Saint in a Historiated Initial from a Choirbook

Cristoforo Cortese · c. 1430

Medium

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

Original size

9.8 × 6.4 cm (3 7/8 × 2 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This small, luminous panel distills the grandeur of medieval devotion into a single gilded letter, its saintly figure rendered with a precision that belies its miniature scale. Cristoforo Cortese was one of the foremost illuminators working in Venice during the early fifteenth century, producing richly decorated choirbooks and liturgical manuscripts for the city's churches and religious institutions. His work is distinguished by a confident command of Gothic figure drawing, warm flesh tones applied in fine tempera layers, and the use of burnished gold leaf that catches and redirects light in ways no printed reproduction can replicate. The combination of incised parchment, ruled red lines, and gothic textualis script frames the image within a fully coherent liturgical object — not merely decoration, but a functional piece of sacred life. The Art Institute of Chicago holds several Cortese cuttings, testament to how eagerly later collectors dismembered illuminated manuscripts to acquire individual leaves of this quality. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Cortese's delicate, jewel-like palette into a medium that preserves the depth of his gilded surfaces and the warmth of his figure work, giving a painting once visible only to monks at a choir lectern a lasting presence in any room.