Leaf from an Antiphonal illuminated by Venturino Mercati depicting Saint Peter holding the keys to Heaven in a historiated initial L, on vellum, in Latin, (Italy, Lombardy or Siena), c.1470

A leaf from an Antiphonal illuminated by Venturino Mercati depicting Saint Peter holding the keys to Heaven

in a historiated initial L, on vellum, in Latin, (Italy, Lombardy or Siena), c.1470, 450 × 310 mm; a rose initial with white tracings and a gold border, containing a three-quarter portrait of Saint Peter clothed in a green tunic and yellow and red cloak, holding a key and a red book with a clasp, on a blue ground with white dots, surrounded by curling acanthus leaves in blue, green, and red, interspersed with gold extending along the left margin, including seven lines of text and music on a four-line stave, with lines heightened in red, the text from the beginning of Psalm 121 (Levavi oculos meos ad montes: I will lift up my eyes unto the hills), four small penwork initials in red and blue, each with additional embellishments in coloured ink; some cockling and marginal staining, with the upper left corner reinforced with vellum to the verso, portions of sheet edges reinforced with archival tape.

A DETERMINED AND ELEGANT DEPICTION OF ST PETER IN CONTRASTING COLOURS BY VENTURINO MERCATI

PROVENANCE

1. Perhaps from the same parent manuscript as a group of at least three cuttings sold in 1873 to Enrico Cernuschi (1821–1896), of Paris and Menton; his sale, Paris, 25 May 1900, lots 147 and 153–54. A further two are from the openings of Psalms 53 and 80 (Maggs Bulletin 5, 1967, no.13; and A. De Floriani in F. Todini, ed., La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia, Miniature, 1996, pp. 56–58, no.10). A final cutting with King David opening Psalm 27 was sold at Sotheby’s, 7 July 2009, lot 8.
2. This leaf sold in our rooms, 18 June 1996, lot 23.
3. BEL, Illuminations, 1996, no.13, there attributed to Venturino Mercati da Milano.
4. Christie’s, sold on 11 December 2019, lot 209.
5. Schøyen Collection, MS 5616.

COMMENTARY

His gaze determinedly directed to the right, the figure of Saint Peter is portrayed in front of a royal blue background ornamented by star-like clusters of white dots. The saint is dressed in a precious green tunic with gold embroidery, and his shoulders are covered by a red and yellow cloak.

This elegant leaf was created by the Lombard illuminator Venturino Mercati, also known as Venturino da Milano. Active in the later fifteenth century, Venturino is understood to be one of the last representatives of the Flemish-Burgundian Gothic tradition of illumination in Italy. His style is characterised by figures with delicate heads and refined features, small, often hooded eyes, and fabrics rendered in an almost two-dimensional manner in striking colours.

In Siena, Venturino was employed by the Opera del Duomo between 1473 and 1476. There he collaborated with Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Girolamo da Cremona, and Liberale da Verona on a number of illuminated manuscripts, which placed him firmly within a network of leading artists of the period. The influences of the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, Belbello da Pavia, Jacopo da Balsemo, and the Master of Ippolita Sforza are also tangible in his works. From these artists he adopted his preference for bold colour contrasts, which manifests in the leaf at hand.

He also worked in Monteoliveto, where in 1476 he illuminated an antiphonal for the Ospedale of Santa Maria della Scala, a manuscript left unfinished by Maestro Agnolo (Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, MSS 92.N). In December 1477 he is recorded as being paid by the monastery of Monteoliveto for having illuminated a manual, and in 1479 the Olivetans paid him twenty gold pieces for an altarpiece for the abbot, now probably lost.

The leaf at hand is reminiscent in its colour scheme of a leaf sold in our rooms in July 2025 (lot 22) depicting King David, which uses a very similar colour scheme, of a green tunic, yellow cloak, and royal blue background.

LITERATURE

Boehm, Barbara Drake. “Choirs of Angels: Painting in Italian Choir Books, 1300–1500.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 66, no. 3 (Winter 2008).

Cerulli, Beatrice. “Venturino Mercati.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 73. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2009.

Freuler, Gaudenz. Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries. 2 vols. Milan: Skira, 2013.

Palladino, Pia. Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003.