CLOVIO, Giulio
(b. 1498, Grizane, d. 1578, Roma)

The Farnese Hours

1537-46
Manuscript (M. 69), 172 x 108 mm (each page)
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York

The double page (folios 27v and 28r) shows the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Fall of Man in an elaborate formal richness, using the frequently mannered and exaggerated stylistic vocabulary of the late Renaissance. The architectonic frame is packed with muscular nudes, putti and atlases. The small pictures treated like cameos show on the left-hand page the Annunciation to the Shepherds (above) and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (below); on the right-hand page the Creation of Eve (above) and the Expulsion from Paradise (below).