Resumen de I "Segreti d'arti diverse" della Biblioteca Marciana di Venezia, Matteo da Terranova e fra' Vicenzo Pontano da Fondi: contributi sulla miniatura meridionale del Cinquecento
The Marciana Divers Secrets, Matteo da Terranova and Fra' Vincenzo Pontano da Fondi: contributions to Southern Italian Book Illumination (sixteenth century).
The Misal of Bishop Scarampi at th J. Paul Getty Museum (1567) is signed by a Dominican friar from southern Italy who is totally unknown to art historians. An yet Vincenzo da Fondi -this is the name of the scribe and illuminator- wrote out a number of choir books that still exist at Viterbo (1557-1558) and Gaeta (1548-1577). Two of these volumes were decorated by an illuminator named "Anibal" according to the models of the Florentine manuscript painters Matteo da Terranova and Giovanni Boccardi when they were working for the Abbey of Monte Cassino. Some choir books in Malta can be attributed to the workshop of "Anibal" as well. Furthermore, the essay proposes to identify the hands of Matteo da Terranova and possibly of his colleague Aloyse da Napoli in the decorated initials of two choir books from the church of SS. Annunziata at Gaeta, where the Florentine illuminator is documented in 1521. Matteo is also mentioned as the source of two recipes for gilding on parchment in a so-far-anonymous compilation of "Divers Secrets" from Gaeta or its surroungings -only a single manuscript copy of which exists in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. Much internal evidence proves that Vincenzo da Fondi was the author of the Marciana "Divers Secrets". This finding sheds new light on the role of calligraphers and illuminators -especially friars or priest- in the written transmission of craftsmanship even during the early modern period.
