Front Cover for a Gospel Book of French Cardinal Jean La Balou (1421–1491) (c. 1467–68): Art, History and Details

Front Cover for a Gospel Book of French Cardinal Jean La Balou (1421–1491) (c. 1467–68) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Scenes from Christ’s infancy decorate this cover that once adorned the front of a gospel book. It is made up of a series of silver plaques held together by gilt-silver borders. The plaques are engraved, and the resulting fine lines or depressions have been filled with a silver sulfide alloy, lustrous black in color, in a technique called niello. It is one of the finest examples of this decorative technique for which Florence was renowned in the 15th century. This cover and its manuscript once belonged to the French cardinal, Jean La Balou, who was jailed in 1469. He presented his gospel book to Pope Paul II as a gift, perhaps in the hope of receiving his freedom. The gospel book, of which its two covers have survived (the back cover is in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts), remained in the papal apartments until the end of the 18th century, perhaps leaving when Napoleon’s troops held the Vatican.

Object facts

• Title: Front Cover for a Gospel Book of French Cardinal Jean La Balou (1421–1491)
• Date: c. 1467–68
• Culture: Italy, Florence
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: nielloed silver plaques within gilt-silver borders
• Dimensions: Overall: 41.6 x 29.6 x 1.6 cm (16 3/8 x 11 5/8 x 5/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Renaissance
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1952.109

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M. “A Niello Book Cover of the Fifteenth Century.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 6 (June 1952): 119–121.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.