Text |
FRANCESCO PETRARCA: TRIONFI |
Description |
MS in Italian on vellum, Firenze, Italy, ca. 1450, 53 ff. (complete), 20x13 cm, single column, (14x8 cm), 21 lines in a cursive humanistic book script by the scribe of "the remarkable Venice Silius", Marc. Lat.XII.68 (possibly Mariotto Nori), headings in red, 13 3-line illuminated initials in burnished gold on pink or blue and green ground with delicate tracery in yellow and white, a very large, 6-line historiated initial enclosing a standing figure of Cupid, surrounded by white-vine decorations infilled in blue, pink and green extending around the whole page, including a butterfly and 4 birds, vignettes of a running white hound, two faces of cherubs, a running hare, a girl (presumably Laura), 3 putti supporting a coat-of-arms in a gold cartouche, by Ser Ricciardo di Nanni. |
Context |
The same scribe is responsible for at least 4 other Florentine MSS, including a Vergil produced for William Gray by Vespasiano (Oxford Balliol 140), another Vergil with a famous miniature by Gugllielmo Giraldi (Vat.Urb.lat.350), and possibly a fifth MS, Boccaccio La Fiammetta for the Marquis of Santillana (Madrid B.N.Res.53). Prof. A. de la Mare is tempted to identify the scribe as the Florentine Mariotto Nori. |