Beschreibung:

International Gothic Style (circle of Jan Malouel) St Peter, historiated initial 'E' on a leaf from the Missal of antipope Benedict XIII, Avignon, c.1400-10 A leaf from a Missal created for Benedict XIII, the last antipope in Avignon, illuminated by a group of artists associated with Jean Malouel 378 x 275mm. The historiated initial 'E' depicting St Peter kneeling before an altar, opening the introit of the Major Litany, or Rogation, celebrated on April 25th: 'Exaudivit de templo sancto suo'. 12 lines of text, rubric in red, the reverse with 1-line initial ‘C’ and 2-line initial ‘T’ with flowers and foliates, with text for the sacrament of Mass, beginning 'Cantate d[omi]no [...]' and ending '[...] et des/iderata p[er]cipere. Per [Dominum', modern pencil foliation '201' in top right. Mounted and framed. Provenance: In her exhaustive study on book illumination in Avignon, Francesca Manzari was able to identify a multi-volume Missal, which originally must have consisted of eight or nine volumes, that was made for Benedict XIII. She identified three of these volumes, two in the Vatican Library (Vat. lat. 4764 and 4765) and one in Montecassino (Archivio dell’Abbazia, MS 539). While the two Vatican volumes were discovered in 1995, the third volume in Montecassino was a relatively new find, which convinced Manzari that all these known volumes were produced in Avignon in the first decade of the fifteenth century between 1405 and before 1409. Her examination of contemporary library inventories and other documents revealed a record for a payment to a scribe, Guillaume Coma, in Avignon, who was paid in 1408 for writing one volume of a Missal in Avignon. Furthermore, she found that all three volumes appear in the inventory of Benedict XIII’s library made in 1423 in Peñiscola after his death (cf. Manzari 2006, p.295 ff.). Since the Montecassino volume can be shown definitively to be part of the same Missal as the Vatican volumes, the set was certainly commissioned by Pope Benedict XIII, whose arms appear on f.149 in the Montecassino volume (cf. Manzari 2006, p. 304, fig. 155). The dimensions, justification, ruling, and number of lines (12) are the same in the three volumes in question, as well as the present leaf. Montecassino MS 539 covers the masses from Easter to the fourth Sunday after Easter; it follows that the present leaf was once part of this manuscript, as it contains the liturgy for the introit of the Major Litany celebrated April 25th, falling after Easter. By the 19th century this volume suffered had already suffered many losses, both to the beginning and throughout the text. This leaf now emerges as another of this group. Illumination: The bright colors and modeling of the figures is typical of Italian illumination, but the painted foliage and tendrils of the initials, as well as the white penwork, recalls French or Flemish book illumination from the early 14th century. This mixing of styles is indicative of the so-called International Gothic Style, which prevailed in book illumination (and panel paintings) across Europe around 1400, and point to the region around Avignon in southern France, not too far from Italy, where Italian, French and Netherlandish influences merged. Avignon had been the city of the pontiff’s seat from 1309 to 1418/1423, after power struggles in Rome resulted in the transfer of the papal throne known as the Western Schism. Lasting from 1378 to 1418, the Schism was caused by French cardinals who disapproved of the election of Urban VI in Rome and instated Clement VII as anti-pope in Avignon. The last pope to reside and reign from Avignon was Benedict XIII from 1394 to 1415. In Avignon, workshops and ateliers were apparently constituted and dissolved around individual projects. With regards to the Missal of Benedict XIII, Manzari notes that different hands were responsible for the illumination. Only one of the Vatican volumes (Vat. lat. 4764) contains miniatures from the first and original campaign; thos