Leaves from Choir Books

Differences in palette

Artists' Materials

Slight visual and material differences identified in MS 197 help distinguish the work of Pellegrino di Mariano Rossini from that of his colleague Sano di Pietro.

Pellegrino’s colour palette includes a bright red obtained with vermilion, a muted purple obtained by mixing an organic red with azurite, and a greater range of blues and greens, also achieved with mixtures. Ultramarine blue, used pure in God’s robe, is mixed with azurite in the dark blue Zodiac circle as well as in the blue initial and border decoration. Malachite appears to be mixed with green earth in the green-blue waters which surround the earth at the centre of the Creation scene.   

Further differences include the use of a carbon-based black pigment for all the dark outlines, including the square frame surrounding the initial and miniature. In both leaves painted by Sano di Pietro, however, the dark outline of the initials, as well as the outlines of all the decoration in the border, were painted with iron-gall ink. Additionally, microscopic observation of the painted surface of the leaf painted by Pellegrino shows black particles mixed into the paint layers, including pink, orange, yellow and flesh areas. These differences may account for the darker, more sombre and matt effect of Pellegrino’s work when compared with the brilliant luminosity of Sano’s images.

Lightbox: 195
1
Detail of the cherub’s face under magnification (16x).
Lightbox: 196
2
Detail of the orange cherub under magnification (16x). His facial features, including the eyes and hair, are outlined in organic red and lead-tin yellow over the red lead base layer.
Lightbox: 197
3
Detail of the bronze-coloured head under magnification (16x). The expressive face is rendered with strokes of organic red and bright lead-tin yellow over the shiny mosaic gold base layer.
Lightbox: 198
4
Detail of God’s purple sleeve under magnification (50x), showing blue as well as translucent red particles. These were identified by FORS analysis (below) as azurite and an insect-based dye, respectively.

Creation of Heaven and Earth

This leaf came from an Antiphoner made for the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena c. 1460-1477. The lower border preserves the overpainted arms which combine Santa Maria della Scala’s emblematic ladder with the rampant griffin (still discernable) of Niccolò Ricoveri, the hospital’s rector who commissioned the new set of Choir Books. The miniature and the initial I introduce the opening words of the Book of Genesis, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, with which the original volume began; they were recited at the midnight service of Matins for Septuagesima Sunday. The image of the Creation is among the finest surviving works of Pellegrino di Mariano Rossini, a pupil of Giovanni di Paolo. It is based on a panel from the altarpiece Giovanni di Paolo painted c.1445-1450 for the chapel of the Guelfi family in San Domenico, Siena (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.1.31). The depiction of the eight celestial spheres and the four elements emerging simultaneously draws on the Apostles’ Creed and on Dante’s Paradise (29:22-30) rather than on the Genesis story of sequential creation recounted beside the image. The red circle represents fire, the light blue air, and the green the waters that surround the earth in the centre – colour associations of the elements that endured from Antiquity until the Renaissance.

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