Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

Produced in the chancery of the della Rovere Dukes of Urbino known for its refined decoration and distinctive blend of Italianate illumination.
 
360 × 105 mm. Single cutting of the lefthand column of a charter or financial instrument of unknown dimensions, with letters visible on the right and sigil of the della Rovere family in a large initial ‘I’ formed of an oak tree with roots and a crown of leaves and acorns, all wrapped in a banderole, a profusion of foliage terminating in large blossoms, acorns, and other foliate designs, drawn in sepia ink, likely the same used to produce the charter, dated 1511 in an early modern black ink at the top. The document was originally folded with three light creases, remnants of glue remain on verso from an earlier mounting, as well as two hinges, slightly soiled, else in good condition.
 
Dated to 1511, this cutting almost certainly derives from a legal document issued by the chancellery of Francesco Maria I Della Rovere and features his dynastic oak emblem (rovere). This heraldic device was commonly used by the chancellery’s scrittori ducali, either illuminated within the initial or painted in the margin, to signify a document’s official status. In Urbino—as throughout Renaissance Italy—important state documents were often “formally prepared” with decorative initials or borders to underscore their legal and political authority. While routine illumination was typically executed by in-house scribes, more elaborate decoration could be entrusted to court artists. This initial was almost certainly produced in-house, executed with the same ink as used in the document’s primary script. However, its intricate ornamentation—oak swags entwined with acanthus leaves—recalls the refined visual language of court illuminators such as Matteo da Milano, active at Urbino in the early sixteenth century.
 
The official archives of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere dukes were partially dispersed following the duchy’s absorption into the Papal States in 1631. Today, most of these records are housed in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze as the Fondo Ducato di Urbino, with additional holdings in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, the Archivio di Stato di Pesaro–Urbino, and the Biblioteca Oliveriana in Pesaro. A major digitization initiative is currently underway to virtually reunite these scattered collections. Spearheaded by the Florence and Urbino archives, the project is making images and descriptions of the ducal archive freely available through the ICAR Archivio Digitale portal: https://archiviodigitale-icar.cultura.gov.it.
 
Provenance
(1) The dating suggests that the document was issued by Francesco Maria I della Rovere (d. 1538), Duke of Urbino from 1508.
 
(2) Blue owner’s mark of Fritz Hasselmann (d. 1894?) on verso, identified by Peter Kidd (initials “F H” flanking a pyramid emanating beams of light and surmounted by a cross); his sale: Sammlung von alten Pergament Miniaturen: Handzeichnungen; Aquarell alter und moderner Meister (Munich; Helbing 24 November 1892, lot 276); see: http://mssprovenance.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/fritz-hasselmann-d1894.html
 
(3) Private Collection.
 
LITERATURE
Unpublished. On the Chancellery see: Cesare Guasti, “I manoscritti Torrigiani donati al R. Archivio Centrale di Stato di Firenze (Continuazione),” Archivio Storico Italiano, 26, no. 102 (1877), pp. 361–416; Pio E. Vecchioni, “Lettere autografe inedite di Francesco Maria I,” Atti e Memorie, 6, no. 1 (1943); Marcello Luchetti, Marcello Storia del notariato a Pesaro e Urbino, Bologna, 1993; Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri and Massimo Peruzzi, eds. Le carte di Federico: Documenti pubblici e segreti per la vita del duca d’Urbino. Urbino, 2022.
 
We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.