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Add MS 35254 C
- Record Id:
- 040-002088705
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002088702
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001490.0x000103
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165148728.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 35254 C
- Title:
- Cutting from a Gradual (Sanctorale)
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript is a single cutting from a leaf originally part of a large choirbook, now Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Codice Corale 2.
On the recto, the cutting comprises a very large historiated initial 'R' in gold and colours, within a border and on a gold background. Human heads are enclosed within foliate roundels springing from the initial.
Within the lower half of the initial, the Annunciation is depicted: Gabriel kneeling before the Virgin Mary, seated, with his words 'Ave grati...' inscribed on a speech scroll. Above, God, borne on cherubim, is blessing and addressing Mary, below, with golden rays running between his hand and mouth and her face. At the top and centre of the border, there is a cropped scroll bearing the inscription 'Ecce propheta mag[nus] surget i[n] medio vestrum' ('Behold a great prophet will rise among you'). Six bust-length prophets holding such scrolls within quatrefoils (now Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, NMB 1797) and two others (now missing) were cut from this initial.
The initial is from the beginning of the Advent prose 'Rorate caeli desuper' ('Drop down dew, O heavens, from above') (Isaiah 45:8), used as the introit to the Mass for the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March).
On the verso, there is musical notation and the following words: 'spiritum inter verbi orationis efflauit in celum. Hodie dilectus domini be...'. 'H' (of 'Hodie') is a filigree initial in colours.
The decoration is attributed to Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (b. 1339, d. 5 October 1399), monk of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002088702
040-002088705 - Is part of:
- Add MS 35254 A-V : MINIATURES and borders, taken out of Italian illuminated MSS., on vellum; formerly in the collection of the late John Malcolm…
Add MS 35254 C : Cutting from a Gradual (Sanctorale) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002088702[0003]/040-002088705
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 35254 A-V
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Cutting from a parchment leaf
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165148728.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1370
- End Date:
- 1380
- Date Range:
- c 1375
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
The cutting is kept in a double-sided window mount, in a box with Add MSS 35254A-B and 35254D-G.
Materials: parchment.
Dimensions: 335 x 290 mm.
Foliation: single cutting, foliated as C.
- Custodial History:
-
The Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence: the miniature was cut from the missing f. 60r of Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Codice Corale 2, a Gradual (Sanctorale) dated 1370 in stile fiorentino (1371, according to the modern calendar) on ff. 161v and 207. This date records the completion of the writing of the liturgical text and penwork initials. Most of the Gradual's initials were illuminated in time for the consecration of the monastery's new choir at the end of 1374, however some were completed at a later date (see Freuler, 'Don Silvestro Dei Gherarducci' (1994), p. 132).
?Luigi Celotti (b. 1759, d. 1843): it has been suggested that the Annunciation initial was brought to England, c. 1820, by Celotti (see Robinson, Descriptive Catalogue (1876), pp. 277, 279; App. 2, no. 2); however, it is not mentioned in the catalogue of his sale, 26 May 1825 (see Freuler, 'Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci' (1994), p. 141).
William Young Ottley (b. 1771, d. 1836), writer on art and collector: six bust-length prophets holding inscribed banderoles (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, B 1797) and two others now missing were cut from the present initial, one of which held the cropped scroll inscribed "Ecce propheta mag[nus] surget i[n] medio vestrum" at the top centre of its frame. The prophets were lot 188 in Ottley's sale, 11 May 1838. The present cutting was probably sold before his death. Inscribed in a 19th-century hand (the same as on Add. 35354G verso) '1855' and 'By Fra Benedetto / School of Fra Angelico from the Ottley & Woodhouse / Collections 1856 Colnaghi £?- Dec 13th 1855 / The building represents the Or San Michele Florence' (f. C verso).
John Malcolm of Poltalloch (b. 1805, d. 1893), art collector and landowner: acquired between the first publication of the catalogue of his collection in 1869 and the second edition of 1876 (see Robinson, Descriptive Catalogue (1876), p. 277).
Purchased by the Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum in 1895.
Transferred to the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum in 1899.
- Publications:
-
J.C. Robinson, Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq, 2nd edn (London: Chiswick Press, 1876), pp. 277, 279; App. 2, no. 2.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1894-1899 (London: Trustees of the British Museums, 1901), pp. 223-24.
Mirella Levi D'Ancona, 'Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci e il "Maestro delle Canzoni": Due Miniatori Trecenteschi della Scuola di S. Maria degli Angeli a Firenze', Rivista d'arte, 32 (annual 1957; published 1959), 3-37 (pp. 17, 22, fig. 5).
Mario Rotili, La Miniatura Gotica in Italia, 2 vols (Naples: Libreria Scientifica, 1968), I, p. 101.
Gaudenz Freuler, 'Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci', in Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence 1300-1450, by Laurence B. Kanter and others (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), pp. 134, 141-44, no. 16c, fig. 53.
I Corali del Monastero di Santa Maria degli Angeli, ed. by Mirella Levi D'Ancona and others (Florence: Centro Di, 1995), pp. 118-19.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 130-31, no. 110.
Iter Liturgicum Italicum, ed. by Giacomo Baroffio (Padua: CLEUP, 1999), p. 104.
Sandra Hindman and others, Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age: Recovery and Reconstruction (Evanston, IL: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2001), pp. 91, 93 [exhibition catalogue].
Gaudenz Freuler, 'Qualche riflessione sulla miniatura fiorentina della seconda metá del Trecento' in L'ereditá di Giotto: Arte a Firenze 1340-1375, ed. by Angelo Tartuferi (Florence: Giunti, 2008), pp. 76-85 (pp. 76-77, 84; pp. 210-13, no. 52) [exhibition catalogue].
- Exhibitions:
- Gold, British Library, London, 20 May 2022 - 2 October 2022
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)