Beschreibung:

Two Franciscans reading and bearing witness as God appears to them, in a large historiated initial on a leaf from an illuminated manuscript choir psalter on parchment [northern Italy (probably Bologna, or perhaps Ferrara), c. 1430-40] Single large leaf, with a large initial ‘N’ (opening “Nisi dominus edificaverit …”, Psalm 127) attributed to Giovanni di Antonio da Bologna, in beige enclosed within brightly coloured acanthus leaf sprays in green and red, on brightly burnished gold grounds, enclosing a scene with two Franciscan monks seated in a wooded landscape before a walled town (or monastery) on a rocky outcrop, reading from open books as God’s face appears to them, the border decoration formed of curling acanthus leaves and foliate buds on large teardrop-shaped burnished gold grounds edged with serrated penwork, terminating in flowerheads and large bezants with penwork bristles, initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, music on a 4-line red stave at head of page (rastrum: 43mm.), 14 lines of text, reverse with 2 staves and 12 lines of text and one large initial in red with elaborate foliate shapes picked out in blue penwork and wash, crackling to gold and edges trimmed with affect to borders, cockling to lower part of text with some folding there causing slight flaking to ink, slight discolouration to edges, else in good and fresh condition, 564 by 410 mm. From a manuscript made for Franciscan use, with members of that Order here and in the decoration of all the sister leaves (for the Beatus vir leaf, see Sotheby’s, 14 June 1926, lot 138, and F. Todini, La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia Miniature, 1996, no. 34, fig. a). The manuscript was dispersed by Sotheby’s as lots 138-41 in the same Sotheby’s sale, and by Paul Graupe of Berlin, Kostbare Buchminiaturen, 12 December 1927, lots 53-56. Leaves have re-emerged in the Cleveland Museum of Art, CMA 53.641 (Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 50, 1963, pp. 210 and 183); Sotheby’s, 22 June 1993, lot 57; and 21 June 1994, lot 61 (that perhaps from the sister-codex, a Gradual), and to these should probably be added Venice, Cini Foundation (G.M. Canova, Miniature dell’Italia settentrionale, 1978, p. 30, no. 63). The illumination of these leaves has been attributed to Giovanni di Antonio da Bologna, active in Emilia and Romagna, c. 1432-45 (F. Todini, La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia 1996, pp. 150-57, M. Medica, ‘Da Leonello a Borso: il protorinascimento a Ferrara e i suoi esiti’ in La miniatura a Ferrara dal tempo di Cosmè Tura all’erdità di Ercole de’ Roberti, 1998, no. 3, p. 81, and M. Medica, ‘Giovanni di Antonio di Bologna’ in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani, 2004, p. 283-85). His name is recorded in a signed and dated manuscript of 1432 (Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, ms. XIV A. 21), and it has been assumed that he trained in Bologna, later working for the Este court in Ferrara as well as other places in Emilia-Romagna, and perhaps also briefly the Malatesta court. Among the works attributed to the artist are two choir psalters for the Olivetan convent of San Giorgio in Ferrara, datable after 1443 (Ferrara, Museo di Schifanoia, cod. I and cod. O), which are notably close to the present leaves, with the same distinctive border illumination.