Nimbed Saint in a Historiated Initial "I" from an Antiphonary

Neri da Rimini · 1310/15

Medium

Manuscript cutting in tempera and gold leaf, with gothica textualis inscriptions in Latin in black ink, ruled in red ink, and with other decorations, on parchment

Original size

Initial: 13 × 8 cm (5 1/8 × 3 3/16 in.); Sheet: 55 × 37.5 cm (21 11/16 × 14 13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

This small but luminous fragment — a single letter housing an entire sacred figure — demonstrates how medieval illuminators transformed the act of writing into devotional art. Neri da Rimini was among the most accomplished manuscript painters working in the Adriatic region in the early fourteenth century, bringing a gravity and warmth to his figures that reflects both Byzantine heritage and the emerging naturalism spreading through Italian art at the time. His use of burnished gold leaf creates a flickering, otherworldly light around the nimbed saint, while the crisp gothica textualis surrounding the initial grounds the image in the liturgical purpose it was made to serve. Working at a scale where most painters would struggle for legibility, Neri maintained a refinement of line and colour that rewards close inspection. The antiphonary from which this cutting originates was a choirbook used in communal religious worship — the very letters sung aloud by monks or clergy as this image watched over them from the page. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Neri's intimate vision onto canvas, preserving the richness of his gold tones and the quiet authority of his saintly figure while giving this devotional gem the presence it deserves on a wall.