Hidden Treasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Midwestern Collections | Page 10

Materials and
Techniques of
the Medieval
Illuminator
Franciscan Antiphonary
fig 13: Book of Hours,
Sarum Use, Netherlandish,
made for the English
market, ca. 1465–1470,
Ink, tempera, and gold on
parchment, Underwood
Prayer Book Collection at
Nashotah House

Book of Hours

This Book of Hours was never finished, leaving
blank the arched spaces intended for narrative
scenes to mark the principal sections. The full
border and illuminated initial ‘D’ containing a
blue fleur-de-lis begins the text of Prime in the
Hours of the Virgin section of the book. On the
page at left is a red rubric written in French “A
prime”; the illustration for Prime in the standard
cycle of miniatures would have been the Nativity.

Italian, 15th century
Ink and tempera on parchment
Department of Special Collections, Memorial
Library, University of Wisconsin–Madison,
MS 441, fols. 64v–65
This volume of the Antiphonary contains feasts
of the Franciscan Order, namely St. Francis, St.
Clare, and St. Louis of Toulouse, indicating that
it was made for a house of mendicant friars or
nuns. The text and square musical notation were
used for singing the antiphon of the Vigil of the
Feast of St. Francis, “Franciscus vir catholicus et
totus apostolicus [Francis, a catholic and totally
apostolic man].” Choir books required a significant expenditure of whole animal skins for each
large folio.

Pattern Book, dated
August 1, 1450
Guiniforte da Vimercate
Italian (Ferrara), documented 1449–1450
Tempera on parchment
Courtesy, the Lilly Library, Indiana University,
Bloomington, Ricketts 240, fols. 3v–4
fig 14: Miniature of
David Confronting Abner,
German(?), early 16th
century, tempera and gold
on parchment, Michigan
State University, Kresge
Museum of Art, MSU
purchase, 67.14

This rare specimen of an alphabet pattern book
is signed and dated by the Lombard illuminator
Guiniforte of Vimercate who is documented in
Ferrara in the late 1440s. A second illuminator
signs his name, “Basilius de Gallis,” in the initial
on folio 16 verso. A third anonymous artist adds
at a later date some examples of painted borders
toward the end of the manuscript.

French (possibly Autun), ca. 1450
Ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
Department of Special Collections, Memorial
Library, University of Wisconsin–Madison,
MS 161, fols. 59v–60

Miniature of David
Confronting Abner
German(?), early 16th century
Tempera and gold on parchment
Michigan State University, Kresge Museum of
Art, MSU purchase, 67.14
The narrative moment depicted in this miniature
is based on a passage in the Hebrew Bible, 1
Samuel 26:14, in which King David has ascended
to the top of the hill and calls down to Abner
who looks out from behind the tent where Saul
sleeps. The artist depicts the military encampment
with an archaeological interest in antiquity. The
foreshortening of sleeping soldiers indicates the
Renaissance interest in perspective, but the style
of figure and landscape points to a northern,
possibly German, illuminator. The back of this
miniature is blank and unruled, suggesting it
was created as an independent work of art not
intended for a book.

fig 14