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Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend was among the most widely reproduced late medieval texts. This manuscript reproduces an Italian translation of all 182 of de Voragine’s chapters. The present copy, which is dated in its anonymous colophon to 19 April 1459, predates the first printed edition of the work (Cologne, 1470) by over a decade. This volume bears several ownership inscriptions, including the from the library of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Ferrara from an early date. This foundation was home to the firebrand preacher Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98) who would serve as assistant master of novices from 1478 to 1482. Such a provenance is unsurprising, as the Golden Legend was used extensively by members of the Preaching Orders as a source book for constructing sermons.

This Franciscan compendium depicting Saint Francis in an illuminated letter P, painted in a Northern Italian style, features a varied collection of stories and apocryphal legends regarding Saint Francis, his companions, and his disciples. Known as I Fioretti di San Francesco (the Little Flowers of Saint Francis), this was one of the best loved of all Franciscan anthologies. The Fioretti comprises a florilegium of chapters recounting Franciscan stories and legends, some directly concerned with the Order’s founding figure and others related to his successive followers. The first edition of the text was printed in Vicenza in 1476. Originally based upon oral accounts transformed into Latin, these had been retranslated into the Tuscan dialect by the mid-fourteenth century. The volume also contains an Italian prose translation of the Life of Saint Clare, which has likewise not yet been the subject of a critical edition.

This impressive leaf from an Antiphonal contains the incipit for Epiphany, “Hodie in Jordane baptizato domino aperti sunt caeli.” This Antiphon is introduced with a large historiated initial showing the Adoration of the Magi. While it displays the same iconography as the previous item, this choir book leaf relates to the singing of the Office by the assembled choir, as opposed to a Missal, which is intended for the recitation of the Mass by the priest. The style of the miniature recalls that of the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum and of the Olivetan Master, whose output is closely linked. The work of both artists is representative of Lombard illumination in the early fifteenth century. The completion of this leaf was a collaborative undertaking: in the left margin, an instructional note for the illuminator, in Italian, reads: “l’adoratia di magi.”

The historiated letter on this detached Missal leaf begins the Introit for Mass on Epiphany, “Ecce advenit dominator Dominus.” Accordingly, the illuminator has used the bowl of the letter E as the setting for a crowded Adoration of the Magi. The characteristic palette of shaded pink, verdigris, azurite, and lapis, which extends into the vibrant borders identifies this leaf’s illuminator as the Master of Antiphonal Q of San Giorgio Maggiore, a prolific but anonymous individual associated with the eponymous volume in the Benedictine abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

This large detached page from a Gradual contains the Introit that begins the Mass for the Common of the Apostles, “Mihi autem nimis honorati sunt amici tui Deus.” Inside the large initial M, a Blessing Christ holds open the Book of Life, which displays the Alpha and Omega characters symbolizing the Beginning and the End of his reign. The profusion of multicolored animals and the density of the floral forms recall styles of illumination practiced in Florence and Pistoia around the middle of the fifteenth century. The rough style of the miniatures, however, echoes some of the illuminations by Sienese artists Giovanni di Paolo (ca. 1403–82) and Pellegrino di Mariano (act. 1449–92). Its dimensions and the inclusion of only four lines of chant give an idea of the scale of the original set of choir books.

This manuscript’s small scale indicates that it was conceived for portability; its contents are custom selected to enable its user to contribute vocally to the daily Offices that structured monastic life. It consists of general musical forms as well as more specific chants for the annual liturgical cycle. “Fr. Ioannes de Plebe” is named as the scribe in the colophon. The toponymic surname “de plebe” might refer to an individual from Piove di Sacco, near Padua, where a Franciscan convent was established in 1484. The pedagogical nature of the volume is enhanced by the presence of a finely drawn Guidonian hand, depicted here. This emblematic mnemonic device is named after its inventor, Guido of Arezzo (991/2–after 1033), who developed the ancestor of the modern system of pitch notation through lines and spaces, and a method of sight-singing based on the syllables ut–re–mi–fa–so–la.

This historiated initial D showing the Baptism of Christ comes from the same set of Lombard choir books as the previous item, the initial C with Saint John on Patmos, as well as the decorated initial cuttings from the Santi Angelo e Niccolò at Villanova Sillaro choir books. Visually, the composition has some faint echoes of the Baptism of Christ by Andrea del Verrocchio, a painting to which the young Leonardo da Vinci contributed around 1475. Working a generation later in Milan, the artist to whom this image is attributed, Master B.F. (act. ca. 1490–1545), may well have had interactions with Leonardo. Frequent borrowings have been noted from Leonardesque compositions in other cuttings from the Villanova Sillaro choir books. The initial D begins the Collect for the feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June, “D[eus qui praesentem diem honorabilem nobis in beati Joannis . . .].”

This initial comes from the choir books from the Olivetan monastery of Santi Angelo e Niccolò at Villanova Sillaro, outside of Lodi. The series of twenty choir books commissioned by that community was a major financial, logistical, and artistic enterprise and was repeated often in Italy and elsewhere, beginning in the thirteenth century, providing a ready clientele for ambitious illuminators like Master B.F. (act. ca. 1490–1545). Necessary for full liturgical celebrations, these choir books were produced prior to the completion of altarpieces, frescoes, and other para-liturgical furnishings.

This brightly illuminated initial T begins the first words of the Canon of the Mass, “Te igitur, clementissme Pater,” marking the start of the Canon of the Mass. This miniature shows the Lamentation, with Mary holding Christ’s dead body at the center. The miniature’s bright style encapsulates the Florentine High Renaissance aesthetic and can be attributed to Vante di Gabriello di Vante Attavante (1452–ca. 1520/25). Praised by Giorgio Vasari, he garnered significant renown in his own lifetime and was among the experts called upon by the Florentine republic to decide on the appropriate location of Michelangelo’s David. There are over a thousand illuminated manuscripts related to his artistic style. This cutting may be a hitherto unrecognized fragment of a set of three Missals decorated by Attavante around 1520 for the Sistine Chapel by Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, known as Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21).

The Missal contains all instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of the Mass throughout the year. As a visible accessory to the celebration of the Mass, the Missal was embellished with significant decoration. The decoration in this Netherlandish Missal demonstrates the extent to which pictorial trends could migrate from centers of book production toward more regional settings. The irises, thistles, and carnations that decorate the illuminated frames for the major subdivisions within the book hark back to border decoration that was fashionable in Ghent-Bruges style Books of Hours in the late fifteenth century. The historiated initials of Saint Benedict and Saint Martin are evidence that the book was intended for a Benedictine monastery dedicated to the latter, perhaps Saint Martin of Tournai.