MINIATURIST, Italian
(active 1340s in Perugia)

Gregory IX: Decretals

1340s
Manuscript (Ms. 488)
Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna

This manuscript in Ravenna is composite. The original was made in the 1340s and contains the text of the Decretals of Gregory IX. (Decretals are letters of the pope that formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law of the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory IX ordered in 1230 his chaplain and confessor, St. Raymond of Pennafort, a Dominican, to form a new canonical collection destined to replace all former collections.) The first two leaves were added later, in the 1370s. They contain tables of consanguinity and comments on the Fourth Book of the Decretals.

The original manuscript is ornamented with decorated initials and scenes with figures. The decoration was made in Perugia in the 1340s. The miniatures on the first two leaves were executed by Matteo di Ser Cambio, an artist who worked in Perugia in whom Sienese and Paduan influences are merged.

Folio 143v, like the other pages of the original manuscript, is ornamented with decorated initial and a scene with figures. The scene here shows the Adoration of the Host.