GHERARDUCCI, Don Silvestro dei
(b. 1339, Firenze, d. 1399, Firenze)

Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli (Folio 60)

c. 1370
Tempera and gold on parchment, 340 x 290 mm
British Library, London

Among the various choir books that Don Silvestro illuminated for his monastery, Santa Maria degli Angeli, one (Cod. Cor. 2, now in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence) clearly stands out for its high artistic quality. As were most of the Santa Maria degli Angeli choir books which entered the Biblioteca Laurenziana, it was mutilated in the Napoleonic period. Twenty pages - many of them the most important and most beautiful - were cut from this gradual and found their way into various collections. There are thirty-eight present and missing illuminations in the codex on which a reconstruction can be based.

The miniature from folio 60 depicts the Annunciation in an initial R. This initial begins the introit to the Mass for the feast of the Annunciation on March 25. despite the small format the splendid miniature has the monumental quality of a fresco painting. This effect is enhanced by the initial's outer frame, which, with its cosmatesque pattern, refers to the great picture cycles of fourteenth-century Tuscany.




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