St Anthony of Padua, historiated initial 'I' on a leaf from a Gradual, in Latin | Italy, Siena | early 1340s

An illuminated single leaf, 542 x 364mm leaf, 164 x 46mm, from a Gradual, in Latin with historiated initial ‘I’ depicting St Anthony of Padua (six lines high), encompassing seven lines of music and text, contemporary folio number 'lxxxi', the initial opens the Introit for the feast of St Anthony of Padua on June 13th, ‘In medio ecclesie aperuit os eius’, rubrics in red, verso with one blue initial with red penwork (some fading of text on verso), aside from slight flaking in nimbus in good condition with wide clean margins, unframed.

AN ATTRACTIVE AND EARLY EXAMPLE BY LIPPO VANNI, ONE OF SIENA’S LEADING MINIATURISTS

PROVENANCE

1. Leaf from a Gradual created in Siena in the early 1340s, potentially for a Franciscan monastery.

2. Formerly in the Six and Beets collections, Amsterdam.

3. Sotheby's 11^th July 1966, lot 194.

COMMENTARY

This attractive leaf shows St Anthony of Padua (1195 –1231), one of the most revered followers of Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order. A Lisbon native, Anthony had an illustrious, albeit short, life and monastic career, serving as envoy in 1228 for the General Chapter to Pope Gregory IX and later provincial superior of Northern Italy, where he chose to settle in Padua. Only a year after his death, St Anthony was canonised and in 1946, he was bestowed the title ‘Doctor of the Church’ by Pope Pius XII, a title he shares with St Augustine (see lot 18). Anthony, due to his moving and inspiring preaching, soon caught the attention of St Francis of Assisi and went on to teach both at the University of Montpellier and Toulouse.

St Anthony is beseeched for retrieving lost or stolen items, a belief that is related to a story from his life. When an annotated Book of Psalms was stolen, Anthony prayed for its safe return. As a result, not only was the precious book returned, but the repentant thief rejoined the Franciscan order.

This miniature, with its muted but powerful palette, shows a solemn grey-clad St Anthony, who, averting his gaze from the onlooker, glances contemplatively into the margins. The initial was created by one of the leading Sienese illuminators of the period, Lippo Vanni, who was active as a painter in Siena from 1341 to 1372. For the first ten years of this period, he worked chiefly as a miniaturist. Vanni’s work was influenced by Pietro Lorenzetti, whose introduction of naturalism into Sienese painting foreshadowed the flourishing production of Renaissance art in the region. Our artist was also closely linked to the Master of Sant’Eugenio, whose activity decorating a series of choirbooks for churches in and around Siena can be documented from 1340 to 1375. It is assumed that Vanni might have trained in this Master’s workshop (De Benedictis, 1994).

The present leaf originates from a choirbook whose leaves can be found in several leading European and American collections, including four leaves in the Rijksmuseum and three in the Philadelphia Free Library (Tanis, 2001, pp.170-72).

This leaf is a beautiful example of the early work of Lippo Vanni, showing a graceful and composed St Anthony in an elegant palette.

LITERATURE

Freuler, Gaudenz, Ancora sulla miniatura senese dei secoli XIII-XV. Postille ad un libro (Parte II), Arte Cristiana, XCVII, 2009, 854, pp.321ff.

Freuler, Gaudenz, ‘Lippo Vanni’, in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani secoli IX-XVI, a cura di Milvia Bollati, prefazione di Miklós Boskovits, Milano, Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004, pp.394-397

Freuler, Gaudenz, in Ada Labriola, Cristina de Benedictis, Gaudenz Freuler, La miniatura senese 1270-1420, a cura di Cristina De Benedictis, Milano, Skira, 2002, pp.319-331

Marle, R. van. “Cinque Miniature di Lippo Vanni.” La Diana 4 (1929): p. 159-60, where the present miniature, wrongly described as St Francis, is reproduced. 

FURTHER READING

De Benedictis, Cristina, Lippo Vanni, in: La fortuna dei primitivi. Tesori d’arte dalle collezioni italiane fra Sette e Ottocento. Catalogo della mostra, Firenze, Gallerie dell’Accademia, 28 giugno-8 dicembre 2014, a cura di Angelo Tartuferi e Gianluca Tormen, Firenze, Giunti, 2014, pp.505-07.

De Benedictis, Cristina, “Pietro Lorenzetti e la miniatura”, Studi Mina Gregori, 1994, p.21-25.

Tanis, J.R. ed. Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections. Philadelphia, 2001, p.170-72.

Os, H. W. van. “Lippo Vanni as a Miniaturist.” Simiolus 7, 2 (1974): p.70 (fig. 5) (ill.) (article, pp.67-90).