Historiated Initial (O) Excised from an Antiphonary: The Donor, Gorus Fucci, Kneels before Christ (c. 1300–1350): Art, History and Details

Historiated Initial (O) Excised from an Antiphonary: The Donor, Gorus Fucci, Kneels before Christ (c. 1300–1350) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This miniature shows Gorus Fucci kneeling before Christ. His clothes characterize him as a member of the wealthy urban noble class. He wears a contemporary coiffe, a leather headgear, while his hat lies before him. The inscription translates as “Gorus Fucci had this work of a book made.” This manuscript was probably written shortly before the great plague and may have been donated to an ecclesiastical foundation. Pious foundations did not necessarily decline in the wake of the plague: new urban elites from outside emerged as benefactors, primarily focused on social institutions.

Object facts

• Title: Historiated Initial (O) Excised from an Antiphonary: The Donor, Gorus Fucci, Kneels before Christ
• Date: c. 1300–1350
• Culture: Italy, Arezzo(?)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 13.4 x 13.4 cm (5 1/4 x 5 1/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1951.314

A detail from the museum

The gentleman here has respectfully taken off his hat as he kneels before Christ. On his head remains a coif, a close- fitting cap worn by both men and women beneath hats as well as on its own.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Gothic Art 1360-1440." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 7 (1963).

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.