Un caso di riuso. L'apparato illustrativo dell'Infortiatum e del Digestum Novum (Vat. lat. 2514 e Vat. Lat. 1425)

This paper examines the miniatures of the Infortiatum (Vat. lat. 2514) and of the Digestum novum (Vat. lat. 1425), two law manuscripts written in Bologna in the 14th century which belonged to the Bolognese master Jacopo da Saliceto (1305/10-1379), to the Mantuan jurist Francesco Gonzaga, at least from 1425, and to pope Innocenzo VIII (1484-1492). As already known, they form a group with mss. Vat. lat. 1409, Vat. lat. 1430 e Vat. lat. 1436, but, different from these three codices illuminated by the Illustratore and other Bolognese masters between 1339 and 1340, they remained with no miniatures until the end of the 15th, when part of the juridical miniatures and initials were painted. The iconographic analysis of these miniatures shows a strict adherence between the text and the represented subjects and a connection with the illustrative tradition of law manuscripts. The stylistic analysis suggests to attribute the miniatures and the initials to Giuliano Amadei, protagonist of the Roman illumination in the second half of the 15th, who probably worked in these two manuscripts in the first half of the Eighties. Other vignettes and initials in the so-called “Roverella style” in the Vat. lat. 1425 were executed by a Veneto/ Ferrarese master influenced by the figurative culture of Pietro Ugelheimer’s law incunabula, particularly close to the Master of the Seven Virtues. This anonymous artist could have worked in the Vat lat. 1425 before Amadei, when the codex was in North Italy. The work of these two illuminators points out the need of an in-depth study on the history of the manuscripts, especially on the transition between Francesco Gonzaga’s library to Innocenzo VIII’s. At the same time, the late work of the two illuminators on 14th century codices shows the fortune and the attention which 14th century Bolognese law manuscripts were still receiving in the following century.