In addition to Venice, Padua and Ferrara were both important centres of manuscript illumination of a very high order during the fifteenth century. The Paduan miniatures show strongly the influence of Andrea Mantegna and Gian Bellini, whose styles also appear in the contemporary manuscripts of Venice. The British Museum possesses a magnificent example of the work of one of the ablest _miniatori_ of Padua, a _Missal_ by Benedetto Bordone, who also illuminated the great choir-books of the Convent of Santa Justina in Padua. [Illustration: Fig. 50. A miniature from the Bible of Duke Borso d'Este, painted between 1455 and 1461 by illuminators of the school of Ferrara.] _School of Ferrara._ Ferrara too produced many very beautiful manuscripts, especially under the patronage of Duke Borso d'Este. It was for this Duke of Ferrara that the magnificent choir-books, now in the Municipal library at Ferrara were executed. Fig. 50 shows a miniature from a very splendid Bible, which was illuminated for Duke Borso d'Este between 1455 and 1461 by Taddeo di Crivelli and Franco di Messer Giovanni da Russi, two very talented miniaturists of the Ferrarese school, though they were natives of the neighbouring city of Mantua. _Parma and Modena._ Parma, Modena and Cremona also were thriving centres of the illuminators art; in fact wherever in Italy there was a school of painting a subsidiary school of manuscript miniaturists seems also to have existed. The two classes of painting acted and reacted upon one another; and in some cases, as is indicated below[196], the more important art of painting on a large scale owed more to the manuscript illuminators than has commonly been acknowleged. _School of Milan._ Milan, especially under Duke Ludovico and other members of the Sforza family, was an active centre of manuscript illumination. Some very beautiful late manuscripts exist with miniatures which show the influence of Leonardo da Vinci and his pupil Bernardino Luini; a _Book of Hours_ in the Fitzwilliam Museum is a good example of this. _Illuminated documents._ One rather exceptional class of richly illuminated manuscripts was largely produced in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; these were State documents, University diplomas and licences, patents of nobility and legal instruments of various kinds, often very elaborately decorated with illuminations and miniatures in gold and colours. In Venice especially immense numbers of these were produced; the most elaborate are Appointments of Governors, Commissions of officials of rank, Patriarchal Briefs, together with State records and documents of the most varied kinds. Bologna, Padua, Pisa and others of the chief Universities of Italy issued diplomas for Doctors degrees, and licences to give lectures, which were frequently very magnificently decorated with letters of gold and richly illuminated capitals and borders. _Retables like MSS._