Page 157 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

for the queen herself; as she died in 1504, it was of the cathedral where Isabella and Ferdinand "support of the arts is particularly visible today in
probably completed by that date (de Winter were interred. The remains of the Reyes Catolicos the Cathedral of Toledo (see the essay by Jonathan
1981, 343). lie in the city that their crusade liberated from Brown in this catalogue).
Isabella's taste for Netherlandish art was agree- the Moors. s.s. Although the Misal Rico was finished during
ably facilitated by her family connections in the Cisneros' lifetime, it also bears the coat of arms of
region. Two of her children married into the his successor as Archbishop of Toledo, Alonso de
House of Burgundy in £496 (cat. 33). Those wed- Fonseca. These precious volumes, which took fif-
dings occasioned the commissioning of the brevi- teen years to complete, continued in use in the
ary now in the British Library by Fernando de 35 Cathedral of Toledo until the nineteenth century;
Rojas, Ferdinand's and Isabella's ambassador to here and there on its vellum pages are stains left
Flanders. The Cleveland Book of Hours was also THE RICH MISSAL (Misal Rico) by candles and oil lamps, attesting to its active
probably commissioned as a gift for the Spanish OF CARDINAL CISNEROS role in the rites of the faith.
queen, perhaps by Rojas as well (de Winter 1981, 1503-1519 Records in the cathedral chapter show that Cis-
347), though indications in that volume suggest it neros spared no expense in the production of the
might have been begun for someone else. Spanish on vellum manuscript called the "rich missal." The lettering
manuscript
A book of hours is exactly that: a selection of 45.5 x 33 (18 x 13) and illumination of the volumes were executed by
prayers to be read at the eight canonical hours of references: de Winter 1981; New York 1985, 71-72 Gonzalo de Cordoba, "Master of the Books of the
the day, along with other prayers to mark special Cathedral," between 1504 and 1510. The minia-
feast days. The Cleveland Hours comprises 279 Biblioteca National, Madrid, MS 1546 tures were painted by Bernardino de Canderroa,
folios, which include ten three-quarter page mini- Alonso Jimenez, Fray Felipe, and Alonso Vazquez.
atures and forty full-page miniature paintings. This seven-volume missal al uso de Toledo is Their styles represent the uniquely Spanish blend
The text is written in black with red rubrics by a important not only because of the richness of its of Flemish and Italian Renaissance styles prevalent
single hand throughout the volume and is illumi- thousands of illuminated pages but also because it at this transitional moment.
nated with elegant initial letters in gray, blue, and was made for one of the outstanding figures of the The volumes contain 2,794 decorated bands in
white with gold on a brown ground. The framing age, Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. Cis- the side margins, 1,866 historiated initials, 1,316
elements surrounding the Crucifixion and the neros rose from a humble Franciscan friar to his miniature paintings, and 2,688 even smaller ones.
Deposition are representative of the brilliantly appointment as Confessor to Queen Isabella in Full-page borders illuminate the pages dedicated
decorated borders painted throughout the manu- 1492. He succeeded Cardinal Mendoza as Arch- to the main feast days of the church; each page is
script. Irises and butterflies, strawberries and bishop of Toledo in 1495. In 1504, when Isabella decorated with a historiated initial related to that
lilies are laid out as though in a shadow box: died while Ferdinand was in Italy, Cisneros served feast. In the ornamental borders, flowers, fruits,
"Appealing and yet disquieting is the unruffled as Regent of the Realm. He served in this capacity and insects glow against a golden field. In the first
seclusion of this arrested microcosm observed again on Ferdinand's death in 1516, while Spain and second volumes there are also 322 miniatures
as if through the magic of prismatic crystal" awaited the arrival of its new ruler, the Emperor with "banners," initials decorated with bands of
(de Winter 1981, 351). Charles v, from Flanders. Cisneros was a prodi- flowers on a blue or gold background (New York
The illumination of the Crucifixion and the gious patron of artists and architects; his generous 1985,71-72). s.s.
smaller Deposition on the facing page have been
convincingly attributed to the Master of the Older
Prayerbook of Maximilian i (Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Berlin); the master is now identified as Alexander
Bening, father of the prolific sixteenth-century
illuminator Simon Bening (de Winter 1981, 355).
Alexander Bening evidently designed the layout
of the manuscript and provided the majority of
the illuminations.
The compositions of both the Crucifixion and
the Deposition can be found in earlier manuscripts
and both are, as is usual in manuscript illumina-
tion, ultimately dependent on large-scale compo-
sitions by early Netherlandish masters. In this
instance, two paintings by Rogier van der Weyden
were Bening's main sources of inspiration: a Cru-
cifixion in the Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna, and the Deposition in the Museo del
Prado, Madrid. The scenes are not mere copies,
however; they are varied by elements that may be
traced to paintings by Hugo van der Goes and to
Dieric Bouts' Deposition.
Interestingly, both van der Weyden's and
Bouts' paintings referred to here were later trans-
ferred from Flanders to Granada by Isabella's
grandson Charles v. There they served as part of
the decoration of the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel)

156 CIRCA 1492