St. Lawrence, a cutting from a vast Choirbook, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy (Rome), c.1535-40]

outer border of a leaf (cut away at top and trimmed to innermost edge to remove text column), 435mm. by 115mm., including a central medallion with St. Lawrence holding an open book and resting his hand on the metal gridiron on which he was martyred, by the celebrated artist, Vincent Raymond, the saint’s tunic inscribed in shaded gold capitals with “S. LAV/RENT/ DE PA/DVLA” (see below), his book inscribed with “Levita Laurentius bonum opus operates est qui per requiem caecos il”, the variant of an Alleluia for the Gradual sung on the Feast of St. Lawrence (10 August), the lower corner with a rectangular compartment depicting the figure of Fortitude as a woman in flowing classical dress lifting a marble column, the remaining space filled with large flowers, acanthus leaves, detailed grotesque faces with foliate headdresses and a large white stork-like bird, all emerging from a realistic ornamental base with three lion’s feet, all on blue, green and silver grounds and within beaded wooden frame painted in trompe l’oeil style, the innermost edge of the border painted with blue and gold scrolls in same style, recto blank, frame of the border slightly rubbed, a single fold across the top of the cutting with small affect to the top of the medallion containing the saint, another small crease affecting the lower miniature of Fortitude, three small worm-holes in the upper scroll, otherwise in good condition, in a fitted card mount and brown gilt-tooled leather case lined with blue watered silk

(1) Firmly identified as the work of Vincent Raymond (d.1557), papal illuminator, and almost certainly executed in his Roman workshop where he also produced sumptuous liturgical volumes for the Sistine chapel. The figure of St. Lawrence and the inscription on his vestment identifies the house the parent Choirbook was made for as the Charterhouse of San Lorenzo in Padula (Salerno). It was founded in 1306 and was the oldest and most prominent charterhouse in Campania (Vega de Martini, ‘La Certosa di Padula nel Sistema delle Certose Meridionali’, in Certose e Certosini in Europa, 1990, II, p.208). It was visited in 1535 by the devout and pious Charles V, one of the most powerful men to have lived in the Middle Ages and the direct ruler of much of Europe, the Far East and the Americas. Shortly after, he formally reaffirmed the rights and privileges of the Charterhouse, and may well have commissioned the parent volume of this cutting as part of his gifts to the house. The Charterhouse of San Lorenzo was occupied by French troops during the Napoleonic invasion of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and was systematically looted. Much of the library of the house is now held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emmanuale III in Naples, and at least sixteen manuscripts definitively from Padula have been identified there (V. Boni in Per il Recupero, p.92). It was finally suppressed by the state in 1866. Similar to other opulently illuminated manuscripts in occupied monasteries, such as the Sistine chapel (see our sales catalogues for 6 December 2011, lots 20-21; 21 June 1988, lot 36; and 9 July 1973, lot 15), the parent volume of this cutting would appear to have been dismembered for its illuminations and carried off by the French invading armies.

(2) Joseph Baer of Frankfurt, bookdealer, in 1907: inscription in pencil on blank recto.

illumination

Vincent Raymond stands among the most celebrated and important personalities drawn to the wealth and opulence of the sixteenth-century Papal court. In 1548, Francisco de Hollanda ranked him third only to Giulio Clovio and his own father as an authority on the art of illumination; and before both Attavante degli Attavanti and Simon Bening. He is thought to have originally come from Lodève in Languedoc, and may have come to the attention of the papal court whilst serving in the retinue of Louis XII’s ambassador to Pope Julius II. He worked for several successive popes, from Leo X (reigned 1513-21), Adrien VI (reigned 1522-23) to Clement VII (reigned 1523-34), predominantly on monumental illuminated manuscripts for the Sistine Chapel, and during the pontificate of Paul III (reigned 1534-49) he became almost the sole illuminator to the curia. He is the only illuminator to be mentioned in Vatican records from 1535 to 1549, and was appointed papal illuminator in that last year. He died only a year into his retirement, in 1557.