After the author, it is proper to speak of the calligrapher who wrote the manuscript; but there is nothing to be said save that it is in a fair hand. The painter Godefroy deserves more consideration and careful attention. Let us not forgot that we are dealing with a perfectly well-fixed time, limited to the years 1519 and 1520; let us, at the same time, recall the great national movement in art in France from 1450 to 1500, the Italian campaigns, the arrival of artists and objects of art from Italy during the reigns of Charles VIII and Louis XII, and lastly, and above all, the sojourn in France of the two great Italian masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, from 1515 to 1518. Born and trained amid such influences, a French painter undertakes to decorate a manuscript for King François I. What does he do to satisfy the prevailing taste, the fashion, without denying his past? He divides his talent into two parts,[304] and devotes one, the French part, to the portraits, the other, the Italian imitation, to the decorations; in both he gives proof of abundant talent. In the one case, an exact, shrewd observer, he paints faces by faithfully reproducing their individual traits; in the other, fertile, never the same, abounding in resources in the ensemble and the details of his compositions, he is the pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, with suggestions of Mantegna and the artists of the first Italian Renaissance in the proportion of the figures, in the ungracefulness of the attitudes, and in the types of the heads.
From this period, from these influences, and not from Primaticcio, who was himself subjected to them, dates the Fontainebleau school. It was adapted to the figure and the type of beauty of Diana de Poitiers; she encouraged it; but, I say again, it was formed, it was current, before the reign of the mistress of Henri II and before the painter who is its most characteristic expression. If we seek to discover what method of execution was adopted by Godefroy, we see that his portraits are charming miniatures, comparable with the finest examples that we have of French miniature-painting; as for the drawings,[305] there are some that are almost grisailles, almost coloured—a mongrel and conventional scheme, of very doubtful taste. The painter drew his whole subject with the pen, with a sureness of touch which, it must be said, has no parallel in such microscopical dimensions, especially with respect to the faces and the landscapes; then he laid in the general outline, with the brush and with sepia, in flat tones, rather lacking in life. Thus far he did not depart from the canons of art; but he added coloured costumes, suits of armour, gilded trappings, and a multitude of details which flutter about in his grisaille and depart from nature in a most extraordinary way. I have said that his figures are reminiscences of Italian works. We find among them Donatellesque forms, profiles perdus, and bold gestures that recall Mantegna, Perugino-like graceful attitudes and ways of carrying the head, and, in spite of everything, a French background, and points of resemblance to Holbein, which might be taken to signify that Godefroy had never seen Italy. Our national Renaissance had made such progress in nearly a century that our artists needed only a few drawings, a few engravings, with the impulsion given by Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, to enter that Italian current. It may be that our compatriot, like Holbein, was subjected to this influence from afar, at second hand, without having crossed the mountains.
First volume.[306]—The book opens with a map of Gaul, and we read on the verso of the first leaf the following passage, written within a cartouche: 'Françoys, by the grace of God, King of France, a second Cæsar, vanquisher and subduer of the Souycez [Swiss], on the last day of April, one month after the birth of his second son, in his park of Sainct-Germain-en-Laye, fell in with Julius Cæsar and questioned him shrewdly concerning the contents of the first book of the Commentaries.' In another cartouche is a passage of which we need transcribe no more than the first words: 'Cæsar, first subjugator of the Helvecez [Helvetii, Swiss], graciously made reply to him,' etc.
On the third leaf Godefroy has painted the portrait of François I, head and shoulders alone, in a medallion. He wears his usual costume and the cap, without a feather, adorned with a banner. His features and his whole countenance are idealized—they are a little stiff and sharp; the artist has sought to produce an ideal antique head. The first miniature, on the verso of the fifth leaf, bears the date 1519, with no monogram; the others—folios 9, 13, 17, 21, 23, 31, 33, 36, 43, 53, 60, and so on to the end—are signed with a G, and dated the same year. On the miniature painted on the recto of folio 53, the initial of the artist's name is traced on the trunk of a tree from which hangs a small cartouche with the words, 'Besanson, 1519.' To be sure, the corresponding passage in the text requires that the miniature in question should represent that venerable city, but a certain precision in the details, and a sort of predilection manifested in the care bestowed upon the execution, lead me to believe that the view was painted after nature, and that Godefroy was attached to that city by some bond.
I have already spoken of the special characteristics of these miniatures, and I will mention here only the one on folio 23, which represents the building of a bridge over the Saône. In the foreground we see figures reminiscent of the painter Mantegna in their activity, their vigour, and a certain almost antique grace. The artist has retained the long pointed shoes to mark the Frenchman; this is an ill-timed display of archæological learning.
The volume, a large octavo, shaped like a notebook, contains 76 leaves, including the map. It is in its original binding of red morocco, with ornaments of wreaths of fleurs-de-lis, stamped with small tools. One can see the marks of the ribbons which were used to close it and to keep the vellum from puckering. On the recto of the first leaf, below the map of Gaul, are the words: 'Bibliothecæ Christophori Justelli.' This note, while it establishes the antiquity of the manuscript, also explains its emigration to England. Christophe Justel, Councillor and Secretary to the King, died at Paris in 1649, at the age of seventy, leaving to his son, together with the taste for study, a valuable collection of books and manuscripts. Among the latter was this first volume of the 'Commentaires de César.' Henri Justel succeeded his father in the office of Secretary to the King; also in his literary studies and in the liberality with which his library and house were thrown open to scholars. The letters of all the learned men of the time bear witness to his hospitality offered to learning.
He published at Paris, in 1661, the 'Bibliotheca juris canonici veteris ex antiquis codd. mss. bibliothecæ Christophori Justelli,' in two folio volumes, and he seemed destined to pursue in peace his erudite career. But the tempest called the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was preceded, for far-seeing Protestants, by premonitory signs which were enough for Henri Justel. He packed up his books and crossed to England, where he was appointed Librarian to the King—an office which he held until his death in 1698. The manuscript of the 'Commentaires' was probably purchased at the sale of his library by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. The Lord Treasurer of England (1661-1724) found consolation for the ingratitude of men in forming that magnificent collection, which retains the name of the Harleian Collection in the British Museum.
Our manuscript, however, reached that haven only with the second part of Robert Harley's books and manuscripts, in 1754.