Prayer Book of Michelino da Besozzo

Prayer Book of Michelino da Besozzo

Michelino Molinari da Besozzo (ca. 1370 – ca. 1455) was one of the leading Italian artists of his period and created magnificent manuscripts for inter alia the Visconti, rulers of Milan. Contemporary artists described him as the “supreme painter” and the humanist Umberto Decembrio (d. 1427) called him the “most excellent of all the painters in the world”. Besozzo followed the traditions of the Lombard school and a linear form of the International Gothic style while maintaining the style of the Trecento. Both abstract and naturalistic, his paintings rejected the classicizing style of the Renaissance. Unfortunately, few of his works have survived to the present, but this prayer book is a true masterpiece and a wonderful testament to Besozzo’s artistic prowess.

A Fragmentary Masterpiece

It is believed that at least half of the original miniatures and many of the text pages are missing from this manuscript. Nonetheless, the remaining 22 full-page miniatures with floral borders, 1 historiated initial, 47 text pages with borders, and 46 illuminated initials. The text consists of 47 prayers arranged according to the liturgical year and are dedicated to various feasts taken from the Temporal and Sanctoral cycles of the church year. Most of the miniatures have backgrounds with splendid patterns, some are solid blue or gold, and others are presented within elegant but simple architectures. The uniform beauty of the image program is matched by the neatness of the text, which was written in brown ink by a single highly skilled scribe.

St. Luke Painting the Virgin

The most famous image from this prayer book, created in Milan ca. 1430, is a style-forming full-page miniature depicting of St. Luke putting the final touches on a painting of the Madonna and Child. It was one of the earliest representations of this scene in the West and is certainly one of the finest and most influential – the subject became ubiquitous among artists by the end of the century and continued to be popular throughout the Renaissance. This famous miniature shows St. Luke, the patron saint of painters and painters’ guilds, wearing flowing blue-green robes with a stylish fall of folds that are trimmed in cloth of gold. Different shades of brown give his hair a natural, textured appearance. He is standing in front of a splendidly patterned background of pink flowers and gold as he holds a panel painting resembling an altarpiece. An ox with a halo, his Evangelist Symbol, lies on the floor at his feet and watches Luke, who is standing between a standing desk with a slanted surface for writing and a wooden bench with a book resting on it.