Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli (Folio 137)

Among the various choir books that Don Silvestro illuminated for his monastery, Santa Maria degli Angeli, one (Cod. Cor. 2, now in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence) clearly stands out for its high artistic quality. As were most of the Santa Maria degli Angeli choir books which entered the Biblioteca Laurenziana, it was mutilated in the Napoleonic period. Twenty pages - many of them the most important and most beautiful - were cut from this gradual and found their way into various collections. There are thirty-eight present and missing illuminations in the codex on which a reconstruction can be based.

The cutting from folio 137 depicts the Virgin and Child in an initial S. This initial begins the introit to the Mass for the vigil of the Assumption (August 14). From the lower curve of the initial S rises the erect three-quarter-length figure of the Virgin with the Christ Child in her arms. She gently bows her head to the young boy, who holds a globe in his right hand and in his left a scroll without an inscription.

The Florentine character of this miniature led to its early attribution to the circle of Bernardo Daddi. The stylistic affinities with Florentine art, especially with Virgins by Jacopo and Nardo di Cione, are undeniable, however, iconographically Don Silvestro’s Virgin and Child seems to draw on ideas developed in Sienese painting.