The “Genealogies of the House of Sandoval,” written and painted in Lisbon in 1612, is now in Paris. It is called “Genealogia universal de la Nobilissima casa de Sandoval Ramo del Generoso tronco de los soberanos Reyes de Castilla y Leon. Por Don Melchior de Teves del Conseio Real de Castilla del Rey Dō Philippe III.”
At the foot of the page is written “Eduardus Caldiera Vlisspone scripsit, Anno Dni MDCXII.” This magnificent MS., which measures forty-six by thirty centimetres, is numbered in the Catalogue of the National Library as 10015. A grand frontispiece, formed of two columns of the Composite Order, occupies the first page, representing a king in royal robes and crown arresting the wheel of Fortune. Two lions accompany the scene, and the motto of the picture is “Virtute duce non comite Fortuna.” Page 2 contains the various escutcheons of the family of the Count of Lerma, for whom the book was written. It contains a great number of portraits. A final instance of the influence, or rather the inroad, of Flemish art in Portugal in the fifteenth century may be shown in the MS. called the Portuguese Genealogies in the British Museum.
The work consists of eleven large folio sheets separately mounted and measuring eighteen by ten inches. It commences with a prologue, with the arms of Portugal supported by two savages, having clubs and shields. Outside the inner frame are three scenes: (1) wild animals in combat; (2) a sea-nymph being rescued; (3) a fight among sylvan savages. Next comes a series of portraits painted in the most finished and life-like style, beginning with Dom Garcia F° del rey Abarca and Dona Constancia on a fruitful tree with foliage, fruits, and birds, a cat, and other things. The tree is an oak, beside it are apple and cherry trees. On the oak are green acorns. The birds are very beautiful, the cat simply perfect. These details recall the highly finished and lovely work of Georg Hoefnagel on the great Missal at Vienna. Gothic brown-gold architecture and three battle scenes complete the page.
Then follow the genealogical tables, and more portraits, the whole showing the most patient and careful work. Letters on the borders of the robes recall the same kind of ornament in the Grimani Breviary at Venice. No one has been able to explain these curious inscriptions. In the Grimani Breviary they were thought to be either Croatian or merely ornament. Here they cannot well mean anything but decoration. The portraits are fanciful but interesting mementoes of the period, and include several personages noted in history.
The last MS. to be mentioned in this hasty sketch is one in the British Museum (Stowe 597). It is a “Missale Romanum,” and is said to have been illuminated for John III. in 1557. It was once the property of the Abbé Gamier, chaplain for near thirty years, of the French factory at Lisbon. The binding is red morocco, and once had silver clasps.
It commences with a large mirror-like oval tablet, containing the title, set between two pillars of pink-veined marble with bronze-gold capitals and bases. The tablet is crimson with a violet-slate frame moulding of egg and dart pattern. At foot are two Roman legionaries, one seated as supporting the tablet, on each side. On folio 3 is the index in a rose-wood panel and pale green frame. The peculiar forms of the frames and the scroll-work on them are of the fantastic kind, differing from Italian, which is characteristic both of Spanish and Portuguese ornament. The chief colours are a bright emerald green and blue, with ochre, gold, and crimson. The initials are still more fantastic—partly human, partly plant or fish-form, sometimes sculptured ornament and plant-forms combined—but all so sweetly painted and so delicately finished as to be most attractive. The text is a fine and elegant Roman minuscule interspersed with italic.
Here and there are exquisite little drawings of ecclesiastical utensils, etc., but the everlasting variety among the quaint and fanciful initials provides an unwearying fund of interest. Tiny birds of the loveliest plumage sit among and beneath the limbs of the letters, or elegant scrolls of pencilled gold cover the little coloured panels on which the plain gold Roman initials are placed. Some of the larger initials are very finely executed and contain full-length figures of saints, bishops, or queens. One lovely initial B has a graceful girl simply clad in blue tunic and pale yellow skirt with a silken coil of pale rose forming the upper loop of the letter, the lower being formed of the curved body of a green dragon. Her left hand lifts the silk-work, her right, hanging by her side, holds a little golden pitcher. The whole is painted on a panel of bright gold. Another (L) shows a peasant rushing laughingly, with a hare slung over his shoulder, past the figure of a guardian terminus of bronze. But the Missal should be seen to be properly understood, for though in a general way it has a look of Italian influence, its originality is beyond question.