Beschreibung:

A bishop, in a historiated initial, on a substantial cutting from a choirbook leaf, in Latin, on parchment [Lombardy, c. 1490] Large cutting of most of a choirbook leaf, trimmed at foot with loss of perhaps a single line of text and music there, with a large initial 'K' (opening "Kyrie eleison ...") in green acanthus leaves, shaded to pick out the folds of the leaves' edges in their bodies, the lower compartment of the letter enclosing a detailed portrait of a bishop, tonsured and dressed in richly edged floral robes on vivid blue grounds, one large white-dotted red fruit emerging at join of the upper and lower compartments of the letter (a smaller version of the same fruit nestled in the turn up of the descender of the initial), large gold fruit and purple acanthus swirls emerging from top and bottom of initial, all on brightly burnished gold ground, six coloured initials on dull gold grounds with delicate designs picked out in their bodies in white penwork, red rubrics, the 'y' following the initial 'K' in calligraphic penwork strokes and heightened with acanthus leaves and a human face in hairline penwork, four lines of text remaining, accompanied by music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 44mm.), modern pencil 'M3994' in upper corner hidden by mount, other modern pencil arrows indicating where earlier mounting should cover to, flaking and crackling of gold of main initial in places, one smaller initial slightly smudged, marks at edges from previous mounting, slight cockling, 363 by 330mm.; in modern card mount Two smaller cuttings with nearly identical portraits of bishops, clearly from the same parent codex, were sold by Christie's, 23 November 1998, lot 5 (later Les Enlumineres, cat. 8, 1999, no. 32). There they were connected to the workshop of Francesco da Castello a Milanese artist who worked on manuscripts for King Matthias Corvinus in Budapest, drawing particularly close comparisons to a series of choirbooks presented to the Cathedral of Lodi by its bishop, Carlo Pallavicino, in 1495 (Lodi, Civica Biblioteca Laudense Mss lauden. 1-6 and New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Mss 682-687) and others made for S. Maria degli Angelo in Busseto.