Dante and Virgil, illumination from Dante’s Inferno of the Divine Comedy, the presentation copy of a Commentary for the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, in Italian [Italy, Lombardy (Milan), c.1440]

cutting, 57x31mm, vellum, verso with remains of text, small creases, a minuscule hole in the green robe of Virgil, laid down on velvet, 19th-century gilt frame

A FINE ILLUMINATION FROM DANTE'S INFERNO, THE PRESENTATION COPY OF GUINIFORTE BARZIZZA'S COMMENTARY FOR FILLIPPO MARIA VISCONTI, BY THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM

From the collection of SIR JOHN POPE-HENNESSY (1913-94), Director successively of the Victoria & Albert and British Museums, London, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, connoisseur, and authority on the Italian Renaissance; bought from Scharf, London, in 1947 (as recorded in J. Pope-Hennessy, Learning to Look, 1991, pp.316-17), and loaned by him to the important exhibition Arte in Lombardia tra Gotico e Rinascimento, Milan, 1988, no.17.

This tiny fragment is exceptional in several respects, notably for the text, the artist and the provenance. It comes from a richly illuminated manuscript that includes the coat of arms of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. The parent manuscript was in the famous Visconti-Sforza library at Pavia until at least 1469. It then may have passed to the royal library of King Louis XII of France (d.1515), who in turn may have presented it to Giovanni Caraccioli, Duke of Melfi (d.1550) as a reward for services to the crown. It then passed by descent to Antoine de Cardaillac Caracciolo, and his heirs, as recorded in a note in the parent volume. In 1835 it was discovered by the scholar Gaston de Flotte (1805-82) in the attic of an old castle on the banks of the Dordogne, where it had been used by the chatelaine as a weight to press the laundry; he bought it and took it to Marseille. He then commissioned Giuseppe Zaccheroni (1800-76), who was in France having been exiled from Italy, to edit the text, which was published in 1838 (Lo Inferno della Commedia di Dante Alighieri … da due Manoscritti inediti). Zaccheroni extracted a number of pages, however: in 1865 he returned to his hometown, Imola, and in 1866 he presented to the town library a copy of his edition, into which he had bound 21 of the original manuscript's leaves bearing 13 miniatures (now Imola, MS 76). In 1887 de Flotte's heirs sold the main part of the parent volume to the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, where it remains (ms.ital.2017). Zaccheroni clearly extracted more than the 21 leaves today in Imola: an inscription on the back of the frame of the present fragment, signed by Giuseppe Melini II, mentions in fact that it was a present of his friend Zaccheroni of Marseille.

The manuscript originally included 115 miniatures, showing Dante’s journey through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. It includes a commentary of the Milanese humanist Guiniforte Barzizza (1406-63) – it is one of only two copies known to exist – and this is the presentation copy for Filippo Maria Visconti, illuminated by the MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (c.1430-53). The artist is named after an Italian translation of Suetonius (Paris, BnF, ms.ital.131) written in 1431 for Filippo Maria Visconti, for whom he undertook many commissions (see for instance A. Melograni in Storia dell'arte, 70, 1990, pp.273-314). The fine fragment is highly finished and precisely painted, emphasizing the individual faces and lines with an overall sense of pattern and decorativeness. The dramatic compositions in the manuscript, all shown taking place under the earth’s crust, demonstrate an invention, control and expressive range unsurpassed in the Master’s work.