David Offering his Soul to God - Nerio (active Bologna first quarter of the 14th century)

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David Offering his Soul to God - Nerio (active Bologna first quarter of the 14th century)

About the Item

(275 x 185 mm.) The initial probably illustrates Psalm 25, "Ad te levavi animam meam" (I lift up my soul to thee, O Lord). On either side there are two kneeling figures looking up towards Christ who appears in a mandorla, in the act of blessing and holding a book in his hand. The face of Christ is slightly damaged, else the cutting is in excellent condition. The miniature can be attributed to Nerio, a Bolognese miniaturist, rediscovered by Conti (1981, pp. 59-65), who identified Nerio's signature in a manuscript in Paris (BnF, MS lat. 8941, f. 4r). This miniaturist was probably active mostly in Bologna in the first two decades of the fourteenth century. In 1320, his name appears in the acts of a trial against Gualtiero di Pietro Eficax peziario, who had been accused of the murder of one of the two children of "quondam Nerio" Monte, also a miniaturist, as were his brother Simone and his father (cf. Medica, 1990, p. 112, n. 48). He was therefore dead by this date. His artistic formation probably took place at the end of the century in close contact with the Maestro del 1311, a collaborator of Jacopino da Reggio, who as a miniaturist was amongst the most sensitive and open to the innovations pioneered by Giotto (Conti, 1981, p. 51). Together with the Maestro del 1311, Jacopino da Reggio played a fundamental part in Nerio's formative years, as can be seen from miniatures in a manuscript of the Decretum Gratiani in Vyssi Brod (cf. Gibbs, 1990, pp. 55 and 76) But it is particularly the assimilation of the Paduan Giotto, with his plasticity and interest in space, which is the hallmark of Nerio's activity from the very beginning. This is true also of the present miniature. One of the two onlookers is an obvious reference to Giotto, not only for the position of the figure, seen from behind, but also for the extraordinary attempt to render the missing profile. This revival of Giotto, whose work the artist probably discovered through the Maestro del 1311, is particularly characteristic of the Paris codex, to which our miniature relates stylistically, together with an Antiphonal (Bologna, S. Domenico n. 14), executed only slightly later.

Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
18th Century and Earlier
Date of Manufacture:
c. 1310-1315
Condition:
Excellent.
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: JG1205229842D