other hand, the initials are of the older white stem type, with coloured grounds. The writing is a small and very neat Roman minuscule, and dates probably about 1485, or between 1480 and 1490. The penmanship of Hippolito Lunensis appears in Ficino's Translation of Plato; also in the British Museum, Harl. 3481, and in Add. 15270, 15271. [45] Riccio, C.W., _Cenno Storico dell Accademia Alfonsina_. Naples, 1865. The Heures d'Aragon referred to above are a rich example of the Neapolitan Renaissance preserved in the National Library at Paris. Writers on Italian miniatures are very numerous, and a good deal of interesting information about Italian MSS. may be found in M. Delisle's _Cabinet des MSS._, etc. There is one style of Italian illumination made very popular by the illuminators of the works of Petrarch, many of which are found in various libraries. That is the one called the vine-stem style. It consists of gracefully coiled stems, usually left uncoloured or softly tinted with yellow, and bearing here and there peculiar ornamental flowerets, while the grounds are picked out with various colours, on which are fine white triads of dots or traceries in delicate white or golden tendrils. A later variety of this style makes the stems of some pale but bright tint, and the grounds of deep colour. The vine-stem style seems to have prevailed throughout the whole of Italy just previous to the classic revival brought about by the Medici in throwing open their museums of sculptures, coins, and other antiquities, and by the liberal patronage of the new classic work by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and the Dukes of Urbino. After 1500 the vine-stem style seems to have gradually died out, and thenceforward only varieties of the revived antique became the fashion. To the Italian Renaissance we shall revert in a later chapter. CHAPTER VII GERMAN ILLUMINATION FROM THE THIRTEENTH TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Frederick II., _Stupor Mundi_, and his MS. on hunting--The Sicilian school mainly Saracenic, but a mixture of Greek, Arabic, and Latin tastes--The Franconian Emperors at Bamberg--Charles of Anjou--The House of Luxembourg at Prag--MSS. in the University Library--The Collegium Carolinum of the Emperor Charles IV.--MSS. at Vienna--The Wenzel Bible--The Weltchronik of Rudolf v. Ems at Stuttgard--Wilhelm v. Oranse at Vienna--The Golden Bull--Various schools--Hildesheimer Prayer-book at Berlin--The Nuremberg school--The Glockendons--The Brethren of the Pen.