Title:
Psalter
Maker(s):
; production
; production
Collection:
Viscount Fitzwilliam
Category:
illuminated manuscript
Name:
psalter; type of text
Date:
circa 1470 — circa 1480
Period:
fifteenth century, second half
Description:
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, ii paper flyleaves + 148 fols. + i paper flyleaf, 190 x 133 mm (120 x 76 mm), 22 long lines, ruled in brown ink, quire and leaf signatures, vertical catchwords, leaves lost before fols. 1, 20, 47, 105
BINDING: Late eighteenth century, gold-stamped brown leather over pasteboards, edges gilt and gauffered
CONTENTS: fols. 1r-136v Psalter (Gallican, incomplete, lacking Ps 23:8 – 26:1, Ps 51:7 – 53:3, Ps 108:18 – 109:2); fols. 137r-148v Canticles and Quicumque vult
DECORATION: Half-page framed miniature: fol. 1r Psalm 1, David playing psaltery in a landscape, with full foliate border on blue ground containing classicizing architectural motifs, two monochrome and gold ink vignettes showing a standing figure and King David writing, an antique style medallion with monochrome and gold ink female profile, and lower bar showing putti in a landscape playing music and supporting a blank shield surrounded by cornucopiae with garlands and furit
Four historiated initials (out of original seven) in blue and buff with acanthus extensions on gold ground, and full floral and acanthus borders on plain parchment grounds (except fol. 34r, gold ground), containing classicising motifs (gems, pearls, vases, cornucopiae), some of them painted in gold ink on coloured grounds in the corner compartments, for the psalms of the eight-fold division: fol. 34r Psalm 38, [D, 7 ll.] Turbaned man walking in a landscape; fol. 59r Psalm 68, [S, 7 ll.] Penitent David standing in water; fol. 75r Psalm 80, [E, 7 ll.] David playing psaltery, antique coin with a male profile wearing a laurel wreath in outer border ; fol. 90r Psalm 90, [C, 7 ll. Three youths singing out of a book.
ORNAMENTATION: Gold initials [2 ll.] on blue, mauve and green grounds with white and yellow abstract patterns; alternate gold and blue one-line initials with violet or red pen flourishing.
Production
Place(s):
Italy, Venice, possibly Venice
Italy, Padua, possibly Padua
Production
Place (legacy):
Italy, production, region
Venice, place
Padua, place
Technique(s):
illumination; whole
penwork
Material(s):
parchment; support
gold; medium
Dimension(s):
height
width
Acquisition:
bequeathed; 1816; Fitzwilliam, Richard, 7th Viscount
Associated
Person:
Fitzwilliam, Richard, 7th Viscount; previous owner
Notes:
In the absence of a Calendar and Litany, the initials and borders on fols. 59r, 75r and 90r suggest an origin in the Veneto in the 1470s. The manuscript contains the work of two other hands. The most accomplished artist painted the miniature on fol. 1r under strong influence from Mantegna’s work. A third hand executed the more schematic initial and border on fol. 34r. At least three historiated initials have been lost with the missing openings of Psalms 26, 52 and 109.
Inscription:
secundo folio; [subsana]bit eos
Exhibition(s):
Illuminated Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. 1966 - 1966
Organiser: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Venue: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Cambs.)
Notes: Cambridge 1966
Catalogue number: 100
Splendours of Italian Illumination: Romanesque - Gothic - Renaissance. 1989 - 1990
Organiser: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Venue: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Notes: unpublished handlist of an exhibition held in the Adeane gallery, October 1989 - February 1990
Catalogue number: 56
Documentation:
Wormald, F.. Giles, P.M.. 1966. Illuminated Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum.Cambridge (Cambs.):
cat. no. 100
James, Montague Rhodes, Dr. 1895. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum.Cambridge (Cambs.): Cambridge University Pressp. 26-27
Mariani Canova, G.. 1969. La Miniatura Veneta del Rinascimento 1450-1500.Venice:
pp. 78, 158, no. 92 (conflating Fitzwilliam MS 338, Hours, with Fitzwilliam MS 15, Psalter)
Accession:
Object Number: MS 15
(Manuscripts and Printed Books)
(record id: 178789; input: 2010-11-26; modified: 2012-08-20)
Permanent
Identifier:
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