Leaf Excised from a "Decretum" by Gratian: Initial C[anonici cuiusdam ecclesiae] with a Seated Cleric (c. 1300–1310): Art, History and Details

Leaf Excised from a "Decretum" by Gratian: Initial C[anonici cuiusdam ecclesiae] with a Seated Cleric (c. 1300–1310) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Introducing Causa XIV (law case) of the Decretum, this initial C is but one component of a complex decoration scheme. The artist also included a miniature representing an audience scene before a bishop and large drollery (hybrid figure) of a jousting knight beneath the left text column. Both of these devices serve to separate the end of one text and the beginning of another but, in the process, overshadow the initial itself. The script has been identified as by an Italian hand. Because Bologna was the center for the study of canon law at this time, it seems that the codex may have been copied there. The illumination was applied after the undecorated manuscript was carried to France.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf Excised from a "Decretum" by Gratian: Initial C[anonici cuiusdam ecclesiae] with a Seated Cleric
• Date: c. 1300–1310
• Culture: France, Avignon
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 34.3 x 19.7 cm (13 1/2 x 7 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1926.245

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Stones, Alison. Some Secular Illustrated Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections. The Cambridge illuminations : the conference papers [S.l.]: [S.n.], 2007.
• Biotta, Maria Alessandra. "Un Manuscrit de Droit Canonique Toulousain Reconstitue Le Decret de Gratien" Art de L'Enluminure 24 (March-April-May 2008).

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.