Pilgrims Visiting the Tomb of St Peter of Verona, historiated initial from a Dominican Antiphoner, in Latin [Italy (Bologna), c.1340]

cutting, c.165x150mm, initial ‘O’ for the Matins antiphon for St Peter Martyr ‘O Petre, sidus aureum’, the verso with remains of 2 lines of the text and music on four-line red staves, rastrum c.48mm (‘[ni]veum do/[no creat]oris. De[cus]’), the verso inscribed in 19th(?)-century ink ‘124’ and 20th-century pencil ‘CN.V.8’, minor losses of pigment and gold

APPARENTLY A CONTEMPORARY DEPICTION OF THE ‘ARCA DI SAN PIETRO MARTIRE’ IN SANT’EUSTORGIO, MILAN

St Peter of Verona (1206–52), also known as Peter Martyr, was murdered by an axe-blow to the head; his body was carried to Milan and buried in the church of Sant’Eustorgio; he was canonized the following year (the fastest canonization of any saint); and in 1339 an elaborate tomb of Carrara marble was completed by Giovanni Balduccio of Pisa (which can still be seen, in the Portinari Chapel).

This is AN EXTREMELY UNUSUAL DEPICTION: Peter is almost always represented either being killed, or standing with a knife or sword embedded in his skull. Here, instead, he is shown lying on an elaborately canopied tomb under several hanging-lamps, wearing his Dominican habit and with wounds to his head. The style of illumination is that of the so-called B 18 MASTER (named after Padua, Bibl. Capit., B.18; formerly known as the Second Master of the San Domenico Choirbooks; cf. previous lot). His work is usually difficult to date because his style remained consistent from the 1320s to the 1340s, but it seems very likely that in the present case the initial was painted shortly before or after 1340, when Peter’s relics were moved to his new tomb, and word of its magnificence would have reached Bologna.

G. Freuler, Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, 2013, I, nos.19-20, discusses the illuminators of the San Domenico Choirbooks (cf. the previous lot) and reproduces the present initial at p.238.