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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 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 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.

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 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.”

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.

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.

In this manuscript, the seven Penitential Psalms are translated into Italian. The poetic rhyming scheme of this translation, which is known only through this single copy, transposes the Vulgate’s prose into Tuscan terza rima, the interlocking rhyming schema of the ABA BCB CDC type espoused by Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265–1321) in the Divine Comedy. The short volume also contains two other texts: the Trattato dell’amicizia (Treatise on Friendship) by Mariotto Davanzati (ca. 1408/10–after 1470), also in terza rima, and the Lettera consolitaria a Pino de Rossi by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75) in which the author consoles Pino de’ Rossi following his exile from Florence. The book bears all hallmarks of Florentine book decoration in the 1460s, produced in the style of the city’s leading illuminator, Francesco di Antonio del Chierico (1433–84).

This manuscript anthology on paper of forty-four Christmas Carols, or Noels, written principally in French and dating to the sixteenth century, are a combination of well-known songs and unique or unrecorded texts. One carol, “Il fault mourir à ce coup cy,” is attributed by an inscription to its author Olivier Maillard (ca. 1420–1502). The use of the regional Angevin terms “nau” and its diminutive “naulet” for Noël, as well as the notarial document reused as a wrapper mentioning Nantes, point to the Western Loire Valley as the region of production and use. The volume is notable for its twenty-five vividly drawn, watercolor-tinted sketches added to the blank marginal spaces surrounding the text. The manuscript can be dated to ca. 1520–30 on the basis of the script’s style and marginal images, whose pastoral character connects them to compositions found in tapestries of this period.

Though they were widely known throughout the Middle Ages, Gaius Sallustius Crispius’s two writings on Roman history, the Bellum Catilinae and Bellum Iugurthinum, were harnessed anew in the fifteenth century by humanists who sought both positive and negative examples from Republican Rome for contemporary civic politics. In both texts, Sallust strove to demonstrate how the moral depravity of leaders could result in catastrophic outcomes. From the Carolingian period onward, Sallust was included as part of the study of rhetoric, a basic component of medieval education. This mid-fifteenth-century copy of Sallust’s texts is dotted with early marginal annotations, which offer alternate readings and occasional insertions into the text. There is a partially obliterated coat of arms, combined with an effaced ownership inscription that bears the name of Mario Maffei (1463–1537). Mario was a churchman and bibliophile, becoming bishop of Aquino in 1516 and Cavaillon in 1527.