The Calouste Gulbenkian Manuscripts Library
Manuela Fidalgo
Itinerary of a bibliophile
In Calouste Gulbenkian’s time, his library included an impressive selection of precious books, which, like the rest of his collection, reflected his aesthetic and artistic preferences. It also included a substantial set of reference publications for studying the works he collected. Indeed, attracted by books as works of art, Gulbenkian was aware that he could only obtain full pleasure from them if he surrounded himself with high-quality scientific and critical documentation. Currently, while the latter is available to an expert audience at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Art Library, the artistic books referred to in this chapter are part of the Collection in the Museum named after him in Lisbon.1
Gulbenkian’s library reveals the Collector’s interest in the two cultures with which he was most familiar, that is, Oriental and European culture. It is worth recalling that Calouste Gulbenkian, who was from an Armenian family, was born and lived in Üsküdar, Istanbul, until his adolescence, before completing his education in Europe and settling there due to his business activities, more specifically in London and Paris. Therefore, Oriental books, with a particular focus on Islamic works, and books produced in the various European centres take pride of place in his library.
A businessman working in the oil industry, which allowed him to amass a great fortune, Gulbenkian dedicated a large part of his life and talents to art. With a multifaceted personality, at times inaccessible, he became so involved in creating his collections that the works he gathered clearly exhibit his propensities and choices. His nature as a collector, however, becomes more evident through the abundant documentation that remains in his archives, particularly in the form of correspondence exchanged with his associates, antique and art dealers.
DOMINICAN ANTIPHONER
Single leaf
In Latin Germany (Cologne), c. 1300 10?
Illuminator: anonymous, Rhenish (Cologne)
Scribe: anonymous, Rhenish (circle of Johannes von Valkenburg)
Inv. M1
DESCRIPTION
Parchment, fol. 1; unnumbered; 520 × 343 mm; ruled in lead point (text), ruled in black ink (tetragram h 28 mm); text in 1 column, 342 × 230 mm
SCRIPT
Gothic textura; inks: black (text); red (rubrics and tetragrams)
CONTENT
fol. 1r: Antiphoner: Adeps admirabilis + Magnificat [Vespers of the Office of the Blessed Sacrament] fol. 1v: Office of Pope St Gregory (12 March); Office of the Annunciation (25 March)
DECORATION AND ILLUSTRATION
A) Decoration in pen and coloured inks (red and blue, alternating and contrasting) for the decorative treatment of the sole major initial (tetragram + text).
B) Painting in brush and tempera (white, blue, pink, flesh-pink) with powdered gold and gold leaf insertions.
COMMENTARY
Description
The painted decoration consists of a major historiated initial ‘O’ (98 × 111 mm), bearing an architectural motif of three gothic arches, beneath which the Annunciation is taking place (Gabriel on the left, his right hand pointing to the heavens and holding a scroll in his left hand with the words: ‘AVE GRACIA PLENA’; the Virgin on the right, head bowed and right hand raised as a sign of acceptance, holding a book in her left hand). The architecture is painted in gold, and the square surface behind the initial is also framed in gold. The ground within the initial has a pink diaper pattern; the ground of the square field outside the initial has a blue diaper pattern.
Two branches of foliate decoration with cusps whose points are tipped with balls spring from the top left and right corners. An animal head marks the start of the branch in the upper part. The top end of the branch in the lower part is terminated with a bearded hybrid creature, with a voluminous cloak covering its head and holding a plate on the end of a stick (an acrobat?). The lower half of the figure has the appearance of an animal. At the bottom of the branch, in the exterior margin, a naked figure, partially covered with drapery and holding a discoid shield, prepares to throw a stone at a menacing lion caught in a tendril of foliage.
The illustrations, in descending order of importance, are as follows:
a) 1 initial ‘O’ (fol. 1v) inscribed in a rectangle, containing a scene of the Annunciation in a stylised architectonic setting;
b) bar border (fol. 1v), interrupted by the initial, in the left-hand margin, from whose extremities branches extend along the upper and lower margins, all with human drolleries and foliate ornamentation.
PROVENANCE
Acquired by Calouste Gulbenkian, through Bernard Quaritch, Sotheby’s sale, London, 14 June 1926, lot 117 ‘The property of a gentleman’. The owner of the collections of cuttings in his sale has been recently identified by Peter Kidd as the German dealer and antiquarian Gustav Nebehay (1881-1935) of Leipzig.1
Acquired together with M2A and B (sale 8 June 1926, lot 485).
On the horizontal branch of vegetal decoration in the lower margin, there is a hybrid figure. Several other fragments which undoubtedly come from the same manuscript can be linked to this leaf:
Four leaves forming part of the group belonged in 1907 to the collector Henry Yates Thompson, who bought them from Maggs in 1905. They are described by Sydney Cockerell,2 who gave their origin as Northeast France or Flanders and dated them to around 1300-20 (dimensions: 19¼ × 12¾ in, or about 490 × 325 mm):
1. Dominica in Passione. Ad magnificat antiphona: Ego sum qui testimonium Initial ‘E’, with Christ betrayed by Judas
2. Antiphon for the Vespers psalms for the Easter vigil: Alleluia. Initial A with scene of the Resurrection.
3. In vigilia Pentecost ad vesperas super psalmos antiphona: Veni sancte spiritus. Initial ‘U’ with scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit
4. Sancti Petri martyris ad vesperas super psalmos antiphona: Colleretur turba
Initial ‘C’ with scene of the martyrdom of Saint Peter of Verona
Only the second of these leaves, singled out as the highest quality in Cockerell’s description, was retained by Yates Thompson.
07a recto 07b verso
MISSAL FOR POPE PIUS V
Cutting
In Latin Italy (Rome), dated 1572 [fol. 1v]
Illuminator: Apollonio de’
Bonfratelli (c. 1500 1575)
(signature fol. 1v)
Scribe: anonymous
Inv. M70
DESCRIPTION
Parchment, fol. 1; unnumbered; 351 × 251 mm; ruled in red ink (tetragram) and lead point (text); text in 1 column, 282 × 173 mm, 13 lines + 1 tetragram.
Four fragments of border, parchment, 35 × 254 mm (top), 284 × 35 mm (right-hand side), 35 × 253 mm (bottom), 284 × 35 mm (left-hand side)
SCRIPT
Liturgical Gothic; inks: dark brown (text), red (tetragram and rubrics, with powdered gold for the initial ‘S’ of Sanctus)
BINDING
Mounted in passe-partout (602 × 450 mm).
CONTENT
fol. 1r: sine fine dicentes [end of a praefatio; with neumatic notation, followed only by the text of the Sanctus (with liturgical indications)] fol. 1v: Miniature
DECORATION AND ILLUSTRATION
Painting in brush and tempera (green, pink, blue, black, yellow, brown, powdered gold).
The illustrations, in descending order of importance, are as follows:
a) 1 full-page miniature (fol. 1v): Christ crucified between the Virgin Mary, the Holy Women, Mary Magdalene, St John the Evangelist and soldiers, choir of angels (in the upper register, highlighted in gold), 280 × 180 mm.
b) 1 border:
fol. 1v: geometric four-sided border containing 12 alternating rectangular and octagonal panels in blue, maroon and green with gold inscriptions in capital letters, alternating with the same number
of vertical and horizontal ovals depicting scenes of Christ’s miracles in powdered gold with gold highlights, all within elaborate, stylistically homogenous frames characterised by scrollwork in powdered gold and dark brown tempera; 351 × 251 mm.
c) 4 fragments of an original border (similar to fol. 1v), detached, containing 12 alternating rectangular and octagonal panels in blue, maroon and green with gold inscriptions in capital letters, alternating with the same number of vertical and horizontal ovals depicting scenes of the Passion of Christ in powdered gold with gold highlights, all within elaborate, stylistically homogenous frames characterised by scrollwork in powdered gold and dark brown tempera. The border, cut into 4 pieces, was removed from a leaf belonging to the same codex, probably the recto of the folio following fol. 1v. In order to increase the size of the border (so that it could act as a surround to fol. 1v), the 4 fragments were supplemented with 4 pieces of gold damask with black flowers in the 4 corners, and 4 paper squares framed in gold and inscriptions in capital letters (set symmetrically at both ends of the 2 lateral fragments, framed with original fragments from the same codex), by William Young Ottley (c. 1820-30); 448 × 348 mm.
PROVENANCE
Pope Pius V (Antonio [Michele] Ghislieri, 1504-1572) (pope 1566-1572); Abbot Luigi Celotti (c. 1768-c. 1846); Celotti sale, Christie’s, London, 26 May 1825, lot 85; acquired by Calouste Gulbenkian at Lord Northwick’s sale, through Bernard Quaritch, Sotheby’s, London, 16 November 1925, lot 108.
The leaves M36A and B were acquired at the same sale.
COMMENTARY
This miniature of the Crucifixion is signed and dated 1572 in the lower left and right corners: ‘MDLXXII Apollonius. F.’ Apollonio de’ Bonfratelli is documented as Papal miniaturist in Rome from 1554 to his death in 1575. The miniature was originally on the verso of a leaf cut from a missal for use in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, and it prefaced, as was customary in missals, the Canon of the Mass. The figure of Christ is on a high cross. He looks down to his right at the group of five figures below, who all look up towards him. They are the Virgin Mary who is dressed in blue over pink and raises her hands towards him. She is supported by two of the three holy women described in the Gospels as present at the
Crucifixion, Mary the mother of James and Joseph (Mark 15:40), and Mary the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). The third holy woman, Mary Magdalene (Mark 15:40), who wears a yellow robe, kneels in the centre grasping the cross with upraised arms. St John the Apostle, standing at the right of the cross and also looking up, completes the group. Two men at the far right are looking down, and are separated from the others by their preoccupation with the ladder which they hold. The older man in blue must represent Joseph of Arimathea who obtained permission to remove the Saviour’s body for burial in the Gospel accounts (Matthew 27:60). A skull at the left and a sword and helmet at the right lie in the foreground.
Fig. 2
Nativity
Book of Hours
France, Langres (?), c. 1485 90
Ms. M. 26, fol. 90r
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837 1913) in 1900
Fig. 3
René II of Lorraine receiving the Treaty Jacques de Cessoles, Le Jeu des échecs moralisés
c. 1480 85
Ms. Fr. 2000, fol. 2v Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
other books of hours which have the unusual peculiarity of being written in German, bearing out the artist’s strong connection to the East of France: Ms. Add. 15702, London, British Library,9 and Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-AugustBibliothek, Ms. Guelf. 296 Blank.10
Among all the books of hours that are known by this artist, the Gulbenkian manuscript is the only one in which he has depicted his figures in dramatic close-up,11 which would tend to substantiate his familiarity with the artistic circles of Tours, where this distinctive mise-en-page had its earliest and most frequent applications in France. This connection with Tours is confirmed as well by the only two miniatures in the manuscript that are not by the Master of the Romuleon, the only ones too where the figures are shown full-length rather than in close-up: the Annunciation on fol. 35 and The Betrayal: Kiss of Judas on fol. 147. Very different in their craftsmanship from those of the Master of the Romuleon, these two miniatures have been attributed rather hastily to an illuminator close to Jean Bourdichon. Actually their stylistic
similarity to the work of Bourdichon is very tenuous however. The iconographic scheme adopted in the Annunciation (22d) is unmistakably specific of Tours however, with the Virgin sitting on the ground, a prayer book open on her lap. The same is true of the nocturnal effect in The Betrayal: Kiss of Judas (22f), for which antecedents can be found in many of the works produced by the Tours school, not least those by Fouquet and his disciples.
If the Master of the Romuleon and his associate were temporarily active in Champagne and the diocese of Langres (as seems supported by the Hours in the Pierpont Morgan Library), these echoes of the illumination style of Tours could be explained by the connections of the Bishop of Langres Guy Bernard with the Loire city, at that time the political capital of France. Originally from Anjou, brother of the Archbishop of Tours Jean Bernard, Guy Bernard occupied the bishopric at Langres from 1454 to 1481. He was a trusted advisor to Louis XI, who named him Chancellor of the Order of St Michael, created in 1469.
1 See MANION, HAMEL and VINES 1989, no. 56, pp. 81-2.
2 New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, Ms. M. 231, fol. 103.
3 NEW YORK 1982, no. 94, pp. 72-3. For a more accurate datation and contextualisation of BnF Ms. Fr. 2000, see my entry in the exhibition catalogue Splendeurs de l’enluminure. Le roi René et ses livres (ANGERS 2009, no. 53, pp. 382-83).
4 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2538.
5 Paris, Musée du Moyen Âge et des Thermes de Cluny, Cl. 886 and Limoges, Musée de Limoges, Bibliothèque de Niort, 22507. For a detailed record of these different fragments, see C. de Hamel, in the Sotheby’s sale catalogue for 3 December 1997, lot 74.
6 See GEH and RÖMER 1992, no. 25.
7 For this manuscript, see KÖNIG and BARTZ 1998, p. 94, fig. 91, and MORELLO 1988, no. 102, p. 76.
8 See KIDD 2001, pp. 53-60.
9 See BACKHOUSE 2004, p. 68, pl. 53.
10 Published by CERMANN 2010, pp. 9-24.
11 For this type of composition showing half-length figures, as though in close-up, see RINGBOM 1965. The only miniature in which our artist abandons the principle of the close-up is the Resurrection of Christ, fol. 155.