"Pasture da pigliare occhi per aver la mente": l'illustratore nella Commedia Riccardiano 1005

• Autores: Gianluca Del Monaco
• Localización: Rivista di storia della miniatura, ISSN 1126-4772, Nº. 15, 2011, págs. 114-126
• Idioma: italiano
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• Resumen

  • This article deals with the decoration of the Inferno and Purgatorio Riccardiano (Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 1005), attributed to the Illustratore by d�Arcais (1978). The Braidense Library in Milan holds the Paradiso (ms AG XII 2), whose decoration d�Arcais attributed to the B18 Master. The two volumes form one of the most ancient illustrated Commedia copies and they transmit the oldest surviving version of Iacomo della Lana�s commentary. Philological and paleographic studies on the Riccardiano-Braidense text pointed out that it was probably produced in the 1330s. The miniatures of the Florentine volume seem to confirm this chronology. As d�Arcais has already proposed, they appear to be among the Illustratore�s earliest works.

    The Riccardiano-Braidense decoration is unique, as far as the structure and the subject choice are concerned. Two hundred �historiated� initials adorned each canto and its commentary, illustrating the subject matter of the canto. Comparisons are drawn to the possible sources of this unusual structure.

    Even more singular is the presence in the Riccardiano-Braidense decoration of iconographies related to single passages picked up from the poem and not to the narrative as a whole. This way of illustrating the poem reflects the interpretation of the Commedia as a treatise addressed to university students given by the commentary. The miniatures of the Riccardiano 1005 seem to form a sort of visual treatise �de vitiis et poenis�. It is pointed out how the Illustratore does not depict a series of allegories or abstract personifications, but lively and dramatic scenes. That could be put into connection with the peculiar teaching function of these miniatures, as in law books.

    Nothing is known about the identity of the Riccardiano-Braidense patron. This topic is discussed with reference to the �historiated� initial of Purg. XXXIII (c. 185r). The author wonders whether anyone may have ever wanted such an image to be painted in Bologna during the government of the papal legate Bertrand du Pouget, if the volume should be dated before 1334.