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Detailed record for Additional 35254Q
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| Title |
Cuttings from a Missal of Paul IV |
| Origin |
Italy, Central (Rome) |
| Date |
c. 1555 - c. 1559 |
| Language |
Latin |
| Artists |
Signed by Apollonio de' Bonfratelli (b. ? Capranica, d. Rome, 1575). |
| Decoration |
1 montage composed of a historiated full-page border in colours and gold, of grotesques and trompe l'oeil cameos of the Virtues (clockwise from top left; Faith, Hope, Temperance, Truth, Prudence, Charity, Justice, Fortitude), signed in two cartouches 'APP.' (bottom left) 'D. B. F.' (bottom right) [Appollonio de' Bonfratelli fecit] surrounding a miniature in a painted frame in colours and gold, of a papal ceremony (the creation of cardinals) with Paul IV standing in front of the papal throne inscribed 'Paulus IIII / Pont Max', reading from a book that two cardinals hold open; while a third cardinal, flanked on each side by two others, kneels on the steps before the throne holding a book open at pages inscribed 'In via salu[tatis] pacis et prosperitati[s]'; four other cardinals and several dignitaries stand or kneel about the Pope. 1 cutting of parchment painted in colours to imitate the marble floor of the miniature inserted to fill the space between the bottom of the miniature and the full-page border. |
| Dimensions in mm |
320 x 240 (border); 260 x 175 (miniature); 15 x 150 (inserted cutting) |
| Official foliation |
Parchment cuttings in a window mount, foliated as 'Q'. |
| Form |
Mounted parchment cuttings kept in a box with other cuttings and leaves. |
| Binding |
N/A |
| Provenance |
Paul IV (Carafa, r. 1555-1559) Italian pope and patron: his name and arms (on the papal throne); the present cuttings were excised from a Missal (either A.II.5, A.II.7, A.II.8, A.III.1-4, or B.III.3) described in a 1714 inventory of the Sistine Sacristy (Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, vol. 1560, fasc. 24, ff. 265-302, transcribed in Emilia Anna Talamo, Codices Cantorum: Miniature e Disegni nei Codici della Capella Sistina (Florence: Officine del Novecento, 1998), pp. 216-22 (pp. 218-19, 221).
Luigi Celotti (b. 1759, d. 1843), Italian dealer: his sales, 26 May 1825, lot 78 purchased for £36 15s by Anthony Molteno (d. 1846), art collector and dealer, according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue (Christie's Archives, cat. no. 29, 1825).
John Malcolm of Poltalloch (b. 1805, d. 1893), art collector and landowner: acquired between the first publication of the catalogue of his collection in 1869 and the second edition of 1876 (see Robinson 1876).
Purchased by the Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum in 1895.
Transferred to the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum in 1899. |
| Notes |
Italian cutting.
The present cutting is kept in a box with Add. 35254P, R-V. To see this cutting in the Manuscripts Reading Room order Add. 35254P-V. |
| Select bibliography |
J. C. Robinson, Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq, 2nd edn. (London: Chiswick Press, 1876), p. 279, app. ii, no. 13.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1894-1899 (London: Trustees of the British Museums, 1901), pp. 223-24.
T. J. Brown, 'Some Manuscript Fragments Illuminated for Pope Greogry XIII', British Museum Quarterly, 23 (1960-1961), 2-5 (p. 5 n. 8).
J. J. G. Alexander, 'Italian Illuminated Manuscripts in British Collections', in La Miniatura Italiana tra Gotico e Rinascimento: atti del II Congresso di Storia della Miniatura Italiana, Cortona, 24-26 settembre 1982, ed. by Emanuela Sesti (Florence: Olschki, 1985), 99-126 (p. 110 n. 30), reprinted in Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Studies in Italian Manuscript Illumination (London: Pindar Press, 2002), 22-54, 382-84 (p. 33 n. 30).
Sandra Hindman and others, Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age: Recovery and Reconstruction (Evanston, IL: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2001), pp. 82, 91 [exhibition catalogue].
Anne-Marie Eze, Abbé Luigi Celotti (1759-1843): Connoisseur, Dealer, and Collector of Illuminated Miniatures (unpublished doctoral thesis, London: Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2010).
Elena De Laurentiis and Emilia Anna Talamo, The Lost Manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel: an Epic Journey from Rome to Toledo (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispa´nica; Dallas, Tex.: Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 2010), p. 375. |
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