Initial S[alve sancta parens] from a Gradual: Madonna and Child (c. 1370–74): Art, History and Details

Initial S[alve sancta parens] from a Gradual: Madonna and Child (c. 1370–74) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (Italian, 1339–1399).

The work and its context

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

Along with several other excised leaves and miniatures that survive in various libraries and museums, this decorated initial S was part of a magnificent gradual produced in the scriptorium of the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. The Madonna and Child was a standard image for the Saturday votive Mass to the Virgin. This initial originally introduced the text: Salve sancta parens (“Hail, Holy Mother”).

Object facts

• Title: Initial S[alve sancta parens] from a Gradual: Madonna and Child
• Date: c. 1370–74
• Creator attribution: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (Italian, 1339–1399)
• Culture: Italy, Florence
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 16 x 13 cm (6 5/16 x 5 1/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1924.1012

Collection credit

Gift from J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• W. M. M. “Illuminated Miniatures in the Cleveland Museum of Art.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 12, no. 4 (1925).
• Ricci, Seymour de, William Jerome Wilson, Anne M. Nill, and W. H. Bond. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. 1935.
• Levi d'Ancona, Mirella. "Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci e il Maestro delle Canzoni," Rivista d'Arte XXXII (1959).

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.