The sumptuous illuminated manuscripts of Early
Renaissance Florence have traditionally been overshadowed by the
better-known monumental arts of the period. The Metropolitan Museum of
Art seeks to redress the imbalance by mounting an exhibition of
Florentine miniatures produced between 1300 and 1450 from collections in
Europe and the United States. A selective group of bound manuscripts
and single leaves from disassembled books is joined with panel paintings
and works in perishable media—such as drawings, embroideries, and
reverse painting on glass—created by the same masters. Some of the
important books whose pages have been disseminated are here
reconstructed for the first time since they were cut apart.
During
the incredible efflorescence of the visual arts in Florence of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some artists turned their hands
equally to various media, manuscript painting among them. In the
fourteenth century these included one of the most mysterious and
engaging personalities of early Renaissance Italian painting, the Master
of the Codex of Saint George, as well as such artists as Pacino di
Bonaguida, the Maestro Dadesco, the Master of the Dominican Effigies,
Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, and Don Simone Camaldolese. Toward the
close of the fourteenth century, there emerged in the same Camaldolese
ambiance where Don Silvestro and Don Simone flourished a major artist of
international stature, Lorenzo Monaco. Don Lorenzo eventually left the
monastery to operate a secular workshop that became an important force
in the early fifteenth century Florentine art world, producing lavish
illuminated manuscripts in addition to frescoes, altarpieces, and
numerous picture for a growing domestic market. One of Don Lorenzo's
greatest legacies may have been the training of Fra Angelico, a
Dominican monk, and a painter of surpassing genius, who is in large part
responsible for the evolution of a truly Renaissance style in the
visual arts. The innovative naturalism of Angelico and his followers
effectively brings to a close the great age of illumination in Early
Renaissance Florence. By way of introduction to the objects themselves
are three essays. The first, by Laurence B. Kanter, presents an overview
of Florentine illumination between 1300 and 1450 and thumbnail sketches
of the artists featured in this volume. The second essay, by Barbara
Drake Boehm, focuses on the types of books illuminators helped to
create. As most of them were liturgical, her contribution limns for the
modern reader the medieval religious ceremonies in which the manuscripts
were utilized. Carl Brandon Strehlke here publishes important new
material about Fra Angelico's early years and patrons, the result of the
author's recent archival research in Florence. In addition to the three
essays elucidating different aspects of the topic, this volume contains
55 entries on works of art, accompanied by 296 illustrations, 120 of
them in color. Each entry includes a descriptive commentary, a
provenance, and references. A bibliography and an index appear as well.
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