Treasures of Book Illumination - On Love and Friendship

The four miniature pages assembled here are all from 15th century manuscripts
Three miniatures illustrate what was considered to be love at this time
One miniature represents the medieval and rather ancient conception of friendship

Treasures of Book Illumination - On Love and Friendship

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City, State of the Vatican City)|British Library (London, United Kingdom)

Description

Treasures of Book Illumination - On Love and Friendship

Love and friendship are as much a part of human life as eating and the need for a roof over one's head. Throughout history, however, the view of these timeless topics changed again and again and occupied authors and illuminators all the more. This single leaf collection brings together four wonderful facsimile plates of high quality miniature pages from a variety of 15th century manuscripts, providing an artful insight into the understanding of love and friendship in the transitional period from the Middle Ages to modern times.

The Love Bird

The title page of Codex Pal. lat. 1632 reveals a symbolic representation of courtly love: a hawk perches on a flowering but thorny rose branch intertwined with a sprig of bittersweet nightshade. In this manuscript, the image serves as a lead-in to Virgil's (70-19 BCE) major works, which are gathered in the manuscript from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, produced in Germany in the mid-15th century: the Eclogae, the Georgica, and the Aeneid.

Entry into the garden of love

This page from the manuscript Harley MS 4425 shows a hortus conclusus, a walled garden into which the protagonist of the Rose Novel, l'Amans (the Lover), is about to be admitted. In a dream, the first-person narrator then explores the garden, whose owner is Déduit (the fun, the pleasure), and discovers a rosebud. After Amor's arrow hits him, the initial fascination turns into love, with the rose symbolizing the woman in what follows. The manuscript from the British Library is a copy of the widely circulated work by Jean de Meun (c. 1240 - no later than 1305) and Guillaume de Lorris (c. 1205 - after 1240), created in Bruges between c. 1490 and 1500.

Wedding

The wedding image on the gold-decorated folio from Codex Ross. 555, together with the magnificent floral border, marks the beginning of the Eben Ha-Eser (Hebrew אבן העזר, Eng. "Stone of Help"), a compilation of 178 paragraphs on Jewish marriage laws. The Eben Ha-Eser is the third part of Jacob ben Asher's (1283-1340) major work ʾArbaʿa Ṭurim (Hebrew ארבעה הטורים, Eng. "Four Rows"), which the scholar wrote in the first half of the 14th century in Toledo and which also includes legal regulations for everyday life and feast days, as well as civil laws. The manuscript from the Vatican Library is an Italian quattrocento copy of the influential work.

Friendship

Finally, the miniature from Codex Pal. lat. 1523 depicts a friendship scene in which two gentlemen richly dressed in flowing robes sit side by side, seemingly engaged in deep conversation. The small gold-decorated image introduces Cicero's (106-43 B.C.) treatise on friendship, De amicitia, which in the form of a dialogue discusses the value of friendship, the nature of friendship, the different types of friendship, and rules in friendship. The text is found in an anthology of several works by Cicero, compiled in France in the early 15th century and now preserved in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Codicology

Alternative Titles: Schätze der Buchmalerei - Von Liebe und Freundschaft
Type: Manuscript on parchment
Origin: Germany
Date: 15th century
Epochs: Late Middle Ages Onwards
Style: Renaissance
Gothic
Genre: Literature / Poetry
Treatises / Secular Books
Judaism / Hebrew
Single Leaf Collections
Chronicles / History / Law
Language: Hebrew
Latin
French
German
Illustrations: 4 magnificent facsimile plates
Content: The Love Bird (Codex Pal. lat. 1632, fol. 1)
The Love Garden (Harley MS 4425, fol. 12v)
Wedding picture (Codex Ross. 555, fol. 220v)
On Friendship (Codex Pal. lat. 1523, fol. 1r)
Artist / School: Cicero (106–43 v. Chr.) (author)
Virgil (70–19 v. Chr.) (author)
Guillaume de Lorris (um 1205 – nach 1240) (author)
Jean de Meun (um 1240 – spätestens 1305) (author)
Jacob ben Ascher (1283–1340) (author)

Available facsimile editions:

Detail Picture

Treasures of Illumination - Of Love and Friendship

Courtly Love Allegory

This hawk is part of the frontispiece of the manuscript Pal.lat.1632 in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, which contains Virgil’s Operae. With tail feathers that stick out from the golden frame and bells attached to its legs, it is perched on a flowering rose branch intertwined with a branch of bittersweet nightshade. The banderole above its head is inscribed with uff liebes ast nym ich rast, which is Early New High German for “on the branch of love, I take my rest”, but this branch is also full of thorns.

Single Page

Treasures of Illumination - Of Love and Friendship

The Garden of Pleasure

This splendid miniature of the Garden of Pleasure is found in a late-15th century manuscript of the Roman de la Rose, which is stored in the British Library under the shelf mark Harley 4425. It is presented in a masterfully executed trompe l'oeil frame with birds and flowers that gives the miniature the appearance of a panel painting.

The protagonist, known simply as the Lover, is led by the Dame Oiseuse (Idleness) into the walled garden, where noble lords and ladies sit around a fountain; some read, others sing, and another plays the lute. Allegorically, the hortus conclusus or “enclosed garden” represents order brought by man over nature while also creating an idealized setting of safety and comfort with overtones of fertility and sexuality.