Pentecost, large historiated initial on a leaf from an illuminated manuscript gradual, in Latin, on vellum

a single leaf, 526mm by 388mm, with large historiated initial 'S' (opening 'Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarium ...' the introit for Pentecost Sunday), in blue with red and orange bands, with elaborate penwork, enclosing the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove in the upper compartment, and half-length portraits of twelve apostles in the lower compartment, all on thick burnished gold with pounced four-pointed stars and small scallop-like shells, all within a blue frame heightened with white penwork and bezants and extending into vertical border in acanthus-leaf sprays with bezants on similar coloured frame, two facing crow-like birds and a cow's head within the border, perhaps because St. Luke is the authority for Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4, and a stork and two fighting rams in the bas-de-page, seven 4-line red staves with text in a late Gothic hand, one large initial in red with purple penwork and folio number 'CCLXVIII' on verso, a little trimmed with some rubbing to gold and minor loss of ink to text, else in good condition, in gilt frame

The work is that of a follower of the artist Matteo di Ser Cambio, who was active in Perugia between 1356 and 1424, and who is known from his addition of a signed self-portrait to his illumination of the matriculation list of the city's Collegio del Cambio (the Guild of Moneychangers) for 1377. M. Salmi, in his Italian Miniatures, 1954, p. 33, states that "One really great artist emerges from the local routine work of Perugia, namely Matteo di ser Cambio ... His decorative talent, which is indebted to Siena and Bologna, is as felicitous as that of his prototypes, whom he matches also in the elegance of his forms and colours". His innovations had great effects on Perugian art and the present artist has inherited the method of painting dark and expressive faces with plump cheekbones from Matteo, as well as the ornate scrolling white penwork on the large areas of blue from Perugian art in general. The pounced gold, however, is apparently his own contribution to the composition. Pounced gold did exist in Italian manuscript art in the fourteenth century, but as with the work of the Florentine artist, the 'Master of the Dominican Effigies', it was usually confined to picking out the edges of haloes (see for example Kanter et al. Painting and Illumination in early Renaissance Florence 1300-1450, 1994, pp. 56-83) or providing a decorative frame around the edge of gold grounds. Here the more widespread use of the pouncing to fill large areas of gold may suggest that the artist had a background in panel-painting.