Bonifacio Bembo (active 1444-1477)
STIGMATISATION OF ST FRANCIS, initial ‘C’ on a ?diurnal leaf [Lombardy, c. 1442]
A leaf bearing close resemblance to the earliest work of the court painter and illuminator Bonifacio Bembo, whose patrons included the families of the Visconti and Sforza, dukes of Milan.

'The present leaf is close in style to a fragmentary manuscript attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, held in Mirandola and identified as a diurnal (Centro Culturale Polivante, ms. A). The scribe, Fra Stefano de Marciani, dates the manuscript to 21 February 1442, which makes it the earliest work attributed to Bonifacio Bembo: the diurnal seems to have been originally intended for the church of San Gabriele in Cremona, Bembo’s home town, and subsequently passed into the ownership of the convent of San Francesco in Mirandola. Here, St Francis appears very similar to those figures of the diurnal also set against red grounds. Faces have the same characteristics: they share heavy-lidded eyes defined by large, dark pupils and their faces are smoothly modelled. Although the dimensions of the present leaf, apparently from a hymnal section, exceed those recorded for the Mirandola leaves, when potential cropping is taken into account it seems possible that our leaf could come from the same series of volumes.

Perhaps the most important commissions of Bonifacio Bembo’s career were those executed for the dukes of Milan, including the famous Visconti-Sforza tarot decks first commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, and his 1462 portraits of Francesco I Sforza, Filippo Maria’s successor, and his wife, Bianca Maria Visconti; but he worked across Lombardy and in collaboration with many artists throughout his career.

Provenance:
•Private collection, London.

Leaf: 520 x 366mm.; initial: 80 x 80mm., the initial ‘C’ opening the hymn at Vespers from the Feast of the Stigmatisation of St Francis, ‘Crucis christi mons alvern[a]e’. Mounted.

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