Before we speak on the miniaturist schools among the Camaldolese, I'd like to say a few things. First of all, Happy Fiesta, it's a Camaldolese saying today, a rather colorful one. We have a little booklet I got in Italy last time I was there, mostly on the little town in which his hermitage was situated, Frottale, it's not too far from. You probably drove through it and found it, and I don't think, usually they don't even notice it, they just go through it and whatnot, but his body is there, il corpo, il santo. And if you're interested in that and a little bit about Moricato, besides the flagellation, it's in our Camaldolese section. Also, I wanted to say that I hope maybe sometime during the calendar year 96 or something comes

[01:02]

our way, we have an opportunity that I would be able to speak on the Camaldolese houses and get another installment, maybe done that year, so each year we can get a new installment on our history and get things on tape and whatnot. The six houses that I'm able to do adequate work on, this stuff is mostly in Italian and Latin, a little bit in English, are naturally Camaldoli itself, Fonte Avellana, San Gregorio, our house in Rome, and then I would do work on three houses that no longer exist as Camaldolese but they're very famous, and that would be L'Angeli in Florence, the one we're talking about these days, also San Michele di Murano in Venice, very, very famous for our history, very important, and also the house in Faenza, Sant'Ippolito, which was the seat of government

[02:04]

for the Cenobitic Congregation for many, many, many years. And so those would be the houses I'm aiming at for next year. In conjunction with that, I spoke with Bernardino while he was at Epiphany, talking about this project, and my one handicap is that I don't have a copy of the Annales, which are those nine huge tomes on our history, because part of the Annales contained the day-by-day, month-by-month listings of what's going on in the various houses and whatnot. It's all in Latin, it would be very tedious work, but it would be a good corollary to have that while I'm doing work on these six houses. And Bernardino has promised to check into a project with the prior general, Emanuele, to fund microfilming the Annales for all our little houses so they each have a copy.

[03:08]

So he's thinking also Brazil, India, and Tanzania in time, and certainly Epiphany, because Epiphany is the one that I'm the one who's asking for it, so we'll see if we can get that through. Also, I imagine each of the large houses would get a copy, too. Even if they haven't, why not have another copy on microfishing? So that may be coming down the line, too, but Bernardino hasn't gotten back to me on that yet. When we talk about miniaturist painters and the illumination of manuscripts, I don't know an awful lot of the technicalities as to what kind of animal hair did they use on the brushes and how skinny were they, you know, and whatnot. I don't know that type of thing, even though I paint myself and have read books, there's not a lot written on the tools of the illuminators, because they had to work on such a small scale. I can't imagine how they did it myself so well, especially our Comaldolese painters.

[04:14]

But I know a lot about manuscripts themselves, the tomes. I was trained as a bookbinder before I came here. I function in that, because all my other work was head work and computer work and teaching and all of that, and I asked for something to do with my hands, and so I became a bookbinder as well. So if you have any questions, we don't need to talk about that today, but later on if you want to talk about manuscript tomes and the making of books out of hides, I know all that and I've done some of it, so we can talk about that if you're at all interested. Lawrence. Do you still want me to talk about the experience? When Lawrence was, he was telling me yesterday, when he was in Florence in 1970, this was after a catastrophic flood, if you remember, Lawrence was conscripted into helping to restore some of the damaged artwork, and Lawrence spent, was it two weeks? One week. Two weeks, with Q-tips in hand, working on a Don Lorenzo Monaco painting, and we talked

[05:20]

about which, you know, to describe it, and here he worked on the famous Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most famous painting by Don Lorenzo, before you even knew he was Comaldolese or what Comaldolese was, and now you're Don Lorenzo Monaco. Two things now, just before we begin, I'm wondering if anyone knows what this word in Latin, I'm hoping Father Elliot does, the word miniaturism, or miniaturist, comes from the Latin, miniare, I didn't know this, do you know what miniare means, or is it to, toos? It's a bit of a two-step thing for me. Yeah, I had never heard of it before, it means to paint with red, with the color red. That must have been a technical invention. I suppose, maybe it's medieval Latin. It doesn't appear to have elements which indicate that. Yeah, it really surprised me. But evidently, a lot of the early miniature, especially floral design and border work,

[06:27]

was done only in red, the red ink, and that's how the word came to us, just a little tidbit of, what is that word, trivia. Trivia. That's why you put that in red. I did. It's true. Also, I just want to mention, and a thought came to me on the throne this morning, that we have a Romualdian precedent to our own Kamaldoli's activity in miniature painting and in illuminating manuscripts, because the Ottos, the famous Ottos, including our Romualdian blessed Otto III, who wanted to be a monk and didn't quite make it, he died as an emperor. The Ottonian dynasty is known particularly for its patronage and enthusiasm for and of a continuation of Carolingian manuscript illumination, and so we have Ottonian illuminated

[07:35]

manuscripts, especially in Germany, which did much of what was done centuries later in our other houses in miniature. Not that we had Romualdians that worked with brush and hand, but at least the emperor was, and the one who was patronizing the business. Okay, so today we're going to talk about Kamaldoli's miniaturist schools, and I want to talk about that term first, first of all, just in general, the school. In general, when people mention, and our most famous school is the one at Iangeli in Florence, when they mention the term or the phrase La Scuola degli Angeli, or the school of the angels in Florence, they would be referring specifically, because when they use that term other than this usage, it means that, a consistent academy of art under the auspices of our monastery

[08:36]

of the angels, where various arts were taught and performed with particular characteristics setting them off or their work off as a particular school. So, when the school of blank, blank, blank is used, that's what it means, even in miniaturist schools. But that situation does not exist, or did not exist, in reference to our Kamaldoli's schools, as we called them, except for very minor periods during our history when things happened to jive, and certain artists were all alive, and so we can talk about a few years where you could use the school of the angels in that sense, when Don Lorenzo Monaco was alive, and the other ones had just passed on, or were nearing their dotage.

[09:39]

And so we have a workshop set up where there are obviously works which are by Silvestro or Simone, and it has a Kamaldoli's stamp on it, an artistic stamp on it. But, to say that we had a school for decades and decades, and let alone centuries, is not true. In fact, both Simone Kamaldoli, say, and our own Don Lorenzo, who we spoke of yesterday, both worked outside the monastery. And when you're talking of a school, you're talking about something that actually is in a monastery. For instance, the school of the angels would have to have been of the angels. And they had a workshop in there, they had artistic works going on, but they didn't have a school in that technical sense. But we do date miniaturist paintings of some sort, and of the other arts, going on at

[10:49]

the Angelae, from as early as 1330, under prior Filippo Nelli, N-E-L-L-I, but it doesn't carry the message that usually that phrase does. Okay, so in the early 1370s until the 1420s, so that's basically the time we're looking at, so 50 years, we had a whole body of scribes, illuminators, and miniaturists, hard at work, at, in, and outside, around our monastery of the angels. We're only going to be talking about the miniaturists themselves. The scribes were the ones who did the calligraphy, the notation itself, if they're doing notes, or copying text of any sort. Those are the scribes. And there's, I mean, you can see it's departmentalized. Manuscripts went from section to section within a school.

[11:51]

Illuminators were more working with, for instance, border work, a lot of the busy work, busy painting, busy work type painting, filling in the blanks and stuff like that. Paint by number, manuscript work, like the big letters to begin a section, the illuminator would be doing that. The miniaturists were actually doing wonderful little teeny paintings, in elaborate, tiny scale paintings in these works, often narrative scenes, so an action depicting a whole little story going on from the saint's life or whatever. Often prophets show up. In our own Komaldele's heritage, they did an awful lot of prophet miniature painting, many of which are in this country. Why were they doing this?

[12:59]

Well, first of all, they were doing their own liturgical books for their own house, and that's how it got started. And then they needed to do them for their dependencies at the angels. For instance, the two churches I mentioned yesterday that Lorenzo Monaco did major works that ended up in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, were dependent churches, dependent upon, for a time anyway, upon our monastery of the Angeli in Florence. And so they did manuscripts, they did choir books for them also. And when we're talking about choir books, we can talk about more than one, you know. We can talk about graduales and antiphonologies and diurnals, and so there are various sets that can be done, that they could be doing for these places. Referring to the three main artists in this work, that is Don Lorenzo Monaco, and the

[14:05]

two famous ones of whose cards we sell in the bookstores in Vestibule and CIMON, eh? Cantor, who is the author of this rather large tome that Gregory was looking at just before we began, an excellent book. This is one Ella gave to us as a gift. This sort of came through a range of pennies. There's a lot of diamonds. Unless the builder has changed his nail. What was I saying? Oh, he writes of these three famous ones. The work of these two men, that is Silvestro and Simone, so completely dominated the production of illuminated manuscripts in Florence in the last quarter of the 14th century, as did that of their commodities successor Lorenzo in the first quarter of the 15th century,

[15:06]

that the concept of a scuola degli angeli, so a school of the angels, understood not as referring to a particular scriptorium, but as a term of convenience. So, in other words, he's just saying what I explained. So he says it's not entirely inappropriate to use that term, but be careful when you're reading that being used that you don't read into it what did not exist in the Commodities houses. In other words, the phrase refers mainly to general work being done by Commodities painters and most of our miniature painters were very famous also for huge panel work as well, of which I will speak a little bit later. I already talked about Lorenzo in that frame, but we're talking about basically a 50-year period, although it overlaps, as you see, with other famous painters in our heritage. Okay, who are the most famous?

[16:07]

Well, Don Giacomo de Franceschi Fiorentini, Jim the Florentine, Jim from Florence. We don't have a birthday. He died in 1396. Very, very famous, and he's the one who helped train these others who come along. There is the artist-historian Vasari. We have his Lives of the Artists in the library. It's through him that we hear that the hands, that is, the physical hands of Don Giacomo and, is it Simone or Silvestro? Silvestro. And the hands of Silvestro were cut off after they died and were venerated in a shrine in the monastery of Virigliano. Commodity sources say, don't listen to this. It's not true, but the heritage has come down that at least before the Suppressions

[17:09]

their hands were enshrined because their work was so, not just beautiful, but spiritual, spiritually uplifting. It could be true. Who knows? Anyway, he was a scribe to begin with, so he was very good. He did the best letters, we're told, in his lifetime. And he was renowned throughout Italy, even better than the ones in Venice. And seeing that. Vasari says, a better writer of large letters than any who lived either before or after him, not only in Tuscany, but in all of Europe. Well, Vasari often is speaking in hyperbole. But the point is well taken, that he had quite a reputation for drawing, calligraphy, and illumination of large letters. He worked in Rome and in our houses in Venice, especially both the two main historical houses

[18:14]

in Venice, St. Matthew and St. Michael, both of which were very famous in history. And they both had their ups and downs, and both were centers of culture and education for our congregation. St. Michael still stands, as I mentioned, a stand of the Franciscans. And St. Matthew's was torn down right to the stone. They demolished the thing quickly when the suppressions came, for reasons unknown, other than greed, I mean. And so there's nothing, absolute nothing left of St. Matthew's. Tragedy. Anyway, he worked in both of those houses, and for them, on their books. He also did 20 large tomes. Now we're talking large tomes, we're talking, remember, huge, choir books, for the Monastery of the Angeli itself. So one set of the choir books he did, or he was responsible for with workers under him. Secondly, Don Silvestro dei Gerarducci.

[19:19]

He lived for 60 years. He was an eminent man. He was born, and remember that little parish that Don Lorenzo Monaco grew up in, that I mentioned yesterday, St. Michael Visdomini in Florence? He was born there. And there are other famous Romans who come from that same parish. He entered the Monastery of the Angeli at the age of nine, and he made his life profession at the age of 13. Things were a little different then. He became subprior. Later, he became prior. We're speaking of a time when there is no abbot here. It's still a hermitage, by the way. I was surprised by Butler's use of, in reference to Peter Damian, as abbot of Fonte Albamana. Mamma mia. We didn't have any abbots at that time. And it's through Peter Damian's work that the Eremo at Camaldoli and Rudolf decided

[20:22]

not to have abbots. It's through Peter Damian and Fonte Albamana that they came to that decision. They're the only ones, basically. But to refer to Peter Damian as abbot is a bit brazen. He was both a miniaturist painter and working on large panels, so like Lorenzo. Did I say he was prior? Yes, he was elected prior in 1397, so when he was 58 years old, and it killed him two years later. No, no, I don't know. He lived for two years, and he may have been ailing, and that's why they elected him. I don't know. I don't know the historical circumstances. Sometimes they would elect somebody whom they knew would not change too many things because they were ailing or whatever, in any order. I mean, that was common in history. Like Lorenzo, he finds his roots, too, in Sienese painting, so in the school of Siena.

[21:26]

And the critics point to his decorative abilities and the artistic conventions he used in iconography, so when he's depicting saints, he depicts them certain ways that point right to Siena. That's who he's following. And they think he quite possibly trained in the workshop of this fellow, another James, Pellicciario. And he was also influenced in Florence. They can find some influence coming from Florence, again, like Lorenzo later on. And the two Cioni's are influencing Silvestro. He was resident in the monastery, but he also functioned in other houses in our congregation,

[22:33]

but he is one who only would work for Camaldoli's houses. So that's all he did was do choir books for our own houses, possibly with one exception. They haven't decided yet. There may be some Benedictine nuns in San Piero Maggiore who had some of his work, and he may have done it originally for them. He also did major paintings, and they were for our Camaldoli's houses, and some of these are in the United States. I'll mention that in just a minute. He also did some paintings for San Michele di Murano, our house in Venice. There's a whole antiphonary of his in Baltimore. Did you know that? You've been to the Walters Art House.

[23:34]

Next time you get a chance for us, just look over the antiphonary, the whole thing. This is unique because so many of the stuff that was taken out of Italy was done so page by page. They didn't get whole manuscripts out because there was an incredibly high tariff one had to pay, even in the earlier centuries, when you were buying and pulling out of the country an illustrated manuscript. They got around that by cutting the ball up and taking them out page by page. It's much easier to smuggle, too, page by page, so I suppose that was another reason for doing it, if you could get away with it. In the holdings, like in the United States, if you get to any of these I'm going to mention, you may only find a page with an illumination on it or something. You've got a page back there. Where did you get that from? That was in Lowe's on sale. On the street?

[24:36]

Yes. Oh, really? No. Okay. Anyway, you should check that before it's run out. Next time you're there. There's also at the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm just going to list these. Some of these are paintings and some of them are just illuminations. But you want to make, in your memory bag, just remember these if you have a chance and you're at that museum. Ah, there's one of our people here. The Cleveland Museum of Art has a lot of this particular artist. Denver Art Museum has a Man of Sorrows, it's called. Are you familiar with that? You want to look that up next time you're there. Indianapolis has one of these famous Madonnas of Humility, sort of sad-looking Mary. Which became, you know, it wasn't just Lorenzo Monaco. All of these were famous in Florence. We're doing pensive Madonnas or pensive Marys.

[25:38]

The Nelson-Atkins Museum, again in Kansas City. I've seen these. They have St. James and St. Andrew. And I've seen those. The Met in New York. The Met has something of everybody. So you can count on that. The Pierpont Morgan Library has many, many illuminations of the Comaldi's painters, especially Prophets. And I've seen them. Luckily, when I was in 1981 and I went up from St. Louis where I was doing my Master's. Anyway, I went up to New York for Christmas holidays and stayed with a psychologist friend of mine in New York. And we just happened to catch a showing of the illuminations from the Pierpont Morgan holdings. And there were all kinds of... And I remember seeing the Comaldi's, but I didn't know Sylvester from Simone or whatever, but I saw them. And they were all beautiful, the Comaldi's and non-Comaldi's illuminations.

[26:40]

So it was a nice opportunity for me. Also in San Francisco, we have a Madonna of Humility and that I've seen. Of Sylvester. In which museum? Fine Arts. Yeah, I've seen that. Don Simone. Don Simone died in 1437. Again, it's another one we don't have his exact birthday. Which is odd, because when you have these monks, we have the annals and we have the documentation of a lot of it. But so often... Well, I suppose it happens nowadays too. So often, the exact dates and whatnot don't get down somehow. Anyway, he died in 1437. So you see, he's living through... He's with Lorenzo. And also, notice that Lorenzo... When did I say he left the monastery? Right at the end of the 90s. So he obviously had some dealings with Sylvester

[27:44]

and worked on things with Sylvester. So these three guys are together in one way or another and forming one another in this, what becomes a major Camaldolese influence on Florentine art. Simone was born in Siena and he was also trained there as an artist. So you're talking about real Sienese influence there. He had a very strong Sienese style. And they point to his major formator as Ambrogio Lorenzetti. And I've run across that name a number of times. By the way, I'm not going to talk about this unless we have time, but these are the books we have here that I've laid out there. Including this one in brown, by brown. Which is a nice little handy thing I bought from the... John Paul, John Paul Gaty Museum in Santa Monica.

[28:44]

And it's a nice little in dictionary form if you want to look up codicil or something. It's under C and it's a dictionary of terms regarding illumination manuscripts. Nice little handy tool. These are the ones you want to look these up yourself if you're interested in our stuff from this time. Illuminations. Simone flourished from 1380 to 1400. And then it was sort of less so during his last few years. This one, Simone, was not at all like Silvestro. Silvestro stayed at home or in another Kamali's monastery and only painted for Kamalis. Simone is all over the place. And we know that he had a broad range of patrons both secular and religious and only rarely this is a quote, only rarely included monasteries of his own. Completely the opposite.

[29:46]

We know he worked largely for a number of the religious orders in Florence. The Barambrosians, the Carmelites, the Olivetans, Franciscans and various secular institutes. We also know he worked in the cities of Bologna and Arezzo and Pisa especially for Franciscan monasteries and also Olivetans and a few Kamalis monasteries. Notice that his style is a little different. His style is very, very clear and simple more so than Silvestro. He also is famous for doing a Divine Comedy the Dante's Divine Comedy which we have in states, in whole. If you ever have a chance you know Robert if you come out sometime and we have the time it would be well worth our time and energy to go down to Yale

[30:48]

in their rare book room they have this, they have Simone's Divine Comedy illustrator and we could probably talk our way into seeing it. He did it in the year 1398. So, where else can you find Simone or you can find an entire book of Graduale in Chicago at the Newberry Library I've never heard of it. Must be a manuscript library. Yale University as I just mentioned there are some private collections that doesn't help us at all Brooklyn Museum, Columbia University but that one is questionable The Met there's a St. Lawrence done by Simone at The Met in New York and Philadelphia and Benedetto is in here today St. Peter, Bonaventure and Francis of Assisi done by Simone Ok, on to Don Lorenzo especially his panel painter

[31:49]

yesterday, today it's good to mention he was also an accomplished miniaturist who worked under Silvestro and maybe Simone we know he worked under Silvestro at least for a while we also know that he did many many choir book miniatures and at one point collaborated with Fra Angelico at his workshop on choir books where they were behind schedule and Fra Angelico came in and helped him out to get it done reasonably on time This is from Eisenberg whom I was quoting from yesterday For over two decades an important activity of the workshop was the painting of images of the Madonna for both institutional and private devotions Lorenzo Monaco seems to maybe this is where that Madonna of Humility hundreds of them maybe that's why Lorenzo seems to have provided designs

[32:52]

for execution by workshop assistants from the outside, onset of his prolific and continuous production of Madonnas so he more or less didn't paint Madonnas he just set up a how to and the workshop did it and he focused his energy energies on panel painting and miniature paintings This is from Cantor top book there More than any other painter of his generation, Lorenzo was alert to the innovations of two Florentine artists Lorenzo Ghiberti and Gerardo Stannina you run into Stannina a lot when you study our art history it's always coming up You want to say something about Ghiberti? Aren't those his famous bronze doors I think Ghiberti Am I thinking of somebody else? No, it's supposed to be his

[33:53]

San Francisco's Grace Cathedral has supposedly perfect replicas I always thought of him as a sculptor that's why I'm a little puzzled Yeah, no those are his doors I know you you just love those things that's why I'm setting you up for this comment I like them too very much so His work by the way is often turned on the new Gothic in terms of his miniaturist paintings especially the new Gothic This is in line when Lorenzo is mentioned in terms of or in relation to Ghiberti or Stannina then the new Gothic so it's all three of these we're talking generically about a new movement and they see Lorenzo in that Lorenzo

[34:55]

is in his most famous what people have to say about him is that he has new Gothic No, it's only in relation to his influence Okay, others who were mentioned who have been mentioned in our history as miniaturists or miniaturist schools well we know of Don Niccolo Rossellini and in fact one of our newly acquired books has nice in color photographs of some Rossellini We know that he worked in Siena in our houses in Florence and Murano and we know that he was highly esteemed and that he died in 1471 at this point we don't know anything more Now I haven't had a chance to go through these new books text wise

[35:57]

and I look forward to it because there may be something actually on Rossellini that this woman has been able to track down this Dancona has done has editor been the head editor of these works We also know there was a famous come out of these miniaturists named Simone Simone Stefani who died in 1437 the same date as the others Simone and we don't know anything else about him we just know that there were two at that time obviously one overshadowed the other completely because we don't know anything about him except that he was an accomplished painter The next one Don Giuliano Amadei we don't have any dates on it, it's odd because we know various things about his life we know that he was reportedly a master painter

[36:59]

at Florence he was there for a while and then he became an abbot he is one of our people who actually became one of the Commendam abbots at three of our houses at Santa Maria in Gravi so that's near Arezzo just on the outskirts of Arezzo or it was and the Abbey of Agnano and then Val di Castro where our founder Rommel died did you get to go to Val di Castro? no? next time he was abbot at all three of those places a busy fellow first of all he's an artist he's doing this other stuff there is some controversy about him um because we don't know an awful lot we do have one of his triptychs in a church at Tifi T-I-F-I I have no idea where that is

[38:00]

but I put it down there in case anyone else did we have a triptych done by him why is he a point of controversy I talked to Ugo Fossa our prior at Camaldoli about miniaturist paintings while I was there by the way I have a lot of sources that I didn't put up here they're all in Italian that's why I didn't list them here I was speaking with Don Ugo about our miniaturists and he says he claims that in years to come we are going to discover hopefully that he is the best and the supreme miniaturist and I couldn't tell if he was pulling my leg or serious and I said well can you tell me anything about him can you point me to any direction I had already found two columns in some artistic journal

[39:01]

and that's all he knew of too and I said well how can you tell that this was the greatest of the greats regarding our miniaturists and that we're going to discover this and he just sort of nodded sagely and said you'll see and he didn't explain so I don't know there is controversy about him as a person also he was evidently kind of strict and rather authoritarian Abbott and some things about him evidently were problematic I don't know where the sources are there must be something in the analysis but I haven't looked that up there is a fellow who did work

[40:01]

a fellow American he's American or English named Garrison who did work on a possible miniaturist school at Kamaldoli itself in the 10 and 11 hundreds that's early I mean that predates all the rest of our miniaturist work in the order but there's no written proof of anything going on in that regard this is all hypothesis on his part until we reach those two recluses that I mentioned yesterday so Don Simone di Kamaldoli and Don Pellegrino di Kamaldoli these two recluses who were doing everything wonderful and doing it wonderfully at Kamaldoli and had quite a reputation that's in the mid 1200s so we know in the mid 1200s because one of their activities was illuminating the choir looks for Kamaldoli that that was going on well it makes sense that it was probably going on

[41:04]

before then too for centuries and why would one think that Simone and Pellegrino necessarily began it at Kamaldoli Garrison's hypothesis is more in connection with the city of Arezzo itself because there was a miniaturist school in Arezzo which was working in the 1100s and actually it was a rather thriving school and this fellow Garrison goes through his line of thought that there was an awful lot of activity between Arezzo and Kamaldoli and Kamaldoli and Florence so Florence Arezzo and Kamaldoli and if Arezzo had miniaturist paintings painting going on in a thriving way and Florence did not necessarily Kamaldoli at that time obviously we're talking

[42:05]

1100s but it's going on in Florence why not? and then he points to other things and he tries to bring the puzzle together and I don't think it quite comes off and you still end up with the hypothesis and there's no proof but again one can say well why not I mean it was going on in the 1200s why wasn't it going on in the 1100s but they weren't famous for it and there's no evidence for it and of course because of the suppressions and what they did to us we don't have all these wonderful manuscripts you can find a lot of them in Polpi Arezzo or they came in the local towns came in and carded off our manuscripts and our choir books and what not and you can see some of these things in these cities but we don't have them anymore so if anybody is going to prove this hypothesis it won't be

[43:08]

won't be done at Kamaldoli we also know that there was some illumination work going on at Forte Avalona and also at Murano we know quite a bit was being done at San Michele they say Michael of Murano that famous house and we also have another just a thought about that even though it is mysterious Giuliano we shouldn't have any manuscripts at Kamaldoli because it's illegal to have them but I'm told on the slide we do and so we have some things restored or hidden away that haven't been written on we can't tell anyone because he seemed quite serious about it he just said sagely we'll see so I just assumed at that moment

[44:12]

that he was going to do something at some point whether he would publish it or not but at least we would see in our own heritage what he had to offer regarding that that's what I was understanding but he didn't say that now that's interesting we have various references to a number of other Kamaldolis who are less famous than the ones I've treated and I've listed them here Fra Mauro is listed our famous cosmographer who was doing the world maps and what not because his work was miniature work to a great extent he was a fantastic colorist he was known as such and this fellow Don Francesco da Cerso worked with Mauro on his little miniatures and his illuminations on his Mappa Mundi and other things he was doing

[45:12]

Mauro Lappi I'm forgetting what Don Mauro Lappi is on he's famous for something else in our history it's in another field not art and he also did illumination miniature work also look at this how's this for a Kamaldoli's name Felice Pavoni here we have happy peacocks of Venice Felice Pavoni Don Beneletto Zani I don't know anything about him other than one reference to some work he did in our Venetian houses and this Niccolo da Tomenzo I don't know anything about him either except running across a reference or two so any discussion questions what was their workload per day do you think 3 hours 5 hours

[46:17]

what I do know is they worked hard there's evidence of that and that like if they said do this set of choir books could you have it done in 2 years time I mean these were long projects and that's why they got whole sets of assistants and artisans doing the less dramatic work just to keep the process going so they had a number of stages in the process and remember at this time we're not working with paper we're working with parchment and this is at a time where they're still doing parchment by taking animal hides until the 16th century animal hides and soaking them in vats of lye and stretching them out and hanging them out and skinning away most of the animal material to a very thin and then drying it in parchment

[47:19]

and then coating it they're working with that so that's part of the stage too unless they're just buying parchment already done by some other workshop but even just the painting had so many levels they had a lot of people working I think a lot of hours they didn't have time clocks I mean written down equivalently but they do talk about all the time and effort that went into this and in surprising surprising short intervals such as one or two years to get you know 20 volumes set these things done one column and it's upside down you can see England and France and you can see China India he really has quite a way ahead of his time yeah I have a lecture on him too we won't be giving it at this point

[48:19]

we have one at Epiphany too you know Joseph? Is it about Framaldo? What's what's Robert's nation is it about Framaldo or Venezia? Yeah What does that mean? Il Cosmografico You said the Monasteries also were involved in the making of parchment I don't know that I mean I don't know if ours were but if they didn't they would buy it already done by some other monastic or secular school or workshop doing that I don't think our people are necessarily involved in the vats of lye and all of that if they did I'm sure it was higher people who were doing it Is this the actual size of the work that they did or has this been enlarged on this card? That must be about, that's an initial letter that's about right

[49:22]

that looks about right good size does it say anything? I mean sometimes they'll say actual size but that is close I think don't you? It's about when you think of the initial letters in most manuscripts about like that maybe sometimes a little bit smaller isn't that amazing when you think of how they painted the details in those things if you get one of these out look at my goodness they must have been dealing with just one or two hairs in a brush sometimes painting what I was wondering is did they have these in those days I mean did they have tools like this they must have they must have been working a lot with that with those kind of some kind of magnification do you ever read anything Lawrence on the actual how what they used and how they did it

[50:24]

I've never run across a real tool this thing about mediati well you know how oil paintings are usually done with a burnt sienna wash like a monotone well a lot of the miniatures were done in red that way and then the color was put on afterwards so that was like the first the drawing interesting because I'm just getting into studying my egg tempera so I can do that first panel that I'm doing and there it says the classic way of doing the egg tempera is also doing that first wash more of a burnt sienna type red brown well you know the canti crayons you use and there's the red ones the brown ones and the black ones the red is actually not really red it's more like terracotta oh yeah yeah oh that's interesting that's what you think why they probably said used mini because I know they did miniatures in red first

[51:26]

or in terracotta color first you can see most of the backgrounds and the architectural parts are all red or red brown brutal I first went to Italy in 62 at the sacred hermitage we had these huge office books that one person would turn and two folks would look at I think they were printed part of the first printing they themselves were quite historical and on this heavy, heavy paper that must have been the generation right after this if you notice in the choirs of our houses which were originally coronese so Montejove, Napoli more in Montejove I noticed in Garda also they still have those little set ups right in the choir where a huge tome would sit for that side of the choir

[52:26]

or that part of the song they still kept that in the architecture ok, we can quit early today grazie thank you ok, we can quit early today

[52:41]

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