpiece. The volume (which contains only the first fourteen books) is in folio, written most beautifully in two columns, and is adorned with miniatures, vignettes, and initials, but much of its interest lies in the note at the end, placed there by Robortet, secretary to the Due de Bourbon: "En ce livre a douze ystoires les troys premieres de l'enlumineur du duc Jehan de Berry, et les neuf de la main du bon paintre et enlumineur du roy Loys XIe Jehan Foucquet, natif de Tours." And we gather from another note that the book had been entrusted to Fouquet for completion by Jacques d'Armagnac duc de Nemours. A further note informs us that the book belonged to the Duc de Bourbon. It seems to have been one of the rich presents made by the Due de Berry to Jacques de Nemours. The first three miniatures are by the illuminator of the Duc de Berry, and this artist was probably Andrieu Beauneveu, though other illuminators did work for him, as Jacques de Hesdin and Pol de Limbourg. The fourth miniature is by Fouquet, and represents a battle; the rest to the seventh are either not his best work or else the work of his pupils, but the seventh on folio 135 gives us a good idea of Fouquet at his best. It represents David receiving with his crown the news of the death of Saul. The eighth, ninth, and tenth are very fine, but the eleventh M. Paulin Paris (MSS. du Roy) thinks the most beautiful of all. Its subject is the clemency of Cyrus towards the captive Jews in Babylon.[55] Of the other MSS. space forbids us reluctantly to forego description.

[55] See Mrs. Mark Pattison's (Lady Dilke) The Renaissance in France, i. 273, etc.; Bradley, Dict. of Miniaturists art. "Fouquet," i. 346.

The characteristics of the school of Tours as seen in the work of the greatest of its expositors is (1) The clearly marked influence of Italy and the antique. (2) A masterly understanding of French landscape (see fine instances of this understanding also in "Trsor des Histoires," now in the British Museum, Cott., Aug. 5). (3) A complete freedom from Gothic influence and from the domination of the school of Bruges. The colours for which Fouquet seems to have a preference are, first, a clear orange-vermilion, supported by golden brown and gold, clear blue and green, lemon-yellow; and then, as a contrast, grey of various tones in walls and buildings, soft landscape greens, and arial tints of distance and sky. Perhaps the technical skill of Fouquet has never been surpassed. It is so perfect that some have tried to explain it by supposing that he was trained in a Flemish studio. His sons and pupils continued his methods, and thus while Paris remains under the influence of Flemish masters, Tours was carrying forward a quite different type of traditions.

The Valerius Maximus (Harl. 4374) of the British Museum will give an idea of the later Paris school. Its date is about the end of the fifteenth century.

We ought not in this place to forget the influence brought into French art through the marriage of the murdered Duke of Orleans with Valentina of Milan, not only directly through books and artists, but by the hereditary transmission of that love of art and beautiful things for which Valentina and her family were well known. It was in art, letters, and books that the widowed princess sought such consolation as was possible.[56] In her best days she had united in herself a seductive grace of carriage, beauty of person, and dignity of rank, which made her the ornament of the French Court. She was almost the only one about the unfortunate Charles VI. who could influence him in his moments of mental aberration. Coming from the luxury of the most splendid court in Italy, she brought into France the most refined taste in matters connected with the arts. The inventory of her jewels at the time of her marriage includes three Books of Hours, three German MSS., and a volume called Mandavilla. Like her husband she was an employer both of copyists and illuminators, and before her death had collected at her Castle of Blois a very fine collection of beautiful books.

[56] She assumed as her impresa the chantepleure, with the sorrowful motto: "Plus ne m'est rien: rien ne m'est plus."

Her son Charles, the poet, inherited her tastes, and added to her collections. We are not surprised, therefore, to find her grandson Louis, afterwards Louis XII., supporting the great artistic movement which he and his Queen Anne of Brittany helped so effectually to identify with the Court of France.

About the time that we hear the last of Fouquet we have the earliest notices of another illuminator who plays an important part in the illuminations executed for Anne of Brittany, the noble and gifted Queen of France, and wife, first of Charles VIII. and then of his successor, Louis XII.

In 1472 Jean Perral is entrusted with the glass paintings of the Carmelite church at Tours. Lemaire, in his Lgende des Vnitiens, calls him a second Zeuxis or Apelles. During the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. he is the chief artist of the time: In 1491, and perhaps earlier, he is engaged in the usual duties of a valet de chambre, i.e. designing and preparing the requisite devises, arms, and banners for public functions. In 1502 he went to Italy. In 1509 his name occurs in connection with that of Jean Bourdichon, of whom we shall hear more when we come to the work done for the Queen. In 1523 in the household of Francis I. he is still valet de chambre. Twenty-four years previously it was as valet de chambre that he prepared the decorations for Louis XII.'s entry into Lyons. On the death of Anne of Brittany also he performed similar duties, and again on that of Louis XII. He even came to England in 1514, sent by Louis XII., to superintend the trousseau of Mary Tudor, "pour aider dresser le dict appareil la mode de France," previous to her wedding journey to Paris.[57] Four months afterwards he was summoned to direct the funeral obsequies of Louis himself. No illuminated work can be really identified as the work of Perral, but Mrs. Patteson (Lady Dilke) strongly urges the probability that he painted the Bible Historie of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, bequeathed by General Oglethorpe.[58] She considers it quite the sort of work that would grow out of that of Fouquet, and dwells upon the fact of his official duties as valet de chambre giving him just that minute facility in the decoration of armour and furniture in the miniatures which the MS. displays. Whether this be so or not, it is certain that the Bible Historie is a fine example of the school of Tours.

[57] See Vespas, b. 2 (Brit. Mus.).

[58] See her Renaissance of Art in France, i. 303.

Another court painter and valet de chambre to Louis XI. and his successors was Jean Bourdichon, an artist born at Tours in 1457, and therefore as a youth probably one of the scholars in the atelier of Jean Fouquet. He is first noticed in the accounts in or about 1478: "A Jehan Bourdichon, paintre, la somme de vingt livres dix sept solz ung denier tournois pour avoir paint le tabernacle fait pour la chapelle du Plessis du Pare, de fin or et d'azur."[59] Later on, after naming the painting of a statute of St. Martin, for which he received twenty golden crowns, is a note of his painting a MS., which we translate: "To the said Bourdichon for having had written a book in parchment named the Papalist—the same illuminated in gold and azure and made in the same 19 rich histories (miniatures) and for getting it bound and covered, thirty crowns of gold. For this by virtue of the said order of the King and by quittance of the abovenamed written the 5th April One thousand four hundred and eighty (milcccciiiixx) after Easter, here rendered the sum of 19 1. 8."

[59] Comptes de l'Htel de Louis XI., 1478-81.

Another quittance shows him to have been employed on the decorations of the chteau of Plessis les Tours. We may easily see how it is that these artists, when they came to illuminate the books entrusted to them, had such special knowledge of embroideries and decoration of armour when we read in the accounts how they were constantly employed in designing dresses for weddings, tournaments, and funeral obsequies, and making "patterns for the dress and equipment of war."

A notice in 1508 tells us that Anne of Brittany made an order of payment to Bourdichon of 1,050 livres tournois for having "richly and sumptuously historiated and illuminated a great Book of Hours for our use and service to which he has given and employed much time, and also on behalf of other services which he has rendered hitherto." This refers to the celebrated "Hours of Anne of Brittany," now in the National Library at Paris.

This volume, peerless of its kind, has been reproduced in colour lithography by Curmer of Paris—the result, however, is disappointing from the flat and faded look of the prints as compared with the brilliancy of the original pages. The MS. is an invaluable monument of French Renaissance illumination. It is French of Touraine rather than of Paris, yet bearing traces in its flowers and fruit borders of Flemish modes of ornament. It has also reminiscences of Italian painting. But the French neatness and restraint from over-decoration have kept it in a manner unique. It has not quite the softness of Italian, and is far from the intensity of Flemish. Indeed, its fault, if it be faulty, is in its want of force. With the exception of Anne's own portrait given with her patrons, St. Anne, St. Helena, and St. Ursula. The Queen's gown is of brown gold brocade trimmed with dark brown fur. Her hair is brown, like the fur. She wears a necklace of gems set in gold. On her head is a black hood edged with gold and jewels, beneath which and next her face is a border of crimped white muslin, She has brown eyes and finely pencilled eyebrows. As to nose and mouth, she and the two younger saints are pretty much alike. With the allowance of blue for black, St. Anne wears the dress of a Benedictine abbess. A dark crimson cloth covers a table before which the Queen is kneeling, and on which lies open a finely illuminated Service-book. The Calendar which follows this portrait is for each month enclosed in a margin of ornament. To the outer margin of every other page of the book is placed a broad tablet or pilaster containing flowers, fruits, insects, etc., from five to six inches high, each having the Latin name of the plant, etc., at top in red, and the French one in red or blue at the bottom. These names may have been put in later. It must be admitted that the fruits, flowers, and insects are painted with the greatest care and neatness, though sometimes a little assisted by the imagination of the painter. The text and initials are rather heavy and commonplace. Now and then a border surrounds the text completely, where flowers or fruits are scattered—somewhat recklessly at times, but usually with good design—over a ground of plain gold, on which the branches, etc., cast heavy shadows. This part of the design is certainly Flemish. Where "histories" occur the border is a plain brown gilt frame within a black border. Undoubtedly the "Hours of Anne of Brittany" is a very precious volume. The figure subjects are of various degrees of excellence. The four evangelists are vivid, and recall the portraits of Ghirlandaio, and it is to Italy also that the illuminator is indebted for his architectural and sculptural details. Yet Bourdichon is inferior to Fouquet in colouring, as the latter is to the Italians in design and composition. Perhaps he is most successful in his flowers and insects. "Nothing," said Muntz, "is less like the elegant foliages of Ghirlandaio and Attavante, and nothing is more worthy of being put in comparison with them."[60]

[60] La Renaissance en Italie, etc., 547-8.

An illuminator of the name of Jehan Poyet is said to have assisted in the "Hours," thus while Bourdichon painted the miniatures, Poyet put in the flowers and fruit, etc.; but this share of work is by some believed to belong to a smaller Book of Hours executed for the Queen. Flowers and fruit are said to have been Poyet's speciality, and it is quite possible that he may have had the painting of the borders of the "Grandes Heures," while Bourdichon did the rest. The writer of the MS. was another native of Tours, named Jehan Riveron. During the reign of Francis I. the school of Tours was removed to Paris because the Court had settled there. Louis XII. had died in the Htel des Tournelles, and Francis, though full of plans for plaisances elsewhere, lived mostly in Paris. Fontainebleau is the dream of the near future. Il Rosso, the Italian architect, painter, poet, and musician, was busy there amid a crowd of other artists from Florence and Rome—the refuse of a once brilliant sodality. It was the frivolous, pretty, graceful side of Italian art that came northward in that great migration—the graver and more dignified elements were left behind. To see what Italian art became in France, we have only to enter the Grand Gallery at Fontainebleau, and we see it at its best in architecture, sculpture, and painting. And we cannot help admiring it, for it is amazingly beautiful. Yet it is not Italian—the Italian of the Medici and Farnese palaces. Il Rosso was neither a Michelangelo nor a Carracci; but he set a fashion. He changed the face of art for France. Nor was it in painting and sculpture only. The Italian passion for devises, anagrams, emblems, and mottoes became the rage in Paris. It first came in with the return of Charles VIII. from his Neapolitan campaign. Louis XII. adopted the hedgehog or porcupine, with the motto "Cominus et eminus." His Queen Claude's motto was "Candida candidis." The Princess Marguerite's emblem was a marigold or heliotrope; others assigned her the daisy. Her motto: "Non inferiora secutus." The well-known emblem of Francis was a salamander—why, is a mystery—with the motto, "Nutrisco et extinguo." All this entered into the taste of the illuminator, and elegant cartouche frames—probably of Dutch origin, as we see in the old map-books of Ortelius Cluverius and Bleau, imported by Ortelius and his friends into Italy, and made use of by Clovis, and thence transferred to France—were made into border-frames for miniatures, varied with altar-forms, doorways, and other fanciful frameworks from the new architecture decorated with flowers, ribbons, panels, mottoes. Another new thing, too, no doubt afforded plenty of suggestion to the illuminator. This was stained glass. Jean Cousin was in his glory in glass-painting; Robert Pinagrier also. But it was Cousin who adopted the new Italian ideas, and whose works were models for the illuminator. In the backgrounds and details of his glass-paintings at Sens, Fleurigny, Paris, and elsewhere, we may trace his progress; and an excellent model, too, was Jean Cousin. He has other claims to remembrance in sculpture, engraving, authorship, but it is as the glass-painter that his influence is seen in illumination. Indeed, Mr. A.F. Didot strongly urged the probability that Cousin was himself the illuminator of the splendid Breviary or Hours of Claude Gouffier.[61] The drawing is in his best manner, the frame-border of caryatides in camaieu is of a richness of ornamentation in keeping with the rest of the volume. The arms and motto of Gouffier are painted in it. It is objected that Cousin's name does not appear in the Gouffier account-books, while those of other artists are given. But only a portion of the accounts is extant. Cousin may, perhaps, only have designed the book, and the other miniaturists carried out his designs. At any rate, the accounts give us the names of three miniaturists which we may here record—Jean Lemaire, of Paris (1555), Charles Jourdain, and Geoffroy Ballin (1359). These "enlumineurs" are stated to have decorated two Books of Hours for Gouffier's wedding. As a good example of the style employed in the decoration of title-pages, we may quote the chimney-piece of the Chteau d'Anet, executed for Diane de Poitiers, where a sculptured marble frame surrounds a painted landscape. Many of the books of the time of Francis I. and Henry II. are ornamented in this style.

[61] Now belonging to M. le Vicomte de Tanz.

In the British Museum are several fine MSS. illustrative of this period of French illumination, viz. Add. 18853, 18854, and 18855. These three MSS. formed part of the purchase which included the Bedford Offices. 18853 is a Book of Offices executed apparently for Francis I. In some of the borders is a large F with the Cordelire of the third Order of St. Francis and a rayed crown, and on folio 97 v. a large monogram consisting of the letter F, with two crossed sceptres and palm branches, surmounted by the crown-royal of France.

Nothing is known of the history of the MS. from 1547 to 1723, when it was in possession of the Regent Philippe d'Orlans. Possibly it had remained as an heirloom in the family. Philippe gave it to his natural son the Abb Rothelin, a great lover of rare books and a noted collector, at whose death it was bought by Gaignat, another collector, who sold it to the Duc de la Vallire, and so, step by step, it came at length to Sir John Tobin, of Liverpool, and thence to the British Museum.

The partly sculpturesque character of the border-frames are of the kind just referred to, with festoons and garlands of flowers, and drapery, monograms, and emblems in full rich colours; the architecture and other ornaments sometimes finished with pencillings of gold. The miniatures are of excellent design and colour, finely modelled, and quite in the manner of the paintings of Fontainebleau. The text is a combination of Jarry-like Roman with italic. It may be compared with 18854, similar in some respects, but the smaller miniatures and the frames look more like the older school of Tours. This MS. is also a Book of Offices, and was written for Franois de Dinteville, Bishop of Auxerre, in 1525, as appears from an inscription in gold letters on fol. 26 v.



Some of the border-frames are drawn in sepia, others in red-brown or burnt siena, and highly finished with gold. The writing is a small Roman hand. On the whole it is richer in illustration than 18853, but not so perfect in drawing, yet it is a very fine MS. Sometimes it has a border like those in the "Hours of Anne of Brittany." On fol. 26 v. is a curious border of twisted ribbons covered with mottoes, such as "Virtutis fortuna comes", "Ingrates servire nephas," etc.

Some of the tiny miniatures of the saints in the Memori are very charmingly painted: St. Mary Magdalene, for instance, on fol. 147 v. The pillar architecture of some of the borders, with pendant festoons of flowers, is also very handsome.

18855, folio, is a Book of Offices written in a Gothic text. The miniatures are large full-page paintings within architectural frames or porches, with coloured pillars or pilasters with panels of rich blue, covered with golden traceries, bronze gold pendants at side,—occasional borders as in the "Hours of Anne of Brittany." The work is of the older school of Tours, but loaded with ornamental details from North Italian pilaster-work. Among the best miniatures are the Nativity (34 v.), the Adoration of the Magi (42 v.), and the Bathsheba. The last perhaps a little too open a scene for a lady's bathroom, but placed within a most gorgeous architectural window or doorway (fol. 62 v). Compare also Harl. 5925, No. 574, for a title-page of French Renaissance style from a printed book, which suggests Venice as the source of the style of 18853.

In the National Library at Paris are, of course, a number of this class of MSS., such as the Offices (MS. Lat. 10563), "Officium Beat Mari Virginis ad usum Romanor" (1531), or the exquisitely painted "Heures de Henry 2d" (fds. Lat. 1429), or the magnificent "Epistres d'Ovide" of Louisa of Savoy (fds. fr. 875), and others.

By no means of less importance we may cite the beautiful volume belonging to the late Comte d'Haussonville, now in the Muse Cond at Chantilly, called the "Heures du Conntable Anne de Montmorency," and the "Heures de Dinteville" (MS. Lat. 10558), the decoration of which is quite on a par with the "Heures de Montmorency," or those of Henry II., also the Psalter of Claude Gouffier (Arsenal Lib., 5095), containing the Psalms of Marot.

It is scarcely worth while to carry the subject further. What is done later than Francis II. does not grow finer or better: it only becomes more overloaded with ornament, too much gold, too much richness. Even foliages are often variegated like pearls, or change gradually from colour to colour on the same sweep of acanthus as in a MS. in the British Museum attributed to Pierre Mignard ("Sol Gallicus," Add. 23745). Compare also the "Heures de Louis XIV." Now and then an exceptional work, like that of D'Eaubonne at Rouen, belongs to no particular school.



CHAPTER X

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE ILLUMINATION

Late period of Spanish illumination—Isidore of Seville—Archives at Madrid—Barcelona—Toledo—Madrid—Choir-books of the Escorial—Philip II.—Illuminators of the choir-books—The size and beauty of the volumes—Fray Andrs de Leon and other artists—Italian influence—Giovanni Battista Scorza of Genoa—Antonio de Holanda, well-known Portuguese miniaturist in sixteenth century—His son Francesco—The choir-books at Belem—French invasion—Missal of Gonalvez—Sandoval Genealogies—Portuguese Genealogies in British Museum—The Stowe Missal of John III.

Since all the best and best-known work of Spanish or Portuguese illuminators was executed in the sixteenth century, and is manifestly a reflection with peculiar mannerisms of either Flemish or Italian illumination of the same period, it may seem almost superfluous to devote a separate chapter to the subject. Yet there is a goodly list of both Spanish and Portuguese artists who practised the art of illumination.

So early as the time of Isidore of Seville we find notices of libraries, copyists, and the like (see book iv. of his Encyclopdia), and an able writer of the last century, Don Jos Maria de Eguren, published a work on the MS. rarities of Spain.[62] The most important of the miniatures in the famous Codex Vigilano are also reproduced in "El Museo Espaol de antiguedades," most interesting respecting the calligraphy and miniature art of the eleventh century.

[62] Memoria de los Codices notables conservados en los archivos ecleseasticos de Espana. Madrid, 1859, L. 8.

One of the earliest instances of royal patronage bestowed on painting in Spain is a document in the Royal Library at Madrid, containing the expenses of King Sanchez IV. in 1291-2. Thus "to Rodrigo Esteban, painter of the king for many paintings done by the king's orders in the bishop's palace 100 golden maravedis." Again, in the archives at Barcelona we find that Juan Cesilles, painter of history, was engaged 16th March, 1382, to paint the "History of the twelve apostles for the grand altar of the Church at Reps for 330 florins." In 1339 one Gonzalez Ferran had some reputation both as a wood engraver and a painter. He was probably a miniaturist. In 1340-81, Garcia Martinez, a Spanish illuminator, worked at Avignon. A copy of the Decretals, dated 1381, in the Cathedral Library of Seville is by his hand.

In the fifteenth century we have many notices of painters, especially in Toledo, whither the taste was in all likelihood brought from Naples after the conquest of that kingdom by Alphonso V. of Aragon in 1441.

It has been observed by those familiar with native Spanish art that its chief characteristic is that it is gloomy. This may be so, but it is not fairly chargeable to the artists but to the tyranny of the Spanish Inquisidor, who laid the embargo on the illuminator that he should not follow the wicked gaiety of the Italians, nor the sometimes too realistic veracity of the Flemings. This accounts usually for backgrounds of black where the Fleming would have had rich colour or gold for the prevalence of black in the draperies and for the sombre tone in general of Spanish painting. It is not always in evidence, as may be seen in many of the miniatures of the famous choir-books in the Escorial. The sombre period began under Ferdinand the Catholic, and it has left its mark on the schools of the fifteenth century. The sixteenth began a new era, and under Philip II. several, both Netherlandish and Italian, miniaturists were invited to assist in the production of the enormous choir-books ordered by the King for San Lorenzo of the Escorial, between 1572 and 1589. The volumes are bound in wooden boards covered with leather, stamped and bossed with ornaments of gilded bronze. It is said that 5,500 lbs. of bronze and 40 lbs. of pure gold were used in the bindings. The actual dimensions of the volumes are 115 by 84 centimetres. Every volume has at least seventy folios, and every folio is splendidly illuminated, thus affording more than 30,000 pages covered with richly ornamented initials, miniatures, and borders. The illuminators and copyists of these choir-books were Cristobal Ramirez, who planned the work, fixed the size and other details of the volumes and the character of the handwriting, Fray Andrs de Leon, Fray Julian de Fuente del Saz, Ambrosio Salazar, Fray Martin de Palencia, Francisco Hernandez, Pedro Salavarte, and Pedro Gomez. Ramirez was engaged at the Escorial from 1566 to 1572. In the latter year he presented a Breviary with musical notation to the King, and was then engaged for the great undertaking mentioned above.

Andrs Cristobal was also an illuminator of note at Seville, where he worked from 1555 to 1559. Andrs de Leon worked at the Escorial from 1568, and is especially mentioned by Los Santos in his well-known description of the monastery of San Lorenzo: "Son de gran numero y excelencia las iluminaciones que tienen de mano nuestro Fray Andrs de Leon, que fue otro Don Julio en el Arte."[63] The allusion is to the celebrated Don Giulio Clovio, then in the height of his fame in Italy. Fray Julian received similar praise for a capitolario for the principal festivals of the year, especially for the grand dimensions of the miniatures, the like of which the writer says had never been seen before, either in Spain or Italy. Andrs de Leon died at the Escorial in 1580. Salazar continued working on them till they were completed, and in 1590 went to Toledo, where he finished two Missals for the Cathedral, which had been begun by the famous Juan Martinez de los Corrales. He was still engaged on similar work until his death in 1604. Two other illuminators, Esteban and Julian de Salazar, were working at the Escorial in 1585. Bermudez[64] mentions Fray Martin de Palencia as having executed a volume in a fine handwriting and with beautiful miniatures for the monastery of Saso. Thus we see there were numerous miniaturists in Spain in the latest years of the existence of the art that had been imported chiefly from Italy.

[63] Fr. Francisco de los Santos, Description breve del Monasterio de S. Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, 24.

[64] Diccionario, iv. 24.

After most of these great choir-books had been finished there were still others in progress. In 1583 Giovanni Battista Scorza of Genoa, who is celebrated in the "Galleria" of the Cavaliero Marini, was invited by the King to take part in his great choir-book scheme. Scorza was then thirty-six years of age, and in the height of his reputation as a painter of small animals and insects. After a little time he returned to Genoa, where he lived to be ninety years old. He had a brother, Sinibaldo, who was equally skilful in miniature, and especially in scenes from history. The Scorzas were pupils of Luca Cambiaso. It may be noticed that all this work in miniature, although so late in its own history, is accomplished before the greatest names in Spanish painting are known. Josefo Ribera was born in 1588; Zurbaran in 1598; Velasquez in 1599; Alonzo Cano in 1601; Murillo in 1617. This, in a sense, is the natural course of things, as, generally, illumination has preceded the other kinds of painting.

With regard to Portugal, very little is recorded that does not in some way connect itself with Spain. So we find that Antonio and Francesco de Holanda, seemingly of Netherlandish origin, are mentioned in relation to the books illuminated for the Royal Monastery of Thomar; Francesco also worked for the monastery of Belem. Francesco de Holanda was a great admirer and imitator of Clovio, but he always insisted that his father Antonio was the inventor of the method of "stippling," as the finishing with minute points of colour is technically called, which was brought to such perfection by Clovio and his scholars and imitators.

Taken altogether, the work of the Spanish illuminators at the Escorial and those of Toledo and Seville is really the same, with just the variations we might expect from pupils and imitators, as that of their masters in Genoa, Rome, Venice, or Bruges. Examples of it may be seen occasionally in diplomas, such as are found in the British Museum and other public libraries, as, e.g. Claud. B. x. Lansd. 189, Add. 12214, 18191, 27231, etc.

In 1572, the same year in which Luiz de Camoens published his Lusiades, an accomplished calligrapher, Miguel Barata, published an elaborate treatise on his own art, then in high repute.

In the fourteenth century the Cancioniero of Don Pedro Affonso Ct. de Barcellos affords an example of the calligraphy (for which Spain and Portugal have always been famous) and illumination which is precious for the student. It is still in existence in the Palace of Ajuda. Its date is 1320-40. And there are MSS. in the Torre do Tombo of Lisbon that are richly illuminated. Again, in Seville there is the "Juego de las Tablas," executed under Alphonso the Wise in 1283, with its Gothic arcades and ornaments. M. Joaquin de Vasconcellas has made a study of this MS. The miniatures of the Torre do Tombo of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are mostly of the French school.

About 1428 33 was executed a splendid MS. entitled "Leal Conselheiro," which is attributed to a famous miniaturist in his time named Vasco. It is, however, simply a monument of penmanship, as it contains no miniatures. The MS. has been edited by L'Abb Roquete in 1842. The Portuguese MSS. of the fifteenth century betray a decided Flemish influence, as well they may, for probably the producers of them were Flemings. Constant intercourse with the Court of Burgundy had something to do with this.

The "Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guin," now at Torre do Tombo, is clearly a Flemish work. It was begun about 1440, and finished in 1453. The portrait of the Enfante Don Henrique, called the Navigator, is set in a border evidently by a pupil or imitator of J. Van Eyck. The calligraphy of the MS. is most beautiful. This influence of the Netherlands on Portuguese art is, indeed, confirmed by the political diplomatic relations of the fifteenth century, and is of some importance in the history of art. We shall refer again to this matter when dealing with another MS.

Among all the calligraphic monuments of Portugal it is claimed that the most splendid is the "Bible of the Hieronymites." (See Revista universal Lisbonense, 1848, pp. 24-8.) This work, it is said, was a present from the Court of Rome to Emanuel, successor of John II., in remembrance of the homage made to the Holy See, of the first gold brought from the Indies, but the story is very doubtful. The King, in bequeathing the seven volumes to the convent of Belem, says nothing about such an origin. They are manifestly in great part the work of foreign artists. One well-known miniaturist, Antonio de Holanda, the father of the better-known Francesco, took part in the work, and having a good conceit of his own abilities (we shall probably hear of him again), reserved an entire volume to himself in order to give proof of them. The seven volumes which then were covered with crimson velvet and silver bosses and enamels, are now simply bound in red morocco. In the middle of each cover are the arms of Emanuel King of Portugal. Vols. v. and vii. have those of Dona Isabel, his Spanish wife.

The initials and ornaments show that the art of Italy is freely mixed with that of Portugal. Indeed, from the signatures in the volumes it is seen that the work of the penman was Italian; vol. i. being written at Ferrara by Sigismundo de Sigismundis, the well-known Italian calligrapher, in 1495. The second volume, also finished in 1495, bears the name of Alessandro Verazzano, another famous copyist, who wrote several of the volumes illuminated by Attavante. Vol. iii. is dated 1496, and is unsigned. The next three volumes are also without signature. Vol. vii. is the work of Antonio de Holanda, who from his name appears to have been of Dutch descent. His work is certainly excellent, and renders this volume a very precious monument of the art of Portugal. He was the official herald of the King, and he and his son Francesco gave their whole time to the practice of illumination. His son's Memoirs give a most interesting account of his travels and intercourse with Giulio Clovio and the other Italian artists whom he met with in Rome.[65] For some years the Hieronymite Bible was in Paris, having been brought thither by Marshal Junot, where it remained unnoticed for several years. Being called for by the Portuguese Government, Louis XVIII. paid 50,000 francs to the family of Junot, and restored it to the monastery of Belem. A splendidly illuminated atlas by an illuminator and cartographer named Fernando Vas Dourado was published in the year of his death, 1571.

[65] See my Life of Clovio.

As an important example of what we may fairly call native art, we will now briefly refer to the celebrated Missal of Estevam Gonalvez Neto, one of the productions of the busy second half of the sixteenth century. The clever amateur who achieved this beautiful series of paintings, for paintings they are, in addition to the writing and other ornamentation of the MS., was descended from a noble family of Srem, in the parish of Macinhata, forty-three leagues from Lisbon. He became Canon of Viseu, and during his leisure, after this appointment, executed the Pontifical Missal which bears his name. It is dedicated to Don Jos Manuel, of the House of Tancos, Bishop of Viseu, afterwards of Coimbra, and lastly Archbishop of Lisbon. This prelate gave the book to the Church of Viseu. The original MS. was afterwards in the library of the Convent of Jesus, and is now in the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon. Stephen Gonsalvez died July 29th, 1627. The Missal is signed: "Steph. Glz. Abbas Sereicencis fac. 1610." It has been very well reproduced in colours by Macia, of Paris.

The "Genealogies of the House of Sandoval," written and painted in Lisbon in 1612, is now in Paris. It is called "Genealogia universal de la Nobilissima casa de Sandoval Ramo del Generoso tronco de los soberanos Reyes de Castilla y Leon. Por Don Melchior de Teves del Conseio Real de Castilla del Rey D? Philippe III."

At the foot of the page is written "Eduardus Caldiera Vlisspone scripsit, Anno Dni MDCXII." This magnificent MS., which measures forty-six by thirty centimetres, is numbered in the Catalogue of the National Library as 10015. A grand frontispiece, formed of two columns of the Composite Order, occupies the first page, representing a king in royal robes and crown arresting the wheel of Fortune. Two lions accompany the scene, and the motto of the picture is "Virtute duce non comite Fortuna." Page 2 contains the various escutcheons of the family of the Count of Lerma, for whom the book was written. It contains a great number of portraits. A final instance of the influence, or rather the inroad, of Flemish art in Portugal in the fifteenth century may be shown in the MS. called the Portuguese Genealogies in the British Museum.

The work consists of eleven large folio sheets separately mounted and measuring eighteen by ten inches. It commences with a prologue, with the arms of Portugal supported by two savages, having clubs and shields. Outside the inner frame are three scenes: (1) wild animals in combat; (2) a sea-nymph being rescued; (3) a fight among sylvan savages. Next comes a series of portraits painted in the most finished and life-like style, beginning with Dom Garcia F del rey Abarca and Dona Constancia on a fruitful tree with foliage, fruits, and birds, a cat, and other things. The tree is an oak, beside it are apple and cherry trees. On the oak are green acorns. The birds are very beautiful, the cat simply perfect. These details recall the highly finished and lovely work of Georg Hoefnagel on the great Missal at Vienna. Gothic brown-gold architecture and three battle scenes complete the page.

Then follow the genealogical tables, and more portraits, the whole showing the most patient and careful work. Letters on the borders of the robes recall the same kind of ornament in the Grimani Breviary at Venice. No one has been able to explain these curious inscriptions. In the Grimani Breviary they were thought to be either Croatian or merely ornament. Here they cannot well mean anything but decoration. The portraits are fanciful but interesting mementoes of the period, and include several personages noted in history.

The last MS. to be mentioned in this hasty sketch is one in the British Museum (Stowe 597). It is a "Missale Romanum," and is said to have been illuminated for John III. in 1557. It was once the property of the Abb Gamier, chaplain for near thirty years, of the French factory at Lisbon. The binding is red morocco, and once had silver clasps.

It commences with a large mirror-like oval tablet, containing the title, set between two pillars of pink-veined marble with bronze-gold capitals and bases. The tablet is crimson with a violet-slate frame moulding of egg and dart pattern. At foot are two Roman legionaries, one seated as supporting the tablet, on each side. On folio 3 is the index in a rose-wood panel and pale green frame. The peculiar forms of the frames and the scroll-work on them are of the fantastic kind, differing from Italian, which is characteristic both of Spanish and Portuguese ornament. The chief colours are a bright emerald green and blue, with ochre, gold, and crimson. The initials are still more fantastic—partly human, partly plant or fish-form, sometimes sculptured ornament and plant-forms combined—but all so sweetly painted and so delicately finished as to be most attractive. The text is a fine and elegant Roman minuscule interspersed with italic.

Here and there are exquisite little drawings of ecclesiastical utensils, etc., but the everlasting variety among the quaint and fanciful initials provides an unwearying fund of interest. Tiny birds of the loveliest plumage sit among and beneath the limbs of the letters, or elegant scrolls of pencilled gold cover the little coloured panels on which the plain gold Roman initials are placed. Some of the larger initials are very finely executed and contain full-length figures of saints, bishops, or queens. One lovely initial B has a graceful girl simply clad in blue tunic and pale yellow skirt with a silken coil of pale rose forming the upper loop of the letter, the lower being formed of the curved body of a green dragon. Her left hand lifts the silk-work, her right, hanging by her side, holds a little golden pitcher. The whole is painted on a panel of bright gold. Another (L) shows a peasant rushing laughingly, with a hare slung over his shoulder, past the figure of a guardian terminus of bronze. But the Missal should be seen to be properly understood, for though in a general way it has a look of Italian influence, its originality is beyond question.



CHAPTER XI

ILLUMINATION SINCE THE INVENTION OF PRINTING

The invention of printing—Its very slight effect on illuminating—Preference by rich patrons for written books—Work produced in various cities in the sixteenth century—Examples in German, Italian, and other cities, and in various public libraries up to the present time.

The art of printing, as the reading world has been frequently informed, was invented in the fifteenth century, and undoubtedly had, to a considerable extent, a destructive effect upon the craft of professional copyists. But in the fifteenth century the art of the writer and that of the illuminator had long been separate professions. There was no particular reason, therefore, why the invention of printing should interfere with the illuminator. As a matter of fact, it made little difference. Nor, indeed, did printing entirely put a stop to the professional career of the scribe. It was prophesied, before practical experience of facts proved the contrary, that the invention of the railway engine would abolish the horse. The printing-press did not abolish the penman, but it certainly spoiled his trade. We have seen in the course of the preceding chapters that it did not spoil the trade of the illuminator. Nor was it quite owing to the fact that many printed books were so adorned as to appear like illuminated MSS. More than one wealthy patron absolutely declined to have anything to do with printed books. The matter was too vulgar and too cheap. The last Duke of Urbino was a prince of this lofty way of thinking, and scarcely a court in Europe but continued to have MSS. produced as if no such thing as the printing-press were known. How they were multiplied in Spain and France we have seen in detail. We will now proceed to take a farewell look at the German and Italian libraries, in order to see how the illustrious presses of Mainz, Strassburg, Augsburg, Kln, Munich, Vienna, Venice, Milan, Florence, and Rome affected the ateliers of the great schools of illumination established in most of these cities. What do we find? In point of fact, some of the richest, most magnificent books ever produced by the illuminator, not only whilst the press was still a novelty, but long after it had become perfectly familiar to everybody. For several of the cities aforesaid we have the means of proof: thus for Mainz, at the end of the superb copy of the Mazarine Bible, now at Paris, is the following inscription: "Iste liber illuminatus, legatus and completus est henricum Cremer vicari? ecclesie collegiate Sancti Stephani Moguntini sub anno dni Melesimo quatring entesimo quinquagesimo Sexto, festo assumptiois gloriose Virginis Marie. Deo gratias alleluya." This was in 1456, the year before the first press was set up. In 1524 we have two most splendidly illuminated MSS.—a Missal and a Prayer-book—executed by order of Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz. Two richer examples of the German Renaissance cannot easily be imagined. We cannot dilate upon them. We may, however, truly say that together with very many other examples of illuminated work, both in manuscripts and printed books, they show the art of the illuminator to be no less splendid or elaborate after the invention of printing than it was before.

On the last page of the Missal is written: "Ich Niklas Glockendon zu Nurenberg hab dieses Bhuch illuminiert ond vollent im jar 1524."

The Prayer-book is similarly adorned with miniatures and brightly coloured borders. On the cover is a copy of the Archbishop's portrait, painted by Drer, and on folio 1 is written by the Archbishop himself: "Anno domini MDXXXI completum est presens opus, Sabbato post 'Invocavit.' Albertus Cardinalis moguntinus manu propria scripsit."

Other Glockendon books exist in other libraries. Then there is the Beham Prayer-book at Aschaffenburg and a Bible in the library at Wolfenbttel in two thick 4 volumes—a work well worth examination. At Nuremberg is the Service-book executed by Conrad Frankendorfer, of Nuremberg, in 1498.

In the British Museum is the fine German MS.—the Splendor Sous, a sixteenth century MS. (Harl. 3469).

In the National Library at Paris is the Prayer-book of William of Baden (10567-8) executed at Strassburg by Frederic Brentel in 1647.

Augsburg was producing illuminated Service-books ten years after Gnther Zainer had set up the press in that city.

Munich, also, with the Penitential Psalms, etc., by Hans Mielich. Vienna, too, can show a magnificent Missal by Georg Hoefnagel, bearing the dates 1582 to 1590. Venice is represented in the work of Benedetto Bordone and the Ducali. Florence in the splendid Missals, etc., of Attavante and his contemporaries.

Milan shows the gorgeous Graduals of the Brera belonging to the sixteenth century and the Sforziadas of London and Paris. So we might pass from city to city almost all over Western Europe. The great Spanish choir-books were almost all produced under Philip II. Several Papal Service-books are represented in the fifteenth-and sixteenth-century examples of the scrap-book 21412 of the British Museum; and the works of Clovio, the most noted of Italian illuminators, all belong to the sixteenth century.

These instances are amply sufficient to prove that in every city in Europe where printing was in full practice the art of the illuminator continued to flourish until the progress of modern inventions and various processes, added to the general cheapening of books, led to its disuse. Its present application seems to be almost solely to diplomas and testimonials, and in point of quality, usually as poor and spiritless as the incapacity of most of its professors can make it.

There seems, however, no reason why the artistic skill and elaborate methods of reproduction of the present day should not produce magnificent books—indeed the "Imitation" of Thomas Kempis, and other continental examples prove that this is amply possible.

The next few years will probably show that readers are still desirous of possessing beautiful books, and that artists are still found capable of producing them.



MANUSCRIPTS THAT MAY BE CONSULTED AS EXAMPLES

(Partly taken by permission from the Victoria and Albert Museum Handbook)

CLASSICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN

+ - + -+ -+ - No Name. Where Where Kept. Date. Remarks. Produced. + -+ + -+ -+ - 1 Vergil ...... Vatican Lib., 3rd or Doubtful which is the (fragment) Rome, Cod. 4th cent. older Vat. 3225 2 Vergil ...... Vat. Lib. 4th cent. " 3867 3 Rom. ...... Imp. Lib., " Calend.(f.) Vienna 4 Genesis (f.) ...... " 5th cent. Gold and silver text on purple vellum; 88 miniatures. 5 Genesis (f.) ...... Brit. Mus., " Much burnt in 1731. Cott. Oth. B. 6 6 Iliad (f.) ...... Ambros. Lib., " Fine handwriting and Milan clever pictures. 7 Joshua (f. of ...... Vat. Lib., ...... 15 leaves, 32 ft. Roll) Rome long, 11 in. wide. Contains from ch. 222 to 1018, brush outlines to miniatures. Rivers, etc., personified in Byzantine manner. 8 Dioscorides, ...... Imp. Lib., c. Personifications of etc. Vienna 500-5 abstract qualities. 9 Bible of ...... Laurent. c. 540 Valuable as a Montamiata Lib., theological document, Florence but poor work, and in bad condition. 10 Syriac Monastery of " c. 586 Brought to Florence Gospels Zagba, in in 1497. Remarkable Mesopotamia Crucifixion, see Byzantine, 1. 11 Terence ...... Nat. Lib., 9th cent. Copy of a 5th-cent. Paris MS. pen-drawings. 12 Pentateuch Tours Nat. Lib., 7th cent. Called the Ashburnham Paris, Nouv. Pentateuch; 19 large acq. 2334 miniatures.