Resumen de Una miniatura giuridica bolognese della metà del Trecento nella fototeca della Fondazione Longhi
Two pictures in the photo archive of the Fondazione Longhi in Florence reproduce a one-column miniature depicting a 'University class'. The miniature is there stated to be a decoration from the Vatican Library's MS. Vat. lat. 1456 and is attributed to the celebrated 'Illustratore', the principal Bolognese illuminator of the second quarter of the fourteenth century. In fact it decorates the beginning of a text by the jurist Baldo degli Ubaldi in Vat. lat. 2233 (fol. 167). This manuscript opens with a two-column miniature representing a 'University class by Giovanni di Andrea' formerly attributed to the Illustratore. The author prefers to consider this illumination as a work of a follower of the Illustratore, the Master of 1346, and believes that the miniature in the Longhi photographs can be attributed to the same artist. This artist's work is representative of a movement that began in the mid-fourteenth century to temper the more fantastic, expressive qualities of Bolognese Trecento art in favour of a more plain, direct style.
