Illuminated Manuscripts

It is not safe to assert that because a work is ordered for a monastery or a prince that the copyists or illuminators always went to the monastery or palace to do the work, though frequently they did so. Most of the MSS. executed for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, were produced in Florence. There was more than one atelier of illuminators in Florence. There were others in Bologna, others in Rome, and quite a large establishment in Naples. Others resided in Milan, Ferrara, and Verona. Those at Ferrara lived chiefly at the Ducal Palace. Those at Verona were the guests of the great Ghibelline leader, Can della Scala, and his immediate successors. Those at Naples, in the time of Alphonso the Magnanimous, and especially of his son, Ferdinand I., were maintained solely for the augmentation and embellishment of the Royal Library.[45] A list of seventeen copyists, including the famous names of Antonio Sinibaldo, Giovanni, Rinaldo, Mennio, and Hippolito Lunensis, and of fourteen or fifteen illuminators, all of distinguished ability, is given by Signer Riccio from the archives of the city. The splendid work they achieved may still occasionally be met with. In the British Museum (Add. 21120) there is a beautiful copy of the Ethics of Aristotle, with very peculiar initials and ornaments; and in the National Library, at Paris, many other very fine examples of Neapolitan work. Of the handwriting of Mennius we have a fine example in Add. 11912, which is a quarto copy of Lucretius, written on 160 leaves of vellum. Fol. 1 has a grand border on a gold ground, with a miniature containing a handsome initial E suspended over the author's head, who is seated at a desk writing. The first three lines of the text are in Roman capitals, alternately gold and blue. The illumination is of a transitional character, inclining rather towards the candelabra style of the Milanese and Neapolitan Renaissance—the Heures d'Aragon, executed for Frederick III., show a similar taste for candelabra, etc. On the other hand, the initials are of the older white stem type, with coloured grounds. The writing is a small and very neat Roman minuscule, and dates probably about 1485, or between 1480 and 1490. The penmanship of Hippolito Lunensis appears in Ficino's Translation of Plato; also in the British Museum, Harl. 3481, and in Add. 15270, 15271.

The Heures d'Aragon referred to above are a rich example of the Neapolitan Renaissance preserved in the National Library at Paris. Writers on Italian miniatures are very numerous, and a good deal of interesting information about Italian MSS. may be found in M. Delisle's Cabinet des MSS., etc.

There is one style of Italian illumination made very popular by the illuminators of the works of Petrarch, many of which are found in various libraries. That is the one called the vine-stem style. It consists of gracefully coiled stems, usually left uncoloured or softly tinted with yellow, and bearing here and there peculiar ornamental flowerets, while the grounds are picked out with various colours, on which are fine white triads of dots or traceries in delicate white or golden tendrils. A later variety of this style makes the stems of some pale but bright tint, and the grounds of deep colour. The vine-stem style seems to have prevailed throughout the whole of Italy just previous to the classic revival brought about by the Medici in throwing open their museums of sculptures, coins, and other antiquities, and by the liberal patronage of the new classic work by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and the Dukes of Urbino. After 1500 the vine-stem style seems to have gradually died out, and thenceforward only varieties of the revived antique became the fashion.

CHAPTER VII

In a former chapter we brought up the story of German illumination to the time of the Hohenstaufen emperors. We may now make a new start with Frederick II., the eccentric, resolute, intractable, accomplished Stupor Mundi (1210-50). Not only was he a patron and encouraged art, but also an author. The work which he composed is still extant, and is preserved in the Vatican Library under the title De arte venandi cum avibus. Paintings of birds and hunting scenes embellish its pages. The art is not specially high class, and though in courtesy it may be called German, seeing that he was the German Emperor, and in some respects is like the Imperial MSS. of the Saxon period, in point of fact it is Italian or Sicilian.[46] This Sicilian school is peculiar, and exhibits very slight traits of relationship with the rest of Italy. After the Arab conquest of the island in 827, whilst new ideas were imported, still the old Greek cities kept their ancient traditions and methods in art, especially in those branches we term industrial, and just as both Greek and Arabic tongues existed as vernaculars beside the Latin, so the arts and industries bore the features of three artistic tastes.

The silk-weaving of the Greek craftsmen was embellished with the designs of embroidery from Damascus, and these were mingled with patterns in which the foliages of Carolingian and German origin are distinctly traceable. Examples of the kind of manufacture here referred to may be seen in the robes of the Emperor Henry II., still preserved in the Cathedral Treasury at Bamberg. Also the coronation mantle of St. Stephen of Hungary, husband of Henry's sister Gisela—originally a closed casula covering the body, but now an open cloak richly embroidered with figures of prophets, animals, and foliages, and even portraits of the King and Queen. It has sometimes been thought, from the inscription on its border, that, like the Bayeux tapestries of Queen Matilda, the needlework was from the Queen's own hand; but no doubt both these attributions are mistaken.[47] Still more Saracenic in taste are the mantle and alb now in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna, of the twelfth century, and executed at Palermo. Sicilian in some respects is intermediate between Italian and German, hence we deem this a proper place to speak of it, and rather as a transient phase than a style, for it perished with the Hohenstaufen dynasty.

The cruel tyranny of the cold-blooded despot, remembered, but execrated, in Sicily as Charles of Anjou, extinguished the last scintilla of native art, and when the Italian revival of the thirteenth century took place, it was confined entirely to the North, except when such patrons as Robert or Ferdinand or Alfonso encouraged Tuscan artists by inviting them to Naples. Palermo was no longer of importance, though a capital, and Sicily existed merely as a portion of the kingdom of Naples.

Let us pass, then, to the great German capital. Changes here, too, have taken place. It is not Bamberg but Prag, for the Imperial crown has passed from the House of Suabia through the Hapsburgs to that of Luxembourg, and among its territories is the picturesque old city with its historic bridge and gate-towers, a Slavonic not a German city in its origin. The ten German circles of Suabia and Franconia, Westphalia, Bohemia, and the rest did not as yet exist—they were the later creation of Maximilian; the Fatherland consisted of some two or three hundred dukedoms, counts, marquisates, and lordships, all absolute sovereignties, but all pledged to support the Holy Roman Empire. Very thinly, perhaps, but still the Imperial sceptre meant a real supremacy, and in the hands of such emperors as Henry of Luxembourg, a supremacy maintained with real and becoming dignity.

Prag, as we have said, is in a Slavonic country, and one sometimes hostile to the Empire. It was the capital of Bohemia. In 1310 its King was John, the restless son of the new Emperor Henry VII. of Luxembourg. Hence we find it at the moment we begin the study of its art a nominally German city. Shortly before this time were produced several examples of German work; as, for instance, the “Minnelieder,” with more than a hundred miniatures of hunting scenes and similar outdoor amusements, which are useful as studies of costume, but otherwise of little interest. But it is not until 1312—the new King being then, for the sake of acquiring the crown, though only, it is said, thirteen years of age, already the husband of the Princess Elizabeth, the late King's second daughter, yet neither a favourite with his wife nor with her father's people—that the Abbess of St. George's in Prag, the Princess Cunigunda, composed a Passionale, richly illustrated with interesting miniatures. The saints, histories, and allegories are painted in tender water-colours, the architectural details being in Gothic taste. It is still preserved in the University Library at Prag, No. xiv., A. 17.[48] The Emperor Charles IV., son of the valorous but impracticable John (born 1316, died 1378), and who has already been spoken of in connection with English illumination, was the founder of the Bohemian school, or, rather, of the school of Prag. Owing probably his fine tastes and many accomplishments rather to his mother than his father, he devoted himself to art and literature, inviting painters and scholars from other countries to reside in the Bohemian capital. For the Collegium Carolinum, of which he was the founder, he caused many noble volumes to be executed, and among the vast treasures and curiosities of his celebrated Schloss Karlstein was a fine collection of illuminated MSS. In the Museum at Prag and other local libraries are still kept some relics of his library. The “Liber Viaticus” of Bishop John of Newmarkt—the “Orationale” of Bishop Arnestus (under French influence)—the “Pontificale of Bishop Albert von Sternberg” (in the library of the Præmonstrant Monastery of Strahow)—the Missal of Archbishop Ozko von Wlaschim (library of the Metropolitan Chapter in Prag)—the Evangeliary of Canon John von Troppau (Johannes de Oppavia), written and illuminated at Brunn, in Moravia, now in the Imperial Library at Vienna. All these illuminated MSS. are examples of the great variety of styles in which the Bohemian colony produced their work under the auspices of their liberal patron, yet not without peculiarities which mark the individuality of the artist. Thus while the Orationale of Arnestus is almost French, the Passionale of Cunegunda is entirely free from French influence. For costumes the Weltchronik of Rudolf von Ems, 1350-85, and now in the Royal Private Library at Stuttgard, is almost an encyclopædia. Similar is the “Legenda Aurea” of 1362 in the Public Library at Munich (Cod. Germ. 6). A very interesting MS. with miniatures of costumes and curious usages is the “Bellifortis” of Conrad Kyeser (Göttingen, Public Library, Philos., No. 63). The Evangeliary of Troppau is most beautifully written; its text is a model of elegant and perfect penmanship; its ornaments distinctly Bohemian. Three or four Prag MSS. executed for Charles's son Wenzel (1378-1409) are, it may be said, typical. Of these the grandest, though incomplete, is the illuminated Bible, called the Wenzel Bible, executed by order of Martin Rotlöw for presentation to the Emperor. The choice of illustrations in this singular performance are rather more than on a par with the woodcuts of the great English Bible of Cranmer. The “Wilhelm von Oranse” of 1387, now in the Ambras Museum at Vienna (No. 7), affords splendid examples of the fine embroidered and richly coloured backgrounds we so often see towards 1400 in English MSS., and the Golden Bull of Charles IV., also in the Imperial Library at Vienna (j. c. 338), has the softly curling foliages variously coloured, which form the characteristic difference between the French and English illumination of the fifteenth century.

Another rich example of German as distinct from French or Italian work of this period is the grand Salzburg Missal now at Munich (Lat. 15710). When we reach the fifteenth century German illumination begins to grow gaudy, especially in the revived taste for parti-coloured border-frames, in which green and scarlet are often to be seen. The Kuttenberg Gradual at Vienna (Imp. Lib., 15501) is of the Bohemian type. Now and then a MS. will show the influence of Westphalian treatment of foliage—and, again, of the school of Cologne or Nuremberg or Augsburg. These all differ, whilst still keeping an unmistakable German character. The Hildesheimer Prayer-book at Berlin points to Cologne. The Frankendorfer Evangeliary at Nuremberg is characteristic of that city. The Choir-book of St. Ulrich and Afra in their abbey at Augsburg is typical of its locality. The Missal of Sbinco, Archbishop of Prag, inclines to Nuremberg rather than Prag (Imp. Lib., Vienna, No. 1844). It is eighty years earlier than the Augsburg and Hildesheim MSS. Passing actively onwards, we find illumination still in vogue in the sixteenth century, notwithstanding that Germany was the cradle of the printing press.

In fact, it seems to wax more and more sumptuous—the books more profusely ornamented than ever. The Missal and Prayer-book of Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, once at Aschaffenburg, executed about 1524 are among the finest productions of the illuminator's art. While perhaps we may complain that design has given way to profusion and the border flowers and insects—a contemporary characteristic of Netherlandish art also—are neither more nor less than portraiture applied to flowers, fruits, and the insect world. The larger miniatures are modern paintings, including portraits, differing in nothing but dimensions from the works of the greatest masters of the schools of painting. In ignorance of the strict rules of the gilds, some writers have gone so far as to say that miniatures also such as these were the work of the Van Eycks, the Memlings, and the Lucas van Leydens of our public galleries. This particular MS. was the work of a famous Nuremberg miniaturist, one of a distinguished family of artists—Nicolas Glockendon.

The first Archbishop of Prag, Arnestus or Ernest von Pardubitz, was an industrious collector of MSS. and employed many scribes. Another of the famous patrons in Prag was Gerhard Groot, who employed one of the best penmen to copy St. John Chrysostom's Commentary on St. Matthew. In 1383 he founded at Deventer the famous House of the Brothers of the Common Life, who made a business of transcribing books; and, indeed, so profitably, that, for instance, Ian van Enkhuisen of Zwolle received five hundred golden gulden for a Bible. On account of the goose-quill which the brothers wore in their hats, they were familiarly known as the Brethren of the Pen.[49]

CHAPTER VIII

In> speaking of the Netherlands we have to bear in mind that some portions of what are now called the Netherlands were once parts of Germany, while others were parts of France. In the thirteenth century Netherlandish art was simply a variety either of Northern German or Northern French. The earlier schools of Flanders and Hainaut, and perhaps of Brabant, belong rather to France, while Holland, Limburg, Luxembourg, and the Rhine districts were more inclined towards Germany. But as soon as the schools of Ghent and Bruges and other Burgundian centres began to assert their claims, it was speedily apparent that they had an individuality of their own. In no country had the study of nature a more direct influence on the character of illumination. The allegorical method which so long had characterised both French and German art was promptly abandoned, and direct realism both in figure and landscape became the prevailing characteristic. Symbolism, it is true, remained in the representation of cities and other generalities of pictorial composition, but the details were in all cases direct imitations of contemporary facts. Half a dozen soldiers or houses might indicate an army or a city, and even some particular army or city named in the text, but the individual soldiers, though representing the army of Alexander or Roland, would wear the equipment or armour of the artist's military acquaintances, or his overlord's own company. The city, whether Ghent or Bagdad, would consist of the same sort of houses peaked and parapeted, the same towers and pinnacles that the illuminator saw before him in his daily walks. His conception of a scene from Scripture history would probably be framed more or less upon the traditions of the schools transmitted from the Sphigmenou Manual or the master's portfolio of “schemes,” but while a prophet, an angel, or a divinity would wear ideal raiment, Abraham and Pharaoh would be arrayed in the costume of a contemporary burgomaster, and an almost contemporary French king. In one memorable instance, we are told, so realistic was the scene that Isaac was about to be despatched with a horse-pistol; and in another, representing the birth of Cain, Adam was bringing to the French tester bedside a supply of hot water from the kitchen boiler in a copper saucepan. This kind of anachronism, it is true, is to some degree chargeable on all early work; we see it among the early Italian painters no less frequently perhaps, but mostly accompanied with so much of allegory or imagination that we scarcely notice it, or if we do, we wink at it as part of the times of ignorance. It is really a mark of over-haste to be truthful, or at least to be understood, and at the worst it is no more than the natural rebound from the evil constraint of the old Byzantine tyranny over scheme and costume and invention. It is often truly diverting in its very insouciance. But its priceless value to us—and here the same remark applies to all styles of pictorial art before the fifteenth century—is the ocular record of dress, architecture, implements of peace and war, incidents of daily life, etc., for which no Encyclopædia Britannica of verbal explanation could ever be more than the poorest makeshift. As we say, this same happy anachronism is common to other schools of illumination, and we cannot fail to notice it from Byzantium to Britain, but it is the intense realism of the Netherlands that forces it upon us so strongly that we are bound to speak of it.

The oldest notice of illuminated work in the Netherlands is in a Benedictine chronicle of the ninth century, where mention is made of two ladies, daughters of the Lord of Denain, named Harlinda and Renilda,[50] who were educated in the convent of Valenciennes. “In 714 they left their native province to found a monastery on the banks of the Maas—among the meadows of Alden and Maas-Eyck. They there consecrated their lives to the praise of God and the transcription of books, adorning them with precious pictures.”[51] About the year 1730 an Evangeliary of great age was discovered in the sacristy of the church by the Benedictine antiquary, Edmond Martène, which on good ground has been attributed to the two sisters. The MS. is still in existence, and was exhibited in Brussels in 1880. It is a small folio, and contains a great number of miniatures in the Carolingian or, perhaps more strictly, Franco-Saxon manner. On the first leaf is a Romanesque colonnade of arches surmounted by a larger one. Under the smaller arches are the figures of saints, demons, and monsters, and in the tympanum scrolls of foliage and birds. Between the columns are the reference numbers to the chapters.

The evangelist portraits are dignified and saintly, recalling the earliest work of the Byzantine school and that of the catacombs. Draperies and other details are heavy, dull, and ill drawn. In short, the work is of the same class as the early Carolingian. The blue, red, green, and gold of the borders, etc., have all kept their brilliancy.[52] It is somewhat curious that the Van Eycks, the founders of Flemish painting, were natives of this little town—then, doubtless, pretty and rural, now a busy place of breweries, oil-factories, tanneries, and other fragrant nuisances. Some miles further northward lie Deventer and Zwolle and Kempen, the land of the Brothers of the Pen, and of the immortal Thomas à Kempis. There is a style of calligraphic ornament deriving its origin from these Northern Hollandish foundations such as Zwolle, which is confined almost entirely to the painting of the initial letters and the decorating of the borders with flourished scrolls of penwork very neatly drawn and terminating in equally neat but extremely fanciful flowers finely painted. It seems to have been brought at some time from the neighbourhood of Milan, where a similar kind of initial and exceedingly neat penmanship also is found in the choir books. Many South German choir books are similarly ornamented, so that it is not easy to say at once where the work was done. The Dutch illuminators, however, may usually be recognised by the Netherlandish character of the miniatures combined with neat and sometimes rigidly careful penmanship in the scrolls and tendrils and a hardness in the outline of the flowers. Sometimes the large initials are entirely produced by the pen, the labyrinthine patterns in blue or vermilion being filled in with circlets, loops, and other designs with infinite patience and excellent effect. Some of the border scrolls are exceedingly pretty, and the borders differ from Flemish in mixing natural flowers painted in thin water-colours with the more conventional flowers painted with a different medium, not in the later Flemish manner where the flowers are frankly direct imitations of nature, and painted in the same medium as the rest of the illumination.

After the Maas-Eyck Evangeliary the work of these northern foundations may well reckon either with the French or German schools until the fifteenth century. Where otherwise they are not distinguishable, the Netherlandish miniatures are usually such as prefer plain burnished gold backgrounds to diapered ones, or have a plain deep blue paled towards the horizon, and lastly replace the background by a natural, or what was intended to be a natural, landscape. As a test between French or German influence generally, the use of green shows the latter, that of blue the former. Not that this was any æsthetic point of difference in taste, but somehow the Germans had the green paint when the French had not, and so they used it. It is an open question whether Flanders or Italy first introduced the landscape background, but Flemish artists were so numerous, so ubiquitous, that we can hardly say where they were not at work—in France, Italy, or Spain. Plenty of so-called Spanish illumination is really the work of Flemish craftsmen. This was largely owing to the political conditions of the times. The Dukes of Burgundy and the Austrian Archdukes both ruled over Flemish municipalities, and employed the gildmen as their household “enlumineurs.” And, of course, the success of the Van Eycks, Rogier van der Weide (de la Pasture), Derrick Bonts, and Hans Memling, stirred up the spirit of rivalry among the illuminators. They all worked in the same minutely, careful manner, and one could almost take a corporal oath on the identity of illuminations and panels which are really the work of different artists. Even yet the illuminations of the Grimani Breviary are attributed in part to Hans Memling—and no wonder! Only the best qualified judges can distinguish them. It is known that Gerard David of Oudewater, in Holland, a master painter, belonged also to the gild of miniaturists. But no miniatures are known to be from the hands of either Ian, or Hubert, or Marguerite van Eyck, or Hans Memling. The supposed identifications are merely guesses. But while this is so there is still no lack of illuminators, not to mention the illustrious few who were employed by the brothers of Charles V., King of France; and when we come to the days of his grandson, Philip of Burgundy (1419-67), we might name quite a crowd of distinguished illuminators. From 1422 to 1425 Ian van Eyck was “varlet de chamber” to Duke John of Bavaria, first bishop of Liége, and Regent of Luxembourg, Holland, and Brabant. In 1425 he passed into the service of Philip. He died in 1440. In court service there were besides, Jean de Bruges, David Aubert, Jean Mielot, Jean Wanguelin, Loyset Lyeder, and others connected more or less closely with the Maas valley and the province of Limburg. This valley seems to have been the cradle of Netherlandish miniature art. It is from this neighbourhood that Paris was supplied with craftsmen in the days of the brilliant if reckless administration of the uncles of Philip the Good. There were schools of illuminating artists in Maestricht and Liége, and within a very brief period the style of the Netherlander surpassed that of all competitors for facility, clearness, and realism. A marked feature in this mastery is the free use of architectural and sculptural design. All Gothic draperies are in some degree sculpturesque, and in miniatures we find sculpture to be the ruling principle. Perhaps it was the practice of uniting the crafts of painter and “imagier” in one person that fostered this peculiarity. But certain it is that Netherlandish illumination, in its border foliages, after the taste for the larger vine and acanthus leaf had superseded the ivy, the drawing is studiously sculpturesque. Many of the Gantois borders are like undercut wood carvings. Even as to colour we find either the gilded wood brown or the stone grey, quite as frequently as gayer colours, and much more so than any natural green. The after-fashion for grisailles or camaieu gris has reference probably rather to stained glass than to carving. Before the fifteenth century we do not often meet with individual illuminators by name, but in the Limburg Chronicle under 1380 is this entry: “There was at this time in Cologne a celebrated painter (he was probably a native of Herle in Limburg), the like of whom was not in the whole of Christendom,” and more to his praise. His name was Wilhelm. In the municipal expense book, under 1370-90, page 12, is written, “To Master Wilhelm for painting the Oath Book, 9 marks.” The Oath Book still exists, but unfortunately the miniature has been cut out.[53]

Of course, it may be expected that some of the best examples of Netherlandish illumination are to be found in the Royal Library at Brussels. The Bibliothéque de Bourgogne, as it is called, contains, indeed, a great number of them. Some, of course, may be classed as Burgundian. There are, for instance, the grand “Chroniques de Hainaut” in three immense folio volumes, written from 1446 to 1449 (Nos. 9242-4). Also Jean Mansel's “Fleur des Histoires” in three grand folios (Nos. 9231-3), written about 1475. The frontispiece to the “Chroniques” shows the Duke Philip with his son the Count of Charolais receiving the work from the author, perhaps the best illumination in all three volumes.

Another (9245), the Book of the Seven Sages of Rome, is an example of the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Still another (9246), the History of St. Graal, or of the Round Table, is dated 1480. A Missal and Pontifical (9216, 9217) shows miniatures dating about 1475.

But other public libraries also possess admirable examples. The Imperial Library at Vienna possesses a most masterly production in the fragments of a folio Chronicle of Jerusalem (No. 2533), in which both figures and architectural details are most delicately and minutely finished, so that the miniatures form a most valuable treasury of costumes, armour, and architecture, correctly drawn and exquisitely painted. The figure of Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, shows the pointed toes which Anne of Bohemia is said to have introduced into England. At Vienna, also, is the richly illuminated History of Gérard de Roussillon in French (No. 2549). At Paris we find the “Champion des Dames” (No. 12476). Round the first miniature in this MS. are splendidly emblazoned the armorials of the various countries and cities of his dominions—Burgundy, Brabant, Flanders, Franche-Comté, Holland, Namur, Lower Lorraine, Luxembourg, Artois, Hainaut, Zealand, Friesland, Malines, and Salins. On either side are scenes from the story, and beneath a symbolical crown is the motto of Philip's grandfather, Philip le Hardi, aultre n'aray. The same motto appears in the Chronicle of Jerusalem at Vienna, and on the velvet of the daïs of Isabella of Portugal, Philip's third consort.

It may be interesting to note, as a means of distinguishing these Burgundian princes or their MSS., that the arms of Philip II. the Good differ from those of his father, during the latter's lifetime, by having in chief a label of three points, and from those of his grandfather, Philip the Bold, by having an inescutcheon of pretence on the centre of the arms of Margaret de Maele, first assumed by his father, John the Fearless, that is, “or, a lion rpt. sa; for Flanders.” As we have just said, many of the MSS. claimed as Netherlandish may be classed as Burgundian. The difference lies mainly in the miniatures. Where the latter are manifestly French with the mixed Brugeois borders, they may pass as Burgundian; but with similar borders yet distinguishably Netherlandish, that is, broad-nosed, square-jawed, and excited faces as compared with the finer features and placid expression of the French artists, the work may still be Burgundian, but it will be also Netherlandish. The individuality of Netherlandish illumination above every other quality establishes its identity. Look at the expression of the onlookers in a Crucifixion, or a Christ before Pilate, or a Stoning of St. Stephen—the diabolical ferocity, the fiendish earnestness, the downright intentional ugliness put on some of the characters are in direct contrast to the sweet indifference, the calm complaisance, and blank unconcern of a crowd as shown in similar scenes by French illuminators.

In 1484 Gerard David appears on the list of illuminators of Bruges,[54] and it appears that he, and not Hans Memling, was the painter of those marvellous miniatures in the Grimani Breviary at Venice usually attributed to the latter, and therefore may be considered as one of the founders of the school of Bruges, or at least of the later style that may be referred to the Grimani Breviary as its most perfect example. Executed in much the same manner is a Book of Offices in the British Museum, containing portraits of Philip the Fair and his wife, the unhappy Juana la Loca, son and daughter-in-law of the Emperor Maximilian. Similar, again, are the “Offices of the Elector, Albert of Brandenburg,” possibly the work of the same artists who produced the Grimani Breviary. There are also some fragments in a guard-book in the British Museum (Add. 24098), which may compare with any of the preceding examples. But perhaps to many book-lovers no better specimen of the highest class of Netherlandish art could be more welcome or more interesting than the celebrated copy of the “Roman de la Rose,” also in our great national collection (Harl. 4425). This justly famous MS. is a real masterpiece in every department, whether we consider the expression in its miniatures or the consummate technical skill displayed in the drawing and colour of the borders. These secondary embellishments consist of fruit, flowers, birds, beetles, and butterflies. But, of course, the great interest of this book lies in its miniatures, scenes from the poet's allegory, and in the little statuesque figures of the various characters in the poem.

Two marvellous little volumes there are in the National Museum at Munich (861-2) which are surely unapproachable. One of the borders in 861 consists of the eyes of peacock feathers so absolutely perfect that we can only wonder at its rainbow hues and pearly sheen of colour. Something similar to it exists in a fragment (No. 4461) in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. The “Isabella Breviary” of the British Museum (Add. 18851) ought not to pass unmentioned, but space forbids us to add more on this inexhaustible topic. There is, however, the class of work alluded to early in the chapter, and in that on French work, which must be at least mentioned. We refer to what the Italians call chiaroscuro and the French grisaille; i.e. painting executed in tones of grey, in which the lights are given in white or gold and the backgrounds in rich blue. Occasionally the draperies and ornaments also are touched with gold, and the flesh tints as in life. Grisaille is not limited to Netherlandish illuminations. We find it both in French and Italian, but perhaps it is among the Netherlandish books we meet with it most frequently. Several examples are to be seen in the Royal Library at Brussels, and there is at least one in the British Museum (Add. 24189).

CHAPTER IX

When the new ideas derived from the Italian revival first reached France, it would be difficult to say. There must have been communication with Italy going on the whole time that Cimabue and Giotto, Memmi and the rest were astonishing their fellow-citizens with their divine performances. The roads from Lyons, Poictiers, Dijon, and Paris were well known, and frequently trodden by both artists and merchants as well as by soldiers. The Renaissance, therefore, was no sudden convulsion. Perhaps a very careful examination of some of our Burgundian MSS. might reveal the presence of notions derived from Italian travel, for it is in the details of ornament that we find the traces of a new movement, and when the great change of style is clearly noticeable it is when the habits of society themselves have been remodelled, and when the once strange and foreign element has become a familiar guest.

The first name that we meet with among the illuminators of Touraine who are expressly connected with the Renaissance is that of Jean Fouquet. Of his origin or training nothing seems to be known, but he was born probably about 1415. He must have acquired distinction even as a youth, for some twenty-five years afterwards (1440-3) he was invited to Rome to paint the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV., and he stayed in Italy until 1447. On his return to France he was made valet de chambre and painter to Charles VII. at Tours, and continued in the same office under Louis XI. It was part of the business of the paintre du roy to design and provide decorations and costumes, banners and devices for all state ceremonies, and this became Fouquet's duty at the funeral of Charles VII., and when Louis instituted the Order of St. Michel in 1470, and the last trace of him as an artist occurs about 1477. His sons, Louis and Francis, were both painters, and, like himself, worked much at the illumination of books. It is curious that this great master—one of the greatest miniaturists of any school, and one of the founders of the French school of painting—became entirely forgotten until the discovery of some fragments of a Book of Hours painted for Estienne Chevalier, the King's treasurer.

Forty miniatures of the most masterly description came into the hands of M. Louis Brentano-Laroche, of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Their uncommon excellence led to a most diligent search for information respecting the artist, which resulted in the unearthing of many other examples of his unequalled pencil. We now know of a dozen most precious examples. Besides the Brentano miniatures, two other fragments of the same Book of Hours have been found, and several large and important MSS. Among these we may name the “Antiquities of the Jews,” by Josephus, in the National Library at Paris (MSS. Des. 6891), and a Book of Hours, executed for Marie de Clève, widow of Charles Duke of Orleans, in 1472. Attributed to him are the “Versailles” Livy (Nat. Lib., Paris, 6907); the “Sorbonne” Livy (fds. de Sorb. 297). A Livy in the public library at Tours also passes under his name, and the famous “Boccaccio” of Estienne Chevalier at Munich, containing ninety miniatures, is also confidently assigned to him. Other MSS. that are imputed to him are probably the work of his sons or scholars.

The Paris Josephus is generally considered his masterpiece. The volume (which contains only the first fourteen books) is in folio, written most beautifully in two columns, and is adorned with miniatures, vignettes, and initials, but much of its interest lies in the note at the end, placed there by Robortet, secretary to the Due de Bourbon: “En ce liure a douze ystoires les troys premieres de l'enlumineur du due Jehan de Berry, et les neuf de la main du bon paintre et enlumineur du roy Loys XI^e Jehan Foucquet, natif de Tours.” And we gather from another note that the book had been entrusted to Fouquet for completion by Jacques d'Armagnac duc de Nemours. A further note informs us that the book belonged to the Duc de Bourbon. It seems to have been one of the rich presents made by the Due de Berry to Jacques de Nemours. The first three miniatures are by the illuminator of the Duc de Berry, and this artist was probably Andrieu Beauneveu, though other illuminators did work for him, as Jacques de Hesdin and Pol de Limbourg. The fourth miniature is by Fouquet, and represents a battle; the rest to the seventh are either not his best work or else the work of his pupils, but the seventh on folio 135 gives us a good idea of Fouquet at his best. It represents David receiving with his crown the news of the death of Saul. The eighth, ninth, and tenth are very fine, but the eleventh M. Paulin Paris (MSS. du Roy) thinks the most beautiful of all. Its subject is the clemency of Cyrus towards the captive Jews in Babylon.[55] Of the other MSS. space forbids us reluctantly to forego description.

The characteristics of the school of Tours as seen in the work of the greatest of its expositors is (1) The clearly marked influence of Italy and the antique. (2) A masterly understanding of French landscape (see fine instances of this understanding also in “Trésor des Histoires,” now in the British Museum, Cott., Aug. 5). (3) A complete freedom from Gothic influence and from the domination of the school of Bruges. The colours for which Fouquet seems to have a preference are, first, a clear orange-vermilion, supported by golden brown and gold, clear blue and green, lemon-yellow; and then, as a contrast, grey of various tones in walls and buildings, soft landscape greens, and aërial tints of distance and sky. Perhaps the technical skill of Fouquet has never been surpassed. It is so perfect that some have tried to explain it by supposing that he was trained in a Flemish studio. His sons and pupils continued his methods, and thus while Paris remains under the influence of Flemish masters, Tours was carrying forward a quite different type of traditions.

We ought not in this place to forget the influence brought into French art through the marriage of the murdered Duke of Orleans with Valentina of Milan, not only directly through books and artists, but by the hereditary transmission of that love of art and beautiful things for which Valentina and her family were well known. It was in art, letters, and books that the widowed princess sought such consolation as was possible.[56] In her best days she had united in herself a seductive grace of carriage, beauty of person, and dignity of rank, which made her the ornament of the French Court. She was almost the only one about the unfortunate Charles VI. who could influence him in his moments of mental aberration. Coming from the luxury of the most splendid court in Italy, she brought into France the most refined taste in matters connected with the arts. The inventory of her jewels at the time of her marriage includes three Books of Hours, three German MSS., and a volume called Mandavilla. Like her husband she was an employer both of copyists and illuminators, and before her death had collected at her Castle of Blois a very fine collection of beautiful books.