Artworks
This epitome of luxury manuscript production is decorated with 76 column-wide miniatures and two dazzling frontispieces. The chronicle, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César and Faits des Romains, recounts a large scope of ancient history from the Creation to the death of Julius Cesar. Chronicles like this were popular among the highest echelons of society, and often read aloud to royalty and nobles during meals or other quiet moments to edify and entertain them and their courtiers.
The chronicle at hand was most likely created for King Charles V himself. The scribe, Raoulet d’Orléans (b. c. 1342) was one of his écrivains du roi (king’s scribes – a title that encompassed not only writing out but also overseeing the production of manuscripts for the king). His 35-year long career (fl. c. 1361-1390s) was defined by copying manuscripts commissioned by Charles V, while the illuminators, the Master of the Coronation of Charles VI (fl. c. 1380-1390) and a collaborator, are known to work almost exclusively for the King.
The mis-en-page of the volumes’ tables of contents and frontispieces also imply that the volumes were intended for the royal library. The tables of contents of each volume boast the alternating gold and blue half fleurs-de-lys along the length of the text column often found in texts produced for Charles V, and the tricolour quadrilobed frames for the individual miniatures within the frontispieces are also frequently associated with the king’s books.
The history at hand is quite densely illuminated in comparison to other examples from this era, with an especially strong concentration of visual narratives dedicated to the Genesis that are not found in other copies. The story of the world’s creation is revealed in the frontispiece to vol. 1, in six miniatures showing God designing the world with a compass, creating the sun and the moon, creating the fishes and fowl, blessing the animals (including a very elegant unicorn), breathing life into Adam, and finally pulling Eve from Adam’s rib. The deity’s head is always framed in a cruciform, golden halo with a curling mane of white hair and flowing white beard. His robes change colour to contrast with the changing diapered backgrounds of each compartment, and they twirl and flow around him as if dancing in the wind. The creation story continues in the historiated initial Q below, in which stand Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, covering their genitals in shame and holding their throats that perhaps still contain the forbidden apples, while looking up to the female headed serpent that winds up from the central tree trunk and perches at the top of the tree’s canopy.
Two artists were involved in the creation of our two volumes. The first is the Master of the Coronation of Charles VI. This artist is known for his elegant, long figures with flowing draperies, sweet faces with pointed chins, and long, expressive hands. His figures are typically quite animated, interacting with one another demonstratively. This master is responsible for most of the single-column miniatures in vol. 1 and the four-part frontispiece to vol. 2. The second artist from the same workshop painted the six-part frontispiece to vol. 1 and most of the single-column miniatures in vol. 2. That artist has a more graphic approach, using dark outlines and stronger colours.
The vast illumination cycle of our volumes provides an entertaining mixture of detailed narrative images with flashy battle scenes complete with elegantly rendered coats of arms, all against the shimmering, detailed, diapered backgrounds that were so in vogue at the end of the 14th century.