Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial R: The Resurrection (recto) (mid-1300s): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial R: The Resurrection (recto) (mid-1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This leaf was taken from a gradual, a large volume containing songs for the mass. This single leaf shows the introductory passage for Easter Sunday. The initial R is filled with the representation of the resurrection of Christ. The depiction of Saint Francis of Assisi in the floral decoration points to an origin from a Franciscan monastery. Due to the great plague, the mendicant orders to which the Franciscans belonged were the recipients of civil charitable donations. Naples, where the leaf is said to have been made, was struck by a severe earthquake around the middle of the 1300s, in addition to the plague.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial R: The Resurrection (recto)
• Date: mid-1300s
• Culture: Italy, Naples
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 55 x 40 cm (21 5/8 x 15 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1954.145.a

A detail from the museum

The Virgin Mary is shown twice on this leaf, once at the top standing to the side of the open tomb and again in the bottom border, crowned and holding the infant Christ.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Daneu Lattanzi, Angela. 1972. "I manoscritti e incunaboli miniati italiani della Biblioteca Bodleiana di Oxford nel catalogo di O. Pacht e J.J.G. Alexander". Bollettino D'Arte. 1, no. 1: 46-56.

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.