Vast illuminated initial ‘I’ on a leaf from a Gradual, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern Italy (perhaps Florence), last decades of fifteenth century]

Vast illuminated initial I on a leaf from a Gradual, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern Italy (perhaps Florence), last decades of fifteenth century]

Single leaf, with large initial I (opening In monte oliveti …, a responsory for Palm Sunday) in coloured acanthus leaves and foliage on brilliantly burnished gold ground (with foliate tri-lobed sections cut from each vertical side), extensions of coloured foliage extending into margin and terminating in detailed flower heads, angular blue arrowhead-like leaves and large gold bezants, as well as a gold, blue and dark pink flower head in margin surrounded by gold fruit and other smaller flowerheads, initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, red rubrics, capitals touched in yellow wash, 5 lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 38mm.), slight cockling, else outstanding condition with wide and clean margins, 553 by 395mm.

The lavish border illumination, with its scrolling tendrils enclosing flower buds and spreading foliate terminals with multiple shoots, echoes the work of the Florentine artist Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (d. 1399; see B. Drake Boehm, Choirs of Angels, 2008, fig. 22).