The Birth of Saint John the Baptist

The cut miniature – originally probably an O or D initial – was part of an ambitious manuscript. Its theme is the birth of Saint John the Baptist, and is one of the populated and theatrical depictions with which Tuscan and Venetian 15th century painting rehabilitated the monumental formats of liturgical codices. The arresting red colour of the coverlet marks the central event. Saint Elisabeth, on the puerpera’s bed, is being given her child Saint John, wrapped in diapers, from a midwife. In the foreground sit two further figures, and similarly to Elisabeth and John ringed with stamped gilt haloes. While the Virgin Mary in a blue cloak links the scene with the context of the Annunciation, Zacharias dressed in green develops the narrative through his inscribing the name of John on a scroll (Luke 1, 57-66). On the right we can discern another female figure in profile; her secular dress allows the possibility that she could have been the donor of the book’s illuminated decoration. 

Pujmanová (1986, 1987) corrected older dating and located the author of the miniature in the workshop of Belbello da Pavia (active around 1430 – after 1473), in particular in the person of an anonymous illuminator – the Master of the Murano Gradual (1430–1440). This painter is – interestingly precisely because of the great number of initials removed from his codices, and scattered in various (especially American) collections – quite often published, especially in auction and exhibition catalogues. In his miniatures he still considers the aesthetics of the international style in the turn of the 14th and the 15th centuries; this is apparent in our work particularly in the calligraphic lines of the drapery edges (see the figure of Saint Zacharias). However, the completion of the scene in the background plane by a liturgical closet with a golden jar – typical props for this illuminator – is a more progressive feature which corresponds to the objective realism of late 15th century painting. 
 

Zuzana Ludiková ● LUDIKOVÁ, Zuzana - BURAN, Dušan. Talianska maľba = Italian Painting. Bratislava : Slovenská národná galéria, 2013. 242 strán. ISBN 9788080591748.