BOOK OF HOURS. Italian, 15th Century
By Francesco d’Antonio del Cherico
(R. Lau. Bibl. Ashb. 1874. 7 × 5 inches)
When one considers the early civilization of Italy, and the heights finally attained by Italian illuminators, it is difficult to understand why the intervening centuries show such tardy recognition of the art. Even as late as the twelfth century, with other countries turning out really splendid examples, the Italian work is of a distinctly inferior order; but by the middle of the thirteenth century, the great revival in art brought about by Cimabue and Giotto stimulated the development in illumination. During the next hundred years the art became nationalized. The ornament diverged from the French type, and assumed the peculiar straight bar or rod, with profile foliages, and the sudden reversions of the curves with change of color, which are characteristic of fourteenth-century Italian work. The miniatures, introducing the new Tuscan manner of painting, entirely re-fashioned miniature art. The figure becomes natural, well-proportioned, and graceful, the heads delicate in feature and correct in expression. The costumes are carefully wrought, the drapery folds soft, yet elaborately finished. The colors are vivid but warm, the blue being particularly effective.
The vine-stem style immediately preceded the Classic revival which came when the Medici and other wealthy patrons recognized the artistic importance of illumination. In this style the stems are coiled most gracefully, slightly tinted, with decorative flowerets. The grounds are marked by varying colors, in which the artists delicately traced tendrils in gold or white.
The great glory of Italy in illumination came after the invention of printing. Aside from the apprehensions of the wealthy owners of manuscript libraries that they would lose prestige if books became common, beyond the danger to the high-born rulers of losing their political power if the masses learned argument from the printed book,—these true lovers of literature opposed the printing press because they believed it to cheapen something that was so precious as to demand protection. So they vied with one another in encouraging the scribes and the illuminators to produce hand-written volumes such as had never before been seen.
Certainly the Book of Hours of d’Antonio is one of the marvels of Florentine art. The nine full-page miniatures have never been surpassed. No wonder that Lorenzo de’ Medici, lover of the beautiful, should have kept it ever beside him! The delicate work in the small scenes in the Calendar is as precise as that in the larger miniatures; the decoration, rich in the variety of its design, really surpassed the splendor and glory of the goldsmith’s art (page [146]). Some deplore the fact that England lost this treasure when the Italian government purchased the Ashburnham Collection in 1884; but if there ever was a manuscript that belongs in Florence, it is this.
You may still see d’Antonio’s masterpiece at the Laurenziana Library, but it is no longer kept in the ancient wooden desk. The treasures of illumination are now splendidly arrayed in cases, where all may study and admire. There are heavy choir-books, classic manuscripts, books of hours, and breviaries, embellished by Lorenzo Monaco, master of Fra Angelico; by Benozzo Gozzoli, whose frescoes still make the Riccardi famous; by Gherado, and Clovio, and by other artists whose names have long since been forgotten, but whose work remains as an everlasting monument to a departed art that should be revived.