A masterpiece of fourteenth-century Florentine miniature art at auction

The work, painted in tempera and gold on parchment, measures approximately 30 centimeters per side and depicts the two apostles inside a monumental initial “N” decorated with an elaborate dragon. Saint Peter is represented with the keys and the cross of martyrdom, while Saint Paul holds the sword and the book. The miniature introduces the entry of the mass for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June, with the incipit “Nunc scio nere, quia misit Dominus Angelum suum”. According to Christie’s, as reported by Adnkronos, it is one of the most important Italian miniatures to appear on the market in recent years. The state of conservation is defined as almost exceptional, with only slight losses in color and gilding, despite the approximately six and a half centuries that have passed since its creation.

The folio originally belonged to Chorale 2 of the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, one of the most important illuminated liturgical codes produced in 14th century Florence and today preserved, albeit mutilated, in the Laurentian Library. The manuscript was completed in 1371 and decorated in the following years by Don Silvestro, a monk of the convent, who guided the scriptorium until the end of the century, training artists destined to become protagonists of late Gothic miniature, including Lorenzo Monaco. The page was detached from the manuscript probably between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the dispersions that affected numerous illuminated manuscripts in the Napoleonic period. Since then it has enjoyed a long and prestigious collecting history.

In fact, its owners include William Young Ottley, one of the pioneers of the study of Italian art in Great Britain and future curator of the Prints and Drawings Department of the British Museum in London, the collector John Rushout, second Lord Northwick, and subsequently David Alexander Robert Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, protagonist of twentieth-century British cultural life and president of the National Trust.

From an artistic point of view, scholars consider the chorales illuminated by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci for Santa Maria degli Angeli to be the moment of full maturity of his production. In these works the illuminator progressively abandons the more severe models of the previous tradition to develop a style characterized by greater monumentality, refined chromatic harmonies and rich Gothic decoration. The solemn figures of the saints, the elegant drapery, the use of a gold background and the ornamental fantasy of the initial testify to a pictorial quality that brings the miniature closer to great contemporary painting.

Gherarducci’s admiration for the work of Don Silvestro was already documented in the sixteenth century. In fact, Giorgio Vasari remembered having personally observed the manuscripts illuminated by the artist, praising “the accuracy of the design and the beauty of the execution”. (by Paolo Martini)