Author Description

Excerpt:...employed in Italian houses, indicating the place of their nativity. So that even when we know every feature of the work we have much to learn ere we can say with truth that it was executed in such and such a city. We must take into account details which are liable to escape the ordinary observer, such as quality of vellum or paper, choice of pigments, mode of application, and other particulars quite distinct from style of ornament or varieties of form in foliage. In the Fitzwilliam Library at Cambridge is an Italian MS., the characteristics of whose ornamentation are unequivocally French, but whose mode of treatment shows not only that it is Italian but that it is Milanese, but whether executed in Milan or not is more than anyone can affirm. In the British Museum is a magnificent service-book called the Padua Missal, but the probability is that the Paduan artist who painted its splendid pages, painted them at Venice. That it was executed for Sta. Justina, at Padua, is no proof that the work was done in that city. In monastic times we have seen why the artist rarely signed his name. After the thirteenth century the lay artist had no such scruples, and hence we often find particulars of origin and purpose which explain all we wish to know. But if the MSS. themselves do not contain the particulars, very often the account-books of cathedrals and other establishments for which the books were illuminated, give the details of price and purpose, and add the names of the artists. The household expense books, guild books, municipal records, and the journals of the painters themselves are fertile sources of information. And if we seek with sufficient diligence these will probably be the means by which it may eventually be found. CHAPTER III FRENCH ILLUMINATION FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY TO THE RENAISSANCE Ivy-leaf and chequered backgrounds