Illuminated Manuscripts

The scriptorium at St. Alban's, to which the fame of book production in the Middle Ages very largely reverted, was not founded until nearly three centuries after the foundation of that abbey. The library began with twenty-eight notable volumes, and eight Psalters, a book of collects, another of epistles, and Evangelia legenda per annum, two Gospel-books bound in gold and silver and set with gems, together with other necessary volumes for ordinary use. Almost every succeeding abbat contributed something to the library shelves. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbat, a Norman who once had a school at Dunstable, and who was both a popular and liberal ruler, enriched the library with a Missal bound in gold, another incomparably illuminated and beautifully written, and also a Psalter richly illuminated, a Benedictional, and others. His successor, Ralph Gubiun, also gave a number of MSS. Robert de Gosham, the next abbat, gave “very many” books, which he had caused to be written and sumptuously bound for the purpose. And Abbat Simon, who followed in 1166, created the office of historiographer to the abbey, repaired and enlarged the scriptorium, and kept two or three of the cleverest writers constantly employed in transcription, and ordained that for the future every abbat should maintain at least one suitable and capable scribe. Among the many choice MSS. added by Abbat Simon was a beautiful copy of the Bible specially written with the greatest care and exactness. In addition he presented the library with all his own precious collection. Another liberal benefactor was John de Cell, a man of vast learning in grammar and poetry, and also a practitioner in medicine. Being unfit for household management, he committed the secular affairs of the abbey to his prior Reymund, by whose zeal many noble and valuable books were transcribed for the library. And so grew in magnitude and importance the great collection which supplied Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris with materials for their famous histories. St. Alban's, indeed, was at one period perhaps the most noted of all the English centres of book production. To dilate on other centres, such as Westminster, Exeter, Worcester, Norwich, or York, would lead us too far afield for a mere handbook like the present. Enough has been said to give a good idea of what our English abbats and priors were in the habit of doing for art and letters.

Since 980 a considerable quantity of transcription and illumination must have been produced, notwithstanding disquiet, turbulence, and war. At Westminster the traditions of illumination seem to have followed the methods of the earlier Winchester school. But in the twelfth century English work shows, on the whole, a greater likeness to the contemporary work of Germany. Of Westminster work an example occurs among the Royal MSS. (2 A. 22). The subject is the Psalter, and the text is the handsome style of penmanship known as English Gothic of the latter part of the twelfth century. It would appear from the frequent occurrence of this particular service-book that it held the place of the later Book of Hours, and so we may expect a great similarity among different copies, both in the selection of the illustrations and their mode of treatment. It was usual in all such volumes to prefix to the text a series of subjects from the Old and New Testaments and the Lives of the Saints. Here we have them from the Life of the Virgin and from the Life of David, by no means unworthy samples of the school. One represents the Virgin and Child seated on a seat of the Germano-Byzantine type beneath an arch and within a square frame-border. The border seems first to have been flatly painted in two colours, pale blue and pale red ochre, and on this a foliage scroll of recurring forms in a bold dull red outline finely relieved with white. This is more or less repeated as the form of border to the other illuminations. Outside the whole is a characteristic slender frame of bright green in two tints. The arch overhead has two bands of vermilion, with white edge-reliefs and a central band of blue, again in two tints, with pairs of black cross-bars every half-inch or so resting on the capitals of the two pillars which form the sides of the scene. These pillars have each a green abacus at the top of each capital and scarlet bead below. Each pillar is of dappled red, marble-like porphyry, with plinths of scarlet and blue. Tiers of differently coloured steps separated by bands of scarlet, green, etc., form the seat. The Virgin wears the hood, cape, and robe of the Benedictine nun, but coloured grey, chocolate, and blue respectively. An under garment of pale amber completes her dress. The infant wears an amber tunic, wrapped in a scarlet robe. A very common embroidery of the drapery consists of little stars or triads of white studs. This also is a characteristic of German and early Netherlandish illumination. There is a rich gold brocade border to the blue robe of the Virgin. Both mother and child have round nimbuses, the former in plain circular bands of russet and orange, the latter consisting of bands of pale blue surmounted by a scarlet cross. Two lumps of green glass or metal hang from the arch. The background is a plate of gold. The flesh tones are livid, being of a pale greenish ochre tint. One other of the illuminations of this exceedingly interesting MS. may be mentioned, viz. the David playing his harp. He also wears three garments—a tunic of white shaded with pale blue, then another of lavender or lilac and having rich brocaded borders, and, lastly, a pallium or robe of pale chocolate lined with ermine; orange-coloured hose. The throne, like the previous one, is of several colours—slate-blue, green, orange, and white, with a buff cushion. Here is a back to the throne of a deep blue, with a background, as before, of bright flat gold. The white moulding is shaded with pale green, with bluish slate corners. The outer border is of the pale red ochre or pink, so common in later work in contrast with deep blue. An outer frame or edging of green completes the page. The harp is not gilded, but of a drab hue, with two quatrefoil studs or orifices in the frame, relieved as usual with fine edges of white. Compare this MS. with one in the Library at Lambeth.

The English illumination of the thirteenth century is so like that of France that it is often difficult to determine its real nationality. There is occasionally some feature which we know from other sources to be English, or some circumstance in the history of the MS. which fixes its origin, as, for example, in the Additional MS. 24686, known as the Tenison Psalter. Sir E.M. Thompson also describes this MS. in the Bibliographica, i. 397. But it was previously described at some length by Sir Edward Bond in the Fine Arts Quarterly Review. The Psalter, which has had a somewhat eventful history, is one of the best examples of English thirteenth-century illumination. At least, this may be said of the early portion of it, for while it is illuminated throughout, only the first gathering is in the earlier manner. The peculiar value to the student lies in the fact that although quite in the same style as contemporary French work, it is the work of an English illuminator. The colouring, however, is not confined, as in somewhat earlier examples, to blue and dull pale rose or paled red ochre and gold. It gives us scarlet, crimson-lake, green, and brown, besides the blue and pink and bright gold which suggests some German influences. The line fillings are somewhat peculiar as having silver tracery, on the blue, side by side with golden tracery on the crimson. The full ivy leaf appears in the long branch work of the borders, and some of the initials still retain the bird or dragon forms in their construction. The compound bar-frame, gold and traceried colour side by side, is however already taking the place of the mere sweeping tail or branch. But perhaps the best indication of English design is the presence of a number of grotesque animals, with birds and occasional humorous scenes disposed, not in framed miniatures, but simply among the stems and coils of the foliage. This is a form of illustration much appreciated by English illuminators at all times, though it appears also in much continental work. Among other English MSS. which display this taste we may point out Arund. 83, which among many other treatises and curious compositions, such as the “Turris Sapientiæ” and a valuable calendar, in which are notes on the Arundels of Wemme, contains a psalter with anthems, etc., and hence is known as the Arundel Psalter. Its date is probably between 1330 and 1380.

The drolleries are very funny, and the other illuminations very instructive and curious. Some of them contain really good pen-drawing—refined, expressive, and graceful, but above all typical of English draughtsmanship. In a little scene of the adoration of the Magi (folio 125) the kings are costumed like our Henry III., as we find him 'n sculpture, wall paintings, etc. Over a very expressive picture of the three living and the three dead occur the lines, each over a figure: “Ich am afert Lo wet ich se Methinketh hit beth deueles thre. Ich wes welfair Such scheltou be For godes loue be wer by me” (folio 128).[38] The three living in this illumination are three fashionable ladies—no doubt princesses, for they wear crowns. Generally they are men, as at Lutterworth in the sculptures over the door, and in the famous fresco of Gozzoli at Pisa. The subject occurs sometimes in Books of Hours.

Many MSS. of this period and later have hunting scenes, shooting practice, and games.

In MS. 264, Misc., Bodl. Lib., Oxford, there are such scenes, one being a game at “Blind Man's Buff,” or as literally here “Hoodman Blind,” for the latter actually wear a hood drawn down over his head and shoulders, and three girls are having a fine game with him. The goldfinch or linnet looking on from the border seems to enjoy the fun. Another fine source of similar things is the Louterell Psalter in the British Museum. In this also are some richly diapered backgrounds and exquisite border bands. This MS. dates about 1340. But the gem of English fourteenth-century illumination is the Royal MS. (2 C. 7) called Queen Mary's Psalter, not as being painted for her, since it had been painted nearly two centuries before she ever saw it. But in the year (?) 1553, being about to be sent abroad, it was stopped by a customs officer and presented to Queen Mary Tudor. It is bound in what appears to be the binding put on it by the Queen—i.e. crimson velvet embroidered on each cover with a large pomegranate, and having gilt corner protections and (once upon a time) golden clasps. The clasps are gone, but the plates remain riveted on the covers, engraven with the Tudor badges. The MS. contains 320 large octavo leaves, the first fifty-six being taken up with illuminated illustrations of biblical history from the Creation to the death of Solomon. These pictures are arranged in pairs one over the other, and to each one is given a description in French, taken sometimes from the canonical text, sometimes from an apocryphal one. The drawings are really exquisite, they are so fine, so delicately yet so cleverly sketched. They are not coloured in full body-colours, but just suggestively, the draperies being washed over in thin tints, the folds well defined, but lightly shaded. Next after these subjects follows the Psalter with miniatures of New Testament scenes and figures of saints accompanied with most beautiful initials and ornaments, illuminated by a thoroughly practised hand, for the artist of this volume was by no means a novice at his work. A good example of it is given in Bibliographica, pl. 7 [23], which forms the frontispiece to vol. i., and one or two outlines in the folio catalogue of the Arundel MSS.

Arund. MS. 84 is also a good example of thirteenth-century illumination to a rather unpromising subject, being a Latin translation of Euclid from the Arabic by Athelard of Bath. It is illustrated with diagrams.

CHAPTER V

It has been suggested by a high authority that the immediate sources of the third period of English illumination were Netherlandish, but probable as this seems at first sight, there is another explanation which seems to the present writer to be a better one. As already pointed out, the influence on English work before 1377, notwithstanding political conditions, are distinctly French. After this date, though the artistic relation with France is not broken off, yet long before 1390 we find this new influence which is not French, and for which we have no special evidence that it is Netherlandish. If we go, however, a little farther afield, we shall find it. In the new work is a softer kind of foliage and a greater variety of sweet colour, and both these characteristics are found in a school of illumination that was being formed under the auspices of the Emperor Charles IV. at Prag in Bohemia. The artists in that capital who executed the famous Golden Bull and commenced the grand Wenzel Bible were a select band of Frenchmen and Italians; the combined result of whose designs and labours was this very mixture of Gothic ivy leaf and thorn with the softer Othonian and Roman foliages and a new scheme of colour. Charles IV., son of that famous John of Luxembourg, the blind king of Bohemia, who perished at Crécy, was himself King of Bohemia as well as Emperor, and a man of brilliant personal accomplishments and cultivated tastes in literature and art.

Becoming Emperor the very next year after his succession to the throne of Bohemia, he fixed his residence at Prag, where he began the building of the new city, and founded a university on the model of that of Paris, where he had studied, and whence he had married his first wife, Blanche, daughter of Charles, Count of Valois. His university soon attracted some thousands of students, and with them no small crowd of literary men and artists, both from France and Italy. The great fact, however, to remember about Charles IV. is the Golden Bull, the masterly scheme by which all matters concerning the election to the Empire were in future to be settled. All the Constitutions were written in a book called, from the bulla or seal of gold which was appended to it, the Golden Bull, of which the text was drawn up either at Metz or Nuremberg in 1356, and many copies distributed throughout the Empire. It is further affirmed that the absolute original is at Frankfort. But the splendid copy made by order of the Emperor Wenzel in 1400 is still preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna. And as it is ah example of the style of illumination practised in Prag during the reign of Charles IV., we may call it Bohemian. It is true that the foliages are a little more luxuriant in this Wenzel-book than in the earliest examples of the style seen in England, but the twenty years which had elapsed would easily account for this difference. As compared, however, with either French or Netherlandish, the new English style shows a much greater similarity to the work then being done in Lower Bavaria. In these soft curling foliages and the fresh carnations of the flesh-tints of the Prag and Nuremberg illuminators we may trace the actual source of the remarkable transformation seen in English illumination after the marriage of Richard II.

Charles IV. was four times married. His successor, Wenzel, whose ghastly dissipations can only be regarded as the terrible proofs of insanity, was the child of his third wife. His fourth wife, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Pomerania and Stettin, had four children, of whom Sigismund, the eldest, afterwards succeeded Wenzel as emperor, and Anne, the third, came to England as the wife of Richard II. The magnificence of her equipage and the crowd of persons who formed her retinue are noticed by contemporary writers, and the effect upon English manners was instantaneous. Her beauty, sweetness of manners, and culture rendered her at once not merely the idol of her husband, who, says Walsingham, “could scarcely bear her to be out of his sight,” but universally beloved by all the English nation.

To her the first English writer on heraldry, John of Guildford dedicated his book, and the artists who came with her from her luxurious home at Prag would naturally become the leaders of taste in their adopted country. After a while, indeed, the numbers of countrymen of the Queen were looked upon as the cause of extortions practised on the English people in order to supply the money lavished on these foreigners. More than once is this grievance referred to. In an old MS. in the Harley Library (2261), containing a fifteenth-century translation of Higden's Polychronicon, these foreigners are made responsible for at least one fashionable extravagance: “Anne qwene of Ynglonde dyede in this year (1393) at Schene the vii^th day of the monethe of Janius, on the day of Pentecoste: the dethe of whom the Kynge sorowede insomoche that he causede the maner there to be pullede downe, & wolde not comme in eny place by oon yere folowynge where sche hade be, the churche excepte; whiche was beryede in the churche of Westmonastery, in the feste of seynte Anne nexte folowynge, with grete honoure & solennite. That qwene Anne purchased of the pope that the feste of Seynte Anne scholde be solenniysed in Ynglonde. The dethe of this qwene Anne induced grete hevynesse to noble men & to commune peple also, for sche causede noo lytelle profite to the realme. But mony abusions comme from Boemia into Englonde with this qwene, and specially schoone with longe pykes, insomoche that they cowthe not go untylle that thei were tyede to theire legges, usenge that tyme cheynes of silvyr at the pykes of theire schoone.”

Quite a similar MS. to those executed in the reign of Richard II. in England and those of Bohemia is the Wilhelm van Oransse of Wolfram v. Eschenbach, now in the Imperial Library at Vienna. A similar, but inferior, work exists in the Prayer-book written by Josse de Weronar in the British Museum (Add. 15690). The English foliages never show quite all the varieties of colour seen in the continental examples, but the golden diapers and pounced gold patterns are quite as elaborate. See this work, however, in Arundel 83. It appears also in the mural paintings of the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. No doubt the English art of the fourteenth century is of French origin—so mainly is that of Bohemia—for Charles IV. was brought up at the Court of France. Further than this, we think we are justified in tracing the new elements in Bohemian to Italy, and those in English to Bohemia. The most striking proof is not only the foliages, but the change from the long, colourless faces of French miniatures to the plump and ruddy countenances seen, for example, in the Lancastrian MSS. in the Record Office and in Harl. 7026[39] of the British Museum. Of course, this suggestion of source is not put forward as a dead certainty, but it affords this probability that as the style suddenly arose during the lifetime of Anne of Bohemia—and she was the acknowledged leader of fashion—so her tastes in respect of illuminated books and heraldic decoration would become those of her new subjects. Let us examine this fifteenth-century English work, and for this purpose let us take the great illuminated Bible in the Royal Library, 1 E. 9. It is an enormous folio, and rather unwieldly, but a most interesting example of the new style. Its initials are large, richly illuminated in gold and attractive colours. It has well-executed histories within the initials, and boldly designed border frames, elegantly adorned with foliages and conventional or idealised flowers. Perhaps the most noticeable feature is the beautiful, decorative foliage work in the limbs of the letters—itself a South German peculiarity—then the alternation of colours without interrupting the design, the profusion of foliage modelling in the backgrounds of the letter panels outside the historiations. The next thing is the bold use of minium side by side even with pure rose-petal colour, pale bright cerulean blue, and bright gold. Lastly, the immense variety of leaf-forms, based on the three, five, and seven-lobed groupings of the typical form. The coil and spiral are freely used as the groundwork, and the colours alternated as the coils or spirals change from front to back of the leaf.

Backgrounds of miniature histories are treated as in the Bohemian MSS.—Wilhelm v. Oransse, for example—that is, with fine golden tracery-patterns on deep, rich colours. The figure-painting is vastly improved—the features now being actually painted and modelled as in modern portrait painting, not merely indicated by pen strokes. The flesh-tints as previously noticed are bright and ruddy. The principal colours used on the foliages are blue, crimson, of various depths, and bright vermilion, with occasional admission of bright green and paled red ochre. Very similar to 1 E. 9 is Harl. 1892, and among other MSS. that may be studied with this one is 2 A. 18—a book of Offices, very sweetly illuminated, and full of typical examples of treatment both of architectural design and treillages of foliage.

The Gothic pilasters are filled with the same kind of coiling and spiral leaves and ribbons that are used in 1 E. 9 and Harl. 1892, the backgrounds of the miniatures enriched with fine gold patterns. The furniture and costumes indicate the later years of the reign of Richard II., being similar to those shown in the miniatures of Harl. 1319, which relates the story of Richard's misfortunes. A few miniatures of saints accompany the prayers to them. One of the saints is peculiar, being the Prior of Bridlington, perhaps the “Robertus scriba” who copied certain theological treatises for the library, and who lived in the time of Stephen or Henry II.

In the beautiful initial D is the figure of a lady praying, the first few words of the prayer being written on a floating ribbon above her head. A fine panelling of black and gold forms the background. The lady's costume is that of the end of the fourteenth century, her head-dress being somewhat lower than that worn in the time of Isabella of Bavaria; in other respects she recalls the figure of Christine de Pisan in Harl. 4431—one of the fine MSS. of the French school. As the psalter or offices was once the property of the Grandison family, as is shown by the numerous entries respecting them in the calendar, no doubt this lady was the first owner of the MS., and probably the same as shown in the beautiful miniature of the Annunciation previously given. Many charming initials follow this one, and brightly coloured bracket treillages and borders are given in profusion, introducing every variety of coloured ideal leaf-form known to the art of the time. It seems probable from its style and the costumes that the MS. was executed for the Lady Margaret, widow of Thomas, the last Lord Grandison, who died in 1376, and given to her by Sir John Tuddenham, her second husband. A better model for the modern illuminator could not easily be found. Other examples may be briefly enumerated, in 2 B. 8, 2 B. 10, 2 B. 1, 2 B. 12 and 13, 18 A. 12, 18 C. 26, Harl. 1719, 1892, etc. The Psalter 2 B. 8 has the good fortune to be dated, and its purpose and other particulars clearly set forth in a statement at the beginning of the volume. The gist of this is that it was composed at the instance of the Lady Joan Princess of Wales, mother of Richard II., and that it was executed by Brother John Somour (Seymour), a Franciscan, in 1380. Thus the illumination of it would probably be done about the time, of the young Queen's arrival in England. The Princess Joan died July 8th, 1385. The work corresponds with this date. The Grandison Psalter is perhaps somewhat later than Roy. 2 B. 1, and the rest are later still.

In the reign of Edward IV. we meet with the introduction of Flemish illumination, which gradually supersedes the native style, and by the time of Henry VII. the latter has almost disappeared. Its final extinction, however, was left for the sixteenth century, when either Flemish or Italian renaissance work entirely took its place. By the time of Queen Elizabeth English illumination was a thing of the past.

CHAPTER VI

Considering the position occupied by the Roman Empire as the civiliser of Europe, it is not a little curious and somewhat surprising to find that in the twelfth century, when German and French artists were doing such good and even admirable work, that of Italy was almost barbaric. A MS. in the Vatican (4922) is shown as a proof of this. It is not an obscure sort of book that might have been written by a merely devout but untrained monk for his own use, but a work of importance executed for no less a personage than the celebrated Countess Matilda. The scribe was Donizo, a monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Canossa. It is of the early or præ-Carolingian type, rather inclined to Byzantine, but with the big hands and aimless expression of all semi-barbaric work. Yet it has a certain delicacy and carefulness. In Rome itself during the ninth century barbarism was at its very lowest point. Only the sea-port towns had any notion of what was being done in other places. Painting was practised, it is true, so was mosaic, but the worst of Oriental carpets would be a masterpiece of elegance beside anything done in Italy. Whatever gleams of artistic intelligence appear, they certainly emanated from Ravenna or Pavia. But as there were no wealthy and peaceful courts, no indolent, high-bred, luxurious courtiers during that dark and troublous period, miniature or illumination had no call for existence. In the twelfth century book-illustration consisted simply of pen-sketching of the most elementary kind. The Lombards alone produced anything like illumination. A sort of roll containing pictures of the various scenes of the Old and New Testaments which represented the leading doctrines of the Church, and which used to hang over the pulpit as the preacher discoursed upon them, is the only representative of the time. Such a roll was called an “Exultet” from its first word, which is the beginning of the line “Exultet jam Angelica turba cælorum” of the hymn for the benediction of the paschal wax tapers on Easter Eve. Several of these “Exultets” are still kept in the Cathedral at Pisa, and in the Barberini and Minerva Libraries in Rome.[40] Of course the pictures are upside down to the reader, so as to be right for the congregation.

Very little progress was made, as we may imagine, until after the great revival movement begun by Cimabue, Giotto, and their contemporaries, about the middle of the thirteenth century. But before taking up any inquiry into Italian work generally we must not omit reference to the remarkable MSS. produced at La Cava and Monte Cassino during the Franco-Lombard period. Some idea has already been furnished in dealing with Celtic MSS. and the foundations begun by Columbanus and his scholars. Indeed, the general character of these Lombard MSS. is seen in the Franco-Celtic. The distinguishing feature, if there be one, is the frequent recurrence among the interlacements of the white dog. The La Cava Library, which was one of the finest in Italy, has been transferred to Naples. Monte Cassino still continues and maintains not only a library but a printing press, from which the learned fathers have issued at least one great work on the subject of Cassinese palæography. Of all the præ-Carolingian hands, Lombardic or Lombardesque was certainly the most peculiar, and is perhaps the most difficult to read. One evidence of this is the diversity of opinion on the true reading of certain proper names in the original MS. containing the oldest text of Tacitus which happens to be a Lombard MS. The characters and other examples of the eleventh to the thirteenth century that have been published at Monte Cassino, however, fully illustrate the peculiarities of the handwriting, and give besides several splendid examples of calligraphy.[41]

One of the earliest illuminated Italian MS. which bears a date is a Volume of Letters of St. Bernard, now in the Library of Laon. It is very seldom that the earlier scribes and illuminators who produced Italian MSS. or worked in Italy were Italians. They were usually foreigners and mostly Frenchmen, and the art was looked upon at the beginning of the fourteenth century as a French art. This very decided example of Italian work is already different from the French work of the same period. The profile foliages have already acquired that peculiar trick of sudden change and reversion of curve, showing the other side of a leaf with change of colour, which is a marked characteristic of all fourteenth-century Italian illumination. For examples of it, the Bolognese Law Books, Decretals, and such-like, afford frequent illustration. Before leaving this first-quoted MS., we may say that it points to France rather than to Germany or Lombardy for its general form of design, but the foliages are quite of another kind. Another Laon MS. (352) shows the same treatment of foliage, but in effect more like what may be considered as the typical Italian style seen in the famous Avignon Bible of the anti-pope, Clement VII. (Robert of Geneva), which dates between 1378 and 1394.[42]

A further example still more powerful in expression and skilful in manipulation is seen in a copy of the Poems of Convenevole da Prato, in the British Museum (Roy. 6 E. 9), executed for King Robert of Naples, a patron of Giotto (1276-1337), which, in comparison with the Laon Letters of St. Bernard of about the same date, is even still more Italian.

Cardinal Stefaneschi, another of Giotto's patrons, was also a promoter of illumination. His Missal, now at Rome in the archives of the Canons of St. Peter's, is a fine example of this style. It dates from 1327 to 1343. The MS. of Boethius at Laon is another. But one of the most masterly, whether as to design or manipulation, is a law book in the Library at Laon (No. 382). This grand folio contains “Glossa Ioannis Andreæ in Clementinas”—“The Gloss or Explanation of Joannes Andreas on the Clementines.”

By the way, as illuminated law books, civil and canonical, form so large a section of Italian MSS., it may be well in this place to warn the reader against random explanations sometimes offered in sale catalogues concerning these books, their authors and commentators. For instance, this commentator Joannes Andreas was not, as we have seen it confidently stated (as if it were part of the actual contemporary title of the MS.), Bishop of Aleria (Episcopus Aleriersis), but a jurist of Bologna. The bishop lived a century or so after the jurist, who had completed his long career as professor of law at Bologna extending over forty-five years before the bishop was born. His chief works are Commentaries on the Clementines (printed in folio at Mayence 1471, and again at Dijon in 1575), and Commentaries on Five Books of the Decretals (printed in folio at Mayence in 1455, and at Venice in 1581). While on this topic of Italian law MSS., it may be useful to state clearly what they are. By way of contrast to the Corpus Juris Canonici, or Body of Canon Law, the subject of books dealing with the so-called Decretals, the other branch, including the Institutes Digest and Novellæ of Justinian, was entitled Corpus Juris Civilis.

The Decretals, then, which we so often meet with in public libraries under various names, are the canons which mainly constitute the Canon Law. Strictly speaking they are the papal epistolary decrees (decreta), said to have existed from very early times. In the ninth century a collection of them was formed, or manufactured, in the name of the celebrated Isidore of Seville. But with the donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester and many others in the later compilation of Gratian, these are usually looked upon as spurious and false. The great and authorised collection was completed by a simple Benedictine monk of St. Felix, in Bologna, a native of Chiusi, the ancient Clusium, in Tuscany, a man so learned in the law as to have earned the title of “Magister.” This is the work often richly illuminated which goes by the name of the “Decretum Gratiani.”[43] When glancing over the lovely initials and beautiful foliages or resplendent ornaments, we are apt to overlook the work itself which is truly monumental; being a summary of the papal epistolary decrees, the synodal canons of 150 councils, selections from various regal codes, extracts from the Fathers, and comments of Schoolmen; all methodically arranged and digested so as to facilitate its use as a manual for the schools. It is said to have occupied the compiler incessantly for twenty-five years. Immediately on its completion in 1151 it was at once authorised by the Pope Eugenius III. as the only text-book to be used in the public schools, and to govern the decrees of the Ecclesiastical Courts. Hence its celebrity. Its transcripts are very numerous, and it has been often printed. As to the Sext and Clementines they are merely additional commentaries on supplementary collections of decrees. Thus a new collection authorised by Boniface VIII. is called the sext, i.e. the sixth book of the Decretals. The Clementines were the constitutions of Clement V. Other collections such as that of John XXII. are called Extravagantes.

The most ancient MSS. of the Decretals bear the title of Concordantia discordantium Canonum (a “concordance of discordant decrees”); afterwards The Book of Decrees; lastly, The Decretals. It was considered, however, by some, jurists and others, to be not so much a concordance of discordant canons as a subjugation of the ancient canons to the decrees of the Papacy, and as already stated, many of its decrees were found to be false and fictitious. Nevertheless, it is by no means an uncommon volume among the illuminators. Let us now return to the Laon example—one of four or five of the species in that collection. The scene where the author is presenting his work to the pope—we now know them both—is quite a painting. Except for the defect that kneeling figures are somewhat mis-shapen or ill-proportioned in the lower limbs, the work is quite comparable with contemporary mural painting, both for composition and colour. It is almost modern. It is quite realistic. In costume, expression, easy and appropriate attitude, it has quite outrun French illumination altogether.

A much-lauded MS. among these fourteenth-century examples is one that has been carefully and expensively reproduced by the late Cte. Horace de Viel-Castel, namely, the “Statuts de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit au Droit Désir ou du Nœud,” an order instituted at Naples in 1352 by Louis I. d'Anjou (called Louis of Taranto), King of Jerusalem, Naples, and Sicily, cousin and husband of Queen Joanna of Naples. The style of the illumination is precisely the same as those just mentioned belonging to Laon, and as several MSS. in the British Museum. Its stem and foliage ornament is very brightly coloured in fine green, scarlet, rose, ultramarine, and gold. The miniatures which occasionally contain evident attempts at portraiture, are painted in the manner of the school of Cimabue and the earlier Italian painters, more particularly that of Simone Memmi. It is substantially the Byzantine manner, but improved and enlivened by attention to natural attitude and expression. The greenish under-painting of the flesh-tints is often noticeable. The decorative portions are very skilful and elaborate, as well as extremely neat and symmetrical; the gold profuse and brilliant. Indeed, the whole production may be studied as a typical example of its time. The text, though good, is not so beautiful as the Bolognese hand usually found in Italian MSS. of the following century. But perhaps this should add to its value as a proof of its being absolutely contemporaneous with the foundation of the Order, and therefore of its being the identical MS. ordered by the magnificent founder, Louis of Taranto, second husband of the too-celebrated Joanna of Naples. Their marriage took place in the August of 1346, and on the 27th of May, 1352, being Whitsun Day, they were crowned. In memory of this happy event, Joanna founded the Church of the Virgin, Louis instituted the Order of the Holy Spirit, or of the Knot, the symbols of which appear frequently in the illumination of the MS. It was named in honour of the Day of Pentecost—“L'Ordre de la Chevalerie du Saint-Esprit.” The phrase “au droit désir” had reference to the circumstances preceding the marriage. The knot was worn in token of the “perfect amity” of the members of the Order.[44]

Other works of the fourteenth century are enthusiastically praised by Italian writers, as, e.g., those of Don Silvestro, a Camaldolese monk, who flourished at the same time as the illuminator of this MS. of Louis of Taranto, and who worked on the great choir books of the Monastery “degli angeli,” in Florence, so loudly commended by Vasari and others who had seen them. They have long been broken up and dispersed, and it is not improbable that cuttings from them were among those bought by Ottley, Rogers, and other amateurs. A fragment of an Antiphonary of Nocturnal Services, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence, finished in 1370, shows the style of work to be of the kind just described. Other great choir books of the earlier period are preserved in the Academy at Pisa. But the number of MSS. to which reference might be made is legion. Those of this date are chiefly civil law books; next to these come the canon law, and divinity. Among the intermediate class are the copies of the Rationale of Durandus, one of these being in the British Museum (Add. 31032). Now and then a fine Missal, like the “Stefaneschi,” or the Munich Missal of 1374, which may be referred to as being one of the models of the school of Prag. On the whole, perhaps, the law books are more numerous than liturgical ones, and are referable generally to Bologna or Padua. The name of Nicholaus of Bologna occurs more than once in these books. A book of offices of the Virgin, by Nicholaus, is now at Kremsmünster, and a New Testament, dated 1328, in the Vatican. Tommaso di Modena, another distinguished Italian illuminator, also had much to do with altering the style of the artists who worked for Charles IV. at Prag. Some of his work, or work presumed to be his, is still to be seen in the Bohemian capital. Next to these Bolognese MSS. we may place those of Florence—copies of the Divina Commedia and the Triumphs and Sonnets of Petrarch, which, with historians and copies or translations of the classics, chiefly occupied the illuminators of Florence and Siena, with one notable exception. Whoever has visited any of the North Italian cities cannot fail to have noticed and admired the magnificent choir-books still to be seen in the cathedrals and cathedral libraries. At Siena the Piccolomini service-books are truly splendid; those in San Marco, the Riccardi, the Laurentian, and other collections in Florence, are no less admirable. Verona's best work is chiefly elsewhere, at Florence, Siena, etc. At Milan the Brera Graduals—each of them a man's load to carry—are simply gorgeous in the lavish richness of their letters, miniatures, and decorations. Venice, again, has another grand collection of MSS. of the highest class in her Attavantes and Gerard Davids; Rome, in a crowd of princely libraries, has multitudes—literally multitudes—of exquisitely illuminated volumes. Naples also has some noble examples of the great craftsmen. We have not yet mentioned the Ambrosian Library in Milan, nor, except the Vatican, a single library by name in Rome. The mere names of the Corsini, Sciarra, Barberini Libraries are enough to those who have ever explored their contents to remind them of work that can nowhere else be seen so perfect, so profuse, as in beautiful Italy.