The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination, 1450-1550

This book documents the first comprehensive exhibition of Italian Renaissance illuminations from collections in Europe and the United States. In the century between 1450 and 1550, Italian miniaturists, in collaboration with scribes and bookbinders, produced a series of masterpieces of book illumination which are still too little known and appreciated. Though working on a smaller scale than the great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance, these illuminators created works characterized by unrivaled standards of quality in materials (including frequent use of gold) and design, and by imaginative symbolism and breathtaking creativity.
137 manuscripts, printed books with hand-painted illustrations and single pages are illustrated in full color, ranging from small prayer books to large choir books, and from Greek, Roman, and Italian literature to collections of fables and historical treatises. Many of these volumes were commissioned by powerful wealthy, and discriminating patrons who included members of the ruling Italian families as well as cardinals and popes and many of whom were also prominent bibliophiles. Among other fascinating issues, the mechanics of patronage, patterns of production, and formation of libraries are discussed in three essays and in the catalogue entries - the latter divided into eight thematic sections - written by noted specialists in the history of Renaissance manuscripts and books. And, of course, we are introduced to the artists themselves - their working habits, characteristic styles, and interrelationships.

The demise of the illuminated book brought about by the printing press and the introduction of perspective was fortunately slow in coming. This cogently introduced, scrupulously documented, and exquisitely illustrated exhibition catalog amply demonstrates that manuscript painting, although often ill regarded, was a flourishing and vital branch of Italian Renaissance art. Fortuitously presaged and complemented by Laurence B. Kanter's Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450 (LJ 3/15/95), this volume proves the case for the continuity and efflorescence of the illuminated page into the late Renaissance. Eschewing strict chronological order, the catalog proper is intelligently structured along thematic lines. Among the categories pursued are religious and humanistic texts, patrons and illuminators and that terminal oddity-the hand-illuminated printed book. In addition to the works themselves, which are expansively described and superbly illustrated, three excellent essays and a glossary provide a social, stylistic, and technical context for these superb objects. For informed readers.
Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.