Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial S[alve Sancta Parens] with Birth of the Virgin (recto) and Music (verso) (c. 1420–50): Art, History and Details

Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial S[alve Sancta Parens] with Birth of the Virgin (recto) and Music (verso) (c. 1420–50) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This beautiful leaf is dominated by a large historiated S from which sprays of foliage inhabited by a putto, a rabbit, and a stork extend into the left margin. A scene representing the birth of the Virgin is within the double curve of the S. Saint Anne, the Virgin’s mother, occupies the birthing bed in the upper scene. Below, the infant Mary has been bathed and wrapped in swaddling clothes. In manuscript missals and their musical counterparts, the gradual, votive masses are generally assigned one to each day of the week with Saturday reserved for the Blessed Virgin. The votive Mass to the Virgin varied from season to season. Three masses were, therefore, supplied—one for advent, one to be used from Christmas to purification, and a third, represented by this leaf, to be used from purification to advent. This text reads: Salve sancta parens (“Hail Holy Parent”) introducing the opening of the introit for the Saturday votive Mass for the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8) in the liturgical calendar. The identity of the artist remains elusive, as does his precise place of origin. The figure style and ornament suggest a source in North Italy, perhaps in an artistic center such as Pavia, Mantua, or Padua.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from a Gradual: Historiated Initial S[alve Sancta Parens] with Birth of the Virgin (recto) and Music (verso)
• Date: c. 1420–50
• Culture: Northern Italy, 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Each leaf: 52.1 x 34.9 cm (20 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1999.132

Collection credit

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fliegel, Stephen N. The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999.
• Haines, Claudia, Rebekkah Hart, and Emma Lazerson. “Birth.” In Creation and (Re)birth, edited by Gerhard Lutz, and Elina Gertsman, 8-12. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2024.

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.