Martyrdom of St Lawrence, initial 'C' on a leaf from a Gradual on vellum, Perugia, c.1360

Master of the Matricola degli Spadai di Perugia?
Martyrdom of St Lawrence, initial 'C' on a leaf from a Gradual on vellum, Perugia, c.1360

A dramatic representation of the martyrdom of St Lawrence, chained to a grill above rising flames fanned by a man with bellows, illuminated by an Umbrian artist linked to the Master of the Matricola degli Spadai di Perugia.

c.475 x 345mm. The initial ‘C’ opens the chant 'Confessio et pulcritudo in conspectu eius', the Offertory for the Mass of St Lawrence (August 10). Six lines of text and music on four-line staves in red, rubrics in red, contemporary foliation in Roman numerals 'LXXII' in the upper margin and the same in Arabic numerals '72' in the upper right corner, the verso with initials in blue and red decorated in penwork in red and purple ink, with the verse 'Cantate domino canticum novum'. Mounted and framed.

Provenance:
The parent manuscript, a Gradual, was dismembered by the 1920s. Four sister leaves at the Free Library of Philadelphia were purchased by John Frederick Lewis in 1922 from Maggs Bros. in London, showing that the excised folios were already circulating the European book trade by this time. Comparison with the splendid and related set of Antiphonals still extant (Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare, MSS 7, 9, 13, 14, 17, 45) suggests just how rich the lost set of Graduals must have been. Five sister leaves can be identified, all of which belonged to one or more dismembered volumes of a magnificent set of choirbooks perhaps made for the Cathedral of San Lorenzo of Perugia.

Sister leaves:
1. Leaf with St Helen and the True Cross, initial ‘N,’ (Private Collection, formerly Les Enluminures).
2. Four leaves with Christ Calling Sts Peter and Andrew initial ‘D’; Annunciation, initial ‘R’; Two Apostles, initial ‘M’; and Martyr Saint, initial ‘I’ (Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E M 73:1-4).

Illumination:
The style of the miniature reveals an awareness of the major Tuscan painters of the first half of the 14th century, such as Simone Martini, the Lorenzetti, and the close contemporary Allegretto Nuzi, a native of Fabriano but also active in Perugia from 1346 and in Florence. The Perugian roots of our painter are apparent in the awareness of the earlier and slightly archaic Perugian illuminators such as Vanni di Baldolo. The tendencies of this earlier style are downplayed in favor of up-to-date artistic currents developed in Florence and Siena. This is true for the present miniature, which presents a vivacious interpretation of Vanni di Baldolo’s illustration of the same subject on f.350 of MS 38 in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Perugia. It is possible that our artist is in fact the Master of the Matricola degli Spadai di Perugia, in which case this leaf belongs to a relatively late phase of his career, close to his illustrations on f.2v of the Matricola degli Orafi in Perugia (Perugia, Biblioteca Augusta, MS 976).

'Per buono stato de la citade.' Le Matricole delle Arti di Perugia, Perugia 2001 [exhibition catalogue].

M. Subbioni, La miniatura Perugina del Trecento, Perugia, 2003, esp. p.165.

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