Jewel-like Venetian Book of Hours, a newly identified manuscript from the workshop of the Master of the Pico Pliny.

iii (vellum) + 193 + ii (vellum) leaves, foliated in a modern hand in pencil in lower right margin, fractionally cropped, lacking several leaves before f. 1 (calendar) and a full quire of probably 10 folios after f. 193, else complete [collation: i10-1, ii10, iii10, iv10, v10, vi10, vii10, viii10, ix10, x8, xi10 xii8, xiii10, xiv8 xv8, xvi10, xvii10, xviii10, xix10, xx10], faintly ruled in brown ink in one column of twelve lines (justification: 42 mm × 28 mm), written in a rotunda script, rubrics in red, capitals in alternating red and blue ink, larger two-line capitals embellished with blue penwork, SEVEN ILLUMINATED INITIALS of three and four lines in deep rose on burnished gold frames with floral infill on blue ground, half borders embellished wth white penwork and acanthus decoration in rose, blue, and green with gold bezants, FOUR HISTORIATED INITIALS in deep rose with gold frames, full borders anchored by column in left margin and coiling acanthus, florals, and penwork in green, blue, and rose with gold bezants. Nineteenth-century rose colored velvet binding over boards, with metal fore-edge clasp and catch, cover nap worn and slightly abraded from handling and loose over spine, endpapers from a fifteenth-century Prayerbook or Book of Hours with devotional prayers associated with the Mass in a textura script, minor discoloration to folios and fading to text in parts, else in good condition. Dimensions 78 mm × 54 mm.

Provenance
(1) Written and illuminated around 1490, most likely for a patron in Venice, where the Pico Master was active to c. 1505.

(2) A bookplate of Edward Henry Whinfield (1836–1922), a British scholar of Persian and Sufi literature and former member of the Bengal Civil Service. Whinfield is documented as an active collector of Oriental manuscripts, a substantial portion of which was bequeathed in 1922 to the Indian Institute, Oxford, and subsequently transferred to the Bodleian Libraries. His ownership marks, including an armorial bookplate, are recorded in both manuscripts and early printed books.

(3) Van Loock, Belgium. Purchased 2 August, 1989.

(4) Collection of Dr. Scott Schwartz, New York, his bookplate and catalog number “MS 37” on front pastedown.

Text
Incomplete, lacking Calendar. ff. 1–96v, Hours of the Virgin (beginning imperfectly) lauds 17v, prime 47v, terce 53v, sext 59, nones 63v, vespers 68v, compline 77v, seasonal variations for Advent 84v; ff.98–103, Office of the Cross; ff. 103v–107v, Office of the Holy Spirit; ff. 108–126v Penitential Psalms; ff 127–134v Litanies; 134v–142, post-Litany devotions (“Deus cui proprium est misereri,” etc.); f. 143, blank; ff. 144–193v, Office of the Dead (breaking off).

Illumination
Painted on an exceptionally small and refined scale, this delicately illuminated Book of Hours may be attributed to the workshop of the Master of the Pico Pliny, active in Venice and Ferrara between circa 1460 and 1505. The manuscript displays a pronounced Ferrarese influence characteristic of the later fifteenth century, combined with Venetian ornamental vocabulary and spatial illusionism. Particularly distinctive are the richly ornamented borders composed of gold filigree, multicolored foliage, fruit, festoons, and other recurring motifs closely associated with the Pico Master and his circle. The decorative program is especially comparable to that of the Breviary produced for the nuns of Santa Croce alla Giudecca, Venice (Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, MS Cl. V, no. 155), executed circa 1485–1495, in which the Pico Master collaborated. The historiated initial with King David on f. 108 of the present manuscript also compares especially closely to an initial of the same subject in a second Breviary now in Padua (Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile, MS 356) and may indeed be executed by the Pico Master himself (see Toniolo and Szépe 2020, p. 40).

The name of this anonymous illuminator was coined by Lilian Armstrong in 1990 following her identification of the artist’s contribution to a manuscript of Pliny’s Natural History copied in 1481 by Nicolò Mascarino for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Although some scholars have proposed identifying the artist with Bartolomeo del Tintore, the attribution remains uncertain. Throughout his long Venetian career, the Master of the Pico Pliny worked extensively in both illuminated manuscripts and incunables and also designed woodcuts. His style reveals a profound debt to the illumination of Emilia and the Este court, particularly the work of Giorgio d’Alemagna and Martino da Modena, while simultaneously embracing Venetian and Paduan antiquarian taste through richly colored palettes, architectural frontispieces, and all’antica ornament. These classicizing tendencies intensified through contact with the Putti Master and during collaborations with the Putti and Douce Masters on commissions for the Certosa di Sant’Andrea del Lido. By the later 1480s, participation in the celebrated group of incunables produced for Peter Ugelheimer further exposed the artist to the illusionistic decorative vocabulary of Girolamo da Cremona. Although the master frequently repeated favored decorative formulas, rendering precise dating difficult, the present manuscript likely belongs to the same late 1480s or early 1490s moment as the Santa Croce Breviary.

The subjects of the four historiated initials are: f. 98, A hand holding a cross aloft in an initial ‘D’ (for Hourse of the Cross); f.103v, A dove in a gold aureole in an initial ‘D’ (for Hours of the Holy Spirit); f. 108, King David in Prayer in an initial ‘D’ (for Penitientla Pslams); f 144, a skull resting atop a black coffin in an initial ‘D’ (for Office of the Dead). 

LITERATURE
Unpublished; Related literature: Lilian Armstrong, “Il Maestro di Pico: Un miniatore veneziano del tardo Quattrocento,” Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’Arte 17 (1990), pp. 7–39, 215–53; Lilian Armstrong, “The Pico Master: A Venetian Miniaturist of the Late Quattrocento,” Studies of Renaissance Miniaturists in Venice, vol. I, London, 2003, pp. 233–338; Beatrice Bentivoglio-Ravasio, “Maestro del Plinio di Giavanni Pico della Mirandola,” in Dizionario Biografico dei Miniatori Italiani, ed. Milvia Bollati, Milan, 2004, pp. 635–42; Lilian Armstrong, “The Decoration and Illustration of Venetian Incunabula from Hand Illumination to the Design of Woodcuts,” Studi di Storia 13 (2020), pp. 775–818; Helena Katalin Szépe and Federica Toniolo, “Celebrating Athanasius in Venice: Illuminated Manuscripts for the Nuns of Santa Croce alla Giudecca,” Artibus et Historiae 41 (2020), pp. 25–48.

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale and Federica Toniolo for consultation on this entry.

Collection of Dr. Scott Schwartz