MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - MA408.jpg


Category	Manuscript
Origin: artist/workshop
Date	14C/3
Reference No	MS Canonici it 108, f 64r (detail)
Size	4.9x3.9
Provenance	Northern Italy
Present Location	Oxford, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Bibliography	Brieger, Meiss & Singleton 1969, 1:300-304
	Paecht & Alexander 1966-73, 2:18
Illustration From	photo - Library
Other illustrations	Paecht & Alexander 1966-73, ill 173b

Country	Italy

Description:
Bernard? A manuscript of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' in Italian (Venetian dialect form) from the mid-fourteenth century has 78 pen & ink drawings in the lower margins and three historiated initials by a different hand, one of which adorns the beginning of Paradiso which otherwise has no other illustrations. The figure of a man in a greyish tunic standing beside a tree within the opening initial 'L' may well represent Bernard in view of the prominent part he played towards the end of the work and as he is quite unlike any of the other figures in the earlier drawings. He does not have the usual attributes of halo, crozier, and book.

Description:

Bernard? A manuscript of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' in Italian (Venetian dialect form) from the mid-fourteenth century has 78 pen & ink drawings in the lower margins and three historiated initials by a different hand, one of which adorns the beginning of Paradiso which otherwise has no other illustrations. The figure of a man in a greyish tunic standing beside a tree within the opening initial 'L' may well represent Bernard in view of the prominent part he played towards the end of the work and as he is quite unlike any of the other figures in the earlier drawings. He does not have the usual attributes of halo, crozier, and book.