GASPARE DA PADOVA - b. ~1446 Padova, d. ~1517 Roma - WGA

GASPARE DA PADOVA

(b. ~1446 Padova, d. ~1517 Roma)

Italian illuminator, also called Gaspare Romano. The birth date of this Paduan artist is not known, he was active in Rome in the 1480s. In 1483, together with Bartolomeo Sanvito, he was among the family member and guests of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga in Rome. He was probably trained in Padua and in the Veneto in the circle of Marco Zoppo. It was suggested that his early works can be identified with those of the so-called Master of the Putti, a Paduan manuscript illuminator active between 1469 and 1478.

In 1485 he was in the service of Cardinal Giovanni of Aragon (1456-1485) in Naples while continuing to work in Rome. From this period, several manuscript illuminations are attributed to him, for example, Gregory the Great of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Fonds lat. ²²³¹⁄₁), the Valerius Maximus, New York (Public Library, Spencer 20), illuminated in 1480-85, the Vatican Virgil and Aristotle, performed for Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat lat. 3255 and 2094).

Other miniatures are attributed to him on the basis of stylistic similarities with the works mentioned above: Josephus of the University Library of Valencia (Ms. 836), which belonged to Alfonso II of Aragon; the Scriptores Historiae Augustae in Rome (National Library, Vitt. Amendment 1004), where we see a antiquarian interest, almost scientific, for ancient coins, as well as the Caesar of Rome, Casanatense Library (Ms. 453) and Strabo of the National Library in Vienna (codes Gr 3).

He participated in several architectural projects in Rome. He died falling from a scaffold.

Aristotle: Ethica ad Nicomachum

This manuscript contains Aristotle’s works Ethica ad Nicomachum, Politica, and Oeconomica translated into Latin by Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444). The picture shows folio 6r.

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C. Suetonii Tranquilli de vita et moribus Caesarum libri duodecim

The picture shows the frontispiece of this manuscript which was written by Bartolomeo Sanvito and illuminated by Gaspare da Padova.

Bartolomeo Sanvito. the scribe and Gaspare da Padova, the illuminator met Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga’s household in Padova in about 1462. The two began their collaboration in 1469 with a stunning copy of Julius Caesar and continued until the early 1490s. Their masterpiece is the two-volume Greek and Latin Iliad of Homer (1477-1483) that was left unfinished due to the death of Cardinal Gonzaga.

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Caesar: Commentaries

This codex is very refined both in its writing and its decoration. It was copied in Rome by the famous Paduan scribe Bartolomeo Sanvito (1435-c. 1512). He also wrote the beautiful coloured epigraphic capitals in alternating lines of gold, blue, red, green, and purple, which were his speciality and which are used here for headings and incipits, as illustrated here on folio 199. Initials with classical motifs (a fine example can be seen on folio 199) decorate the beginning of each book.

The decoration is attributed to a Paduan artist working in Rome, perhaps identifiable as Gaspare da Padova (active 1466-1517).

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