Four Saints in a Historiated Initial "P" from a Choirbook or Antiphonal

Paolo De Ascone · 1460/80

Medium

Manuscript cutting in tempera and gold leaf, with gold paint, with rounded gothica textualis inscriptions in black ink, ruled in red, on parchment

Original size

Buckled: 15.3 × 15.1 cm (6 1/16 × 6 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

A gilded letter containing four saints sounds like a minor decorative flourish, but in Paolo De Ascone's hands it becomes a world unto itself — figures rendered with extraordinary precision within a space no larger than a fist. De Ascone worked in Lombardy during the mid-to-late fifteenth century, a period when Italian manuscript illumination was reaching its technical peak before print displaced it entirely. His work for choirbooks and antiphonals demanded a particular discipline: the images had to hold their own against the visual weight of the surrounding Gothic script and red ruling lines, competing without overwhelming. He achieved this through dense, luminous tempera and the restrained application of gold leaf that catches candlelight in the way it would have in a choir stall at vespers. This cutting was almost certainly removed from its parent manuscript during the collecting mania of the eighteenth or nineteenth century, when individual leaves were prized above intact books — a fate shared by many of the finest medieval illuminations now held in museum collections. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the original's jewel-like intensity into a format made to last on a wall, preserving the warmth of the gold tones and the delicate articulation of each figure that makes the source work so quietly remarkable.