Laudario of the Compagnia di Sant'Agnese

Dispersed today among a number of collections are nearly two dozen leaves and cuttings from a single laudario, or book of hymns to be sung in Italian by the members of a lay confraternity. This illustrated hymnal was one of the most ambitious and lavish manuscripts created in Florence in the first half of the fourteenth century. All but five of the surviving illuminations from the laudario were painted by Pacino di Bonaguida, the most prolific manuscript painter in Florence in that period. The remaining leaves are by the Master of the Dominican Effigies.

The large rectangular miniature depicts the Resurrection and the Three Marys at the Tomb. The margins of the leaf are filled with eight oculi depicting the appearances of Christ to Mary Magdalen and to his apostles after the Resurrection. The hymn of praise “Colla madre del be[ato] is spelled out in gilt capitals across the bottom.