The Illuminated Choir Books of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice

This volume is devoted to the choir books of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which represent some of our most important evidence for Italian Renaissance illumination and are fortunately still in large part preserved at the Abbey that commissioned them. The texts and music for the monks’ daily prayers are accompanied by hand-painted tempera illustrations embellished with gold leaf, produced by such illuminators as Belbello da Pavia, Jacopo del Giallo, the Master of Antiphonary Q and the Second Master of Antiphonary M, the names of the latter artists deriving from their work at San Giorgio.
The essays, biographies of the illuminators and catalogue entries written by scholars and specialists together with the lavish illustrations guide the reader through the discovery of the choir books, examined here for the first time from an interdisciplinary perspective. New research on the volumes’ history, liturgy and music, along with meticulous stylistic analysis and scientific study of the illuminations, reveals the greatness of the Benedictine patrons and the artists who worked for them.

Federica Toniolo è Professore Ordinario di Storia dell’Arte Medievale e Storia della Miniatura all’Università di Padova. Tra i suoi molti lavori, ha co-curato diverse mostre e il catalogo della collezione di miniature della Fondazione Cini (2016).
Chiara Ponchia è Ricercatrice abilitata in Storia dell’Arte Medievale e Storia della Miniatura all’Università di Padova. Tra le sue pubblicazioni, Frammenti dell’Aldila. Miniature trecentesche della Divina Commedia (2015).

Contents

Foreword

SAGGI

Federica Toniolo, Chiara Ponchia
New Studies on the Illuminations of the Choir Books of San Giorgio Maggiore

Antiphonaries. Analysis of the Individual Volumes
Summary Table

Giacomo Baroffio, Eun Ju Kim
The Choir Books of San Giorgio Maggiore. Liturgical and Musical Tradition

Paola Ricciardi, Anna Mazzinghi, Stella Panayotova
The Choir Books of San Giorgio Maggiore. Scientific Analyses

ILLUMINATORS

Marta Minazzato
Cristoforo Cortese, Eminent Illuminator of Choir Books in the Veneto

Laura Zabeo
Belbello da Pavia, between Late-Gothic and Humanism

Chiara Ponchia
Second Master of Antiphonary M, the Poetic Painting of a Second Lead to Belbello

Chiara Ponchia
The Master of Antiphonary Q, the Splendour and Colour of a Late-Gothic Veronese Illuminator

Renato Zironda
The Master of the Osservanza of Vicenza, the “Fragmented” Memory of a Lost Antiphonary

Giulio Pesavento
The Master of Kyriale K, a Veneto-Ferrarese Illuminator in Search of a Catalogue

Martina Contin
Jacopo del Giallo, a Career Divided between Florence, Rome and Venice

ENTRIES

Cat. 1 Psalter-Hymnal N
Cat. 2 Antiphonary R
Cat. 3 Antiphonary M
Cat. 4 Antiphonary Q
Cat. 5 Kyriale K
Cat. 6 Kyriale AE
Cat. 7 Psalter-Hymnal D

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY