Bullarium Augustinianum (Collection of Augustinian Bulls)

Bullarium Augustinianum (Collection of Augustinian Bulls)

This is a collection of papal decrees and bulls concerning the Augustinian order. The compilation begins with a series of older texts combined into a sprawling bull outlining privileges for friars of the Augustinian order, the Dum fructus uberes. This work was composed at the instigation of Sixtus IV in 1475. The text was commissioned by the Augustinian theologian and abbot Antonio Meli, for the use of Joannis Angeli, both friars in Crema, Lombardy. The manuscript’s borders can be attributed to the workshop of Giovanni Pietro da Cemmo (doc. 1474–1507). This artist was well-known as a fresco painter who enjoyed very close links to the city’s Augustinian convent (today the Museo Civico) in the early sixteenth century, where he painted a refectory fresco cycle in 1507. The portrait in the roundel at the bottom of this folio is that of Saint Augustine.

Illuminator: follower of Giovanni Pietro da Cemmo

1505-6

Manuscript on parchment, 136 fols.

University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 85

Crema (?), Italy