In our newest video series, we are showcasing our three highlights for this year’s Frieze Masters in London: The Liechtenstein Tacuinum Sanitatis, the Warburg Rosarium, and the Great Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza.
The Liechtenstein Tacuinum Sanitatis
This extraordinary secular picture book is a highly unusual witness to everyday life in 15th century Padua. Originally a medical handbook, or a guide to healthy living, the miniatures, all of high artistic quality, are now presented without the accompanying text. The images are the work of four accomplished artist. This unique book is as beautiful as it is fascinating.
The Warburg Rosarium
This slim, luxury Rosary offers an intriguing mystery. With no clues as to its first owner, the stunning manuscript contains 11 full-page miniatures, 10 of which face a text page with a full border. However, the text remains unfinished. The miniatures feature scenes from the story of salvation, while the borders, completed mostly in the typical Flemish style, contain flowers, insects, birds, and other animals on liquid gold, executed in a trompe-l’œil style. The outstanding and mature quality of the illuminations within the book indicate that they were completed by Bening himself, late in his career, most likely in the 1530s.
The Great Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza
This is a luxurious and large format Book of Hours written and illuminated for Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Count of Pavia and Duke of Milan. With five splendid title-pages with golden display script, one hundred large illuminated initials, small historiated initial with part-border, historiated initials and inhabited borders containing family emblems, ducal arms, monogram and portraits of patron. It is a witness of humanistic learning in Renaissance Italy. Not least due to the illuminator’s expert use of liquid gold, it presents a work of formidable Italian manuscript production.
