Antiphonary (Folio 51)

This cutting is from the missing folio of an Antiphonary (Cod. Cor. 16) at the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, one of the volumes of an antiphonary written for Santa Maria degli Angeli. The commission to illuminate the antiphonaries from Santa Maria degli Angeli. twelve volumes of which were written between 1385 and 1398, seems at first to have been entrusted to Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci. Don Silvestro completed only three of the twelve volumes.

The second volume of the antiphonary series (Cod. Cor. 16) retains only one of its illuminated initials. Though the style of the initial’s decoration is clearly dependent on Don Silvestro, the technique of its execution is unrelated to his work. It is attributed to an anonymous artist, called the Master of the Ashmolean Predella. The three initials removed from Cod. Cor. 16 were painted by Don Simone Camaldolese.

The initial S is from folio 51 of the antiphonary Cod. Cor. 16. It depicts the half-length figure of St Stephen wearing a white dalmatic and turned three-quarters to the right. The saint holds a red book with green clasps and blue bosses in his right hand and a martyr’s palm in his left. Atop his head rest two large stones, symbols of his martyrdom.