With regard to the distinctions of schools or local centres within the
same country, the evidence of probable origin has to be corroborated by
historic fact. It is not safe without further proof than that afforded
by general features to affirm that this or that MS. was executed at
Paris, Dijon, Amiens, or Limoges in France; or at Ghent, Bruges, or
elsewhere in Flanders; or whether a MS. be Rhenish or Saxon, Bavarian or
Westphalian, in Germany; Bolognese, Florentine, Siennese, Milanese, or
Neapolitan in Italy; or executed at Westminster, St. Albans, Exeter, or
elsewhere in England. Nevertheless the special characteristics of all
these schools are quite distinguishable. In the attempt to distinguish
them, although the diagnosis may be perfectly accurate, the actual facts
may be otherwise accounted for. Hence the danger to which even the
experienced connoisseur is liable. For example, certain MSS. are written
in a fine Bolognese hand, which it is proved were actually executed in
Flanders; others that one would feel sure were Netherlandish, were
illuminated in Spain. Some very fine typical Flemish miniatures were
painted in Italy; certain Florentine miniatures were the work of artists
residing in Rome. Milanese illumination is quite distinguishable from
Neapolitan, and Venetian from both, yet the school is not proof of the
_provenance_.
Illuminators, like other craftsmen, travelled from city to city, and
princes employed men, who resided in their patrons' palaces, who yet had
learned their art many leagues away. How often we find the names of
artists with the words Dallemagna, il Tedesco, le Poitevin, Veronese,
Franco, Crovata, etc., employed in Italian houses, indicating the place
of their nativity. So that even when we know every feature of the work
we have much to learn ere we can say with truth that it was executed in
such and such a city. We must take into account details which are liable
to escape the ordinary observer, such as quality of vellum or paper,
choice of pigments, mode of application, and other particulars quite
distinct from style of ornament or varieties of form in foliage. In the
Fitzwilliam Library at Cambridge is an Italian MS., the characteristics
of whose ornamentation are unequivocally French, but whose mode of
treatment shows not only that it is Italian but that it is Milanese, but
whether executed in Milan or not is more than anyone can affirm. In the
British Museum is a magnificent service-book called the Padua Missal,
but the probability is that the Paduan artist who painted its splendid
pages, painted them at Venice. That it was executed for Sta. Justina, at
Padua, is no proof that the work was done in that city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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