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The beginnings of manuscript illumination in Norman Sicily

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Hugo Buchthal
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Extract

When Maio of Bari was assassinated at Palermo on 10 November 1160, a remarkable career was brought to a premature end. Maio, a commoner and a layman, had risen in the Sicilian curia to the rank of chancellor of the Norman kingdom under Roger II; William I had created him Grand Admiral immediately upon acceding to the throne in 1154. William lacked the political acumen of his father, and left the administration of Sicily entirely in his minister's hands. Maio asserted the prerogative of the crown against the feudal nobility and the large towns, and successfully intervened in the affairs of the Italian peninsula at a time when the struggle between emperor and pope was at its height. His strong, harsh policy provoked inevitably the implacable hatred of the Sicilian barons, who resented his tyranny and envied his power. They accused him of boundless personal ambition, even of sinister designs on the throne, and in the end organised the plot which led to his murder.

The story of his lowly birth, his immorality and wanton cruelty, reported with relish by the chronicler Hugo Falcandus, has been discredited by modern scholarship. Falcandus favoured the claims of the nobility, and did his best to blacken the reputation both of King William and of the all-powerful minister who executed the king's policy. Even Maio's enemies had to recognise his brilliant gifts. He was the son of a protoiudex of Bari, an eminently capable administrator, and a man of education. He was friendly with some of the leading scholars of the day: it was at Maio's suggestion that Henricus Aristippus translated Diogenes Laertius, and it was to Maio that Cardinal Laborans dedicated one of his legal treatises. Maio was even capable of writing a commentary on the Lord's Prayer, dedicated to his son Stephen, composed in correct and fluent Latin and showing a commendable familiarity with patristic and scholastic literature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 24: Studies in Italian Medieval History , November 1956 , pp. 78 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1956

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References

1 On Maio see Giunta, F., Bizantini e Bizantinismo nella Sicilia normanna, Palermo, 1950, p. 110Google Scholar, where references to earlier literature will be found.

2 On this chronicle, cf. Fasoli, G., Chronache medievali di Sicilia, Catania, 1950Google Scholar, with bibliography.

3 Cf. O. Hartwig, ‘Re Guglielmo I e il suo grande ammiraglio Maione di Bari,’ Archivio storico per le provincie Napoletane, viii, 1883, p. 437 fGoogle Scholar.

4 Cf. Siragusa, G. B., Il Regno di Guglielmo I, 2nd ed., Palermo, 1929, p. 316Google Scholar. On the illuminations in Cardinal Laborans' manuscript, cf. W. F. Volbach, ‘Le Miniature nel Codice del Cardinale Laborante,’ La Bibliofilia, xlii, 1940, p. 41 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Hartwig, art. cit., p. 438.

6 MS. MXX.k.III.3, fols. 94 ff.; cf. Pasini, G., Codices manuscripti Bibl. Reg. Taurinensis, Taurini, 1749, ii, p. 300Google Scholar; also Siragusa, op. cit., p. 318, n. 1.

7 Hartwig, art. cit., p. 461 ff.

8 This manuscript was brought to my attention by M. Jean Porcher, conservateur en chef du département des manuscrits, to whom I am grateful for his kind permission to publish it. My thanks are also due to Mlle. M. Th. d'Alverny, conservateur adjoint, for further information on this volume, and especially to Mr. John Beckwith for reading the typescript of this article, and for proposing stylistic alterations and offering many helpful suggestions.

9 The following Latin manuscripts may be roughly contemporary with Maio's Expositio: Palermo, Bibl. Comunale, MS. 2 Qq E 2 (Martyrology of the Palatine Chapel), cf. Stinco, E., I Manoscritti della Biblioteca Comunale di Palermo, vol. iiGoogle Scholar, pt. i, Palermo 1934, p. 159; Madrid 132 (choirbook), Madrid 289 (Troper), and Palermo, Cathedral Library 544 (Missale gallicum). On the last three manuscripts, cf. Kantorowicz, E. H., Laudes Regiae, Berkeley (Calif.), 1946, p. 158 ff.Google Scholar, with bibliography.

10 Omont, H., Miniatures des plus anciens Manuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1929Google Scholar, pl. CVI, no. 2.

11 Martin, J. R., The Illustrations of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus, Princeton, 1954Google Scholar (Studies in Manuscript Illumination, No. 5), p. 87, fig. 174. The miniature is here reproduced by kind permission of the American Foundation for the Study of Man.

12 S. Samek Lodovici, ‘Codici miniati bizantini nella R. Biblioteca Universitaria di Messina,’ Accademie e Biblioteche d'Italia, xv, 1941, p. 403Google Scholar ff., Tav. XI; Biblioteca Nazionale di Palermo: Mostra di Manoscritti in occasione dell'VIII Congresso internazionale di Studi bizantini, Palermo, 1951Google Scholar, tav. 11.

13 Buchthal, H., Miniature painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Oxford, 1957, p. 25Google Scholar ff.; Catalogue nos. 6, 7.

14 Ibid., p. 31.

15 Ibid., pl. 44 a.

16 Ibid., pl. 19 c.

17 Cf. Kitzinger, E., ‘The Horse and Lion Tapestry at Dumbarton Oaks,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, iii, 1946, p. 25 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Cf., e.g. the Byzantine silk reproduced in Kendrick, A. F., Catalogue of early medieval woven fabrics (Victoria and Albert Museum), London, 1925, no. 1026, pl. XIIGoogle Scholar; the Mamluk example listed in the same author's Catalogue of Muhammadan textiles of the medieval period, London, 1924, no. 954; or the Hispano-Moresque silk at Salamanca: Falke, O. v., Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei, new ed., Berlin, 1921Google Scholar, fig. 147. The motif reappears moreover on a Byzantine tombstone of the thirteenth century, cf. G. A. Soteriou, Ἀραβικαὶ διακοσμήσϵἰς ϵἰς τὰ Βυζαντινὰ μνημϵῖα τῆς Ἑλλαδος Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher, xi, 1934/1935, p. 233 ff.Google Scholar, fig. 35.

19 Cf. Villard, U. Monneret de, ‘Il Frammento di Hannover e la tessitura palermitana di stile bizantino,’ Rivista dell'Istituto nazionale d'Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, Nuova Serie, ii, 1953, p. 164Google Scholar. A reproduction in colour may be found in A. Aufauvre and Ch. Fichot, , Les Monuments de Seine-et-Marne, Paris, 1858, p. 126Google Scholar. I am much indebted to Mr. John Beckwith for bringing this piece to my attention, and for his valuable advice concerning Sicilian and Muhammadan textiles.

20 Cf. Villard, U. Monneret de, ‘La Tessitura palermitana sotto i Normanni e i suoi rapporti con l'arte bizantina,’ Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, iii, Città del Vaticano, 1946 (Studi e Testi, no. 123), p. 464 ffGoogle Scholar.

21 Cf. Demus, O., The Mosaics of Norman Sicily, London, 1949Google Scholar, pl. 9.

22 Buchthal, Miniature painting, p. 14 ff., nos. 2, 4.

23 Cf. Garrison, E. B., ‘A Lucchese Passionary in the Lateran,’ in the author's Studies in the history of mediaeval Italian painting, i, 1953/1954Google Scholar, fig. 255.

24 Cf., e.g. our pl. XIII, a and Buchthal, Miniature painting, pl. 29 d; or the initial in Queen Melisende's Psalter, ibid., pl. 15 b.

25 Cf., e.g. our pl. XIII, e and Buchthal, Miniature painting, pl. 24 a.

26 Ibid., pl. 39 a.

26a Ibid., p. 32.

27 They are fols. 3 and 14 (pl. XIII, c); 6 and 26 (pl. XIII, d).

28 Buchthal, H., ‘A School of Miniature Painting in Norman Sicily,’ in Late classical and mediaeval studies in honor of A. M. Friend, Jr., Princeton, 1955, pp. 312–339Google Scholar; Lattanzi, A. Daneu, ‘Due sconosciuti manoscritti di epoca normanna,’ Atti del Convegno internazionale di Studi Ruggeriani, Palermo, 1955Google Scholar.

29 From Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 6, cf. Buchthal, School of Miniature Painting, p. 322.

30 Ibid., figs. 13, 14, 19,22.

31 Cf. ibid., p. 320.

32 Ibid., p. 315 ff.

33 Cf. Vattasso, M. and de'Cavalieri, Pio Franchi, Codices Vaticani Latini, i, Roma, 1902, p. 52Google Scholar, where it is dated in the fifteenth century. This manuscript was brought to my attention by Dr. O. Paecht, who was the first to point out its correct date and place of origin.

34 Cf. Patronato della Biblioteca Nacionál. Catálogo de Codices Latinos. I (Bíblicos), por Martin de la Torre y Pedro Longás, Madrid, 1935, no. 14, p. 58 ff.Google Scholar (MS. 229).

35 On the group of manuscripts connected with King Manfred, cf. Lattanzi, A. Daneu, Una Bibba prossima alia ‘Bibbia di Manfredi,’ Palermo, 1955Google Scholar.

36 Cf. White, L. T., Latin monasticism in Norman Sicily, Cambridge (Mass.), 1938 (The Mediaeval Academy of America, Publication no. 31), p. 211Google Scholar.

37 De la Torre and Longás, op. cit., p. VIII.