HANNIBAL DEFEATING THE ROMANS AT THE FOOT OF MONT ALBAN, miniature from the Romuléon , in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [eastern France, c.1490] 133 x 93mm. An arch-topped miniature showing two groups of mounted soldiers, those in the foreground led by ?Hannibal, riding into a skirmish that takes place at the foot of the mountain, in the background a lake with distant castles or towns, above the miniature part of a border made up of a brown branch with green and yellow fruit; text on the verso in lettre bâtarde from Bk IV, Ch. 21 of the Romuléon (small losses of pigment from rocks at lower right and sky at upper left). Framed. This miniature came from a copy of the Romuléon , a work drawn from several classical and Christian authors that tells the story of Rome and the Romans from the time of Romulus and Remus to Constantine the Great. The original compilation, in Latin, was made by Benvenuto da Imola between 1361 and 1364, but in the 1460s -- in response to the courtly taste for histories and chronicles in the vernacular -- two writers independently undertook to translate the work into French. The present miniature illustrated chapter 21 of Book IV of the translation of Jean Miélot resident of Lille between 1453 and 1472, who was in the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, from around 1448 until the duke's death in 1467. Only six complete manuscripts of Miélot's translation survive, all of them luxury volumes made in the southern Netherlands for members or friends of the Burgundian court. The present miniature was one of a group of fourteen from the same manuscript, sold at Christie's, 21 June 1989, lots 6-11. They were subsequently attributed to an illuminator active in Langres between 1480 and 1493 serving clients in Champagne and Lorraine: N. Reynaud in Les Manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520 , eds F. Avril and N. Reynaud, 1993, p.376. The fragmentary manuscript to which these and other dispersed miniatures once belonged has been identified in Niort (Bibliothèque municipale, Rès.G.2.F). It is the only known copy of the Romuléon that is French in origin: S. McKendrick, 'The Romuléon and the Manuscripts of Edward IV', England in the Fifteenth Century , Harlaxton Medieval Studies IV (1994), ed. N. Rogers, pp.149-169. The significance, localization and patronage of this once remarkable manuscript will be discussed in S. McKendrick 'Charles the Bold and Roman history: the evidence of loss', L'Antiquité entre moyen âge et Renaissance: L'Antiquité dans les livres produits au nord des Alpes entre 1350 et 1520 , eds Chrystèle Blondeau & Marie Jacob (Presse Universitaires de Paris, forthcoming 2007).
HANNIBAL DEFEATING THE ROMANS AT THE FOOT OF MONT ALBAN, miniature from the Romuléon , in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [eastern France, c.1490] 133 x 93mm. An arch-topped miniature showing two groups of mounted soldiers, those in the foreground led by ?Hannibal, riding into a skirmish that takes place at the foot of the mountain, in the background a lake with distant castles or towns, above the miniature part of a border made up of a brown branch with green and yellow fruit; text on the verso in lettre bâtarde from Bk IV, Ch. 21 of the Romuléon (small losses of pigment from rocks at lower right and sky at upper left). Framed. This miniature came from a copy of the Romuléon , a work drawn from several classical and Christian authors that tells the story of Rome and the Romans from the time of Romulus and Remus to Constantine the Great. The original compilation, in Latin, was made by Benvenuto da Imola between 1361 and 1364, but in the 1460s -- in response to the courtly taste for histories and chronicles in the vernacular -- two writers independently undertook to translate the work into French. The present miniature illustrated chapter 21 of Book IV of the translation of Jean Miélot resident of Lille between 1453 and 1472, who was in the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, from around 1448 until the duke's death in 1467. Only six complete manuscripts of Miélot's translation survive, all of them luxury volumes made in the southern Netherlands for members or friends of the Burgundian court. The present miniature was one of a group of fourteen from the same manuscript, sold at Christie's, 21 June 1989, lots 6-11. They were subsequently attributed to an illuminator active in Langres between 1480 and 1493 serving clients in Champagne and Lorraine: N. Reynaud in Les Manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520 , eds F. Avril and N. Reynaud, 1993, p.376. The fragmentary manuscript to which these and other dispersed miniatures once belonged has been identified in Niort (Bibliothèque municipale, Rès.G.2.F). It is the only known copy of the Romuléon that is French in origin: S. McKendrick, 'The Romuléon and the Manuscripts of Edward IV', England in the Fifteenth Century , Harlaxton Medieval Studies IV (1994), ed. N. Rogers, pp.149-169. The significance, localization and patronage of this once remarkable manuscript will be discussed in S. McKendrick 'Charles the Bold and Roman history: the evidence of loss', L'Antiquité entre moyen âge et Renaissance: L'Antiquité dans les livres produits au nord des Alpes entre 1350 et 1520 , eds Chrystèle Blondeau & Marie Jacob (Presse Universitaires de Paris, forthcoming 2007).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
