This once magnificent manuscript still exists, but in a much mutilated state, in the Venetian Biblioteca Marciana (Cl. XII. Cod. LXVIII.); all the large miniatures have been cut out, but the borders with winged Cupids, birds and animals among decorative scroll-work are marvels of beauty and minute delicacy of touch. Though quite worthy of Attavante's fame, this manuscript cannot be his work, as it was executed many years too early, in the time of Pope Nicholas V., who reigned from 1447 to 1455. _MSS. at Venice._ The same library does, however, possess real examples of Attavante's wonderful illuminations. The borders are specially remarkable for the minute medallion heads which are introduced among the conventional foliage. These minute pictures occur in many of the finest manuscripts of this class; and other _miniatori_ painted them with a microscopic refinement of detail, quite equal to the best illuminations of Attavante. Fig. 49 gives a good typical example of this style of border, with two Cupid-like angels and busts of saints in quatrefoil medallions. Some of the borders of this class, especially in Venetian and Florentine manuscripts, are decorated with very cleverly painted representations of jewels, such as the emerald and ruby, set at intervals along each margin. These are often wonderful examples of skilful realism, the transparency of the gem, and its bright reflected lights, being rendered with an almost deceptive appearance of reality. _The miniaturists called dai Libri._ In the fifteenth century Verona was one of the chief Italian centres for the production of magnificent manuscripts. Various members of one family, known from their occupation as "dai Libri," were specially famous as miniaturists. Stefano the eldest was born about 1420; he and his younger brother Francesco were both skilled miniaturists, and Francesco's son Girolamo dai Libri (1474 to 1556) was famous not only as a _miniatore_, but also as a painter of altar-pieces and other sacred pictures on a large scale[193]. [Illustration: Fig. 49. An illuminated border from a manuscript by Attavante of characteristic north Italian style.] _Liberale of Verona._ Another Veronese painter, Liberale di Giacomo, who was born in 1451, was in his youth a very skilful miniaturist. He spent some years in illuminating large choir-books for the Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto near Siena, and then after 1469 he was for long occupied in the illumination of similar choir-books for the Cathedral of Siena[194]. The miniatures in these great _Antiphonals_ are most exquisitely finished, rich in fancy, brilliant in colour, but wanting decorative breadth of style. With a far greater expenditure of labour and eyesight, these wonderful illuminations are far inferior to the works of the fourteenth century French miniaturists, and show signs of that decadence of taste, which, in the sixteenth century, led to the destruction of the true illuminator's art[195]. _MSS. of N. Italy._