Bidspirit auction | [ART] - DEL COSSA Francesco

[ART] - DEL COSSA Francesco (1436 - 1478) - The Signature in the Eyes. A Monumental Ferrarese Initial of Saint Benedict by Francesco del Cossa. - Illuminated Leaf From An Italian Antifonal Northern Italy, probably Ferrara, second half of the 15th century. Large illuminated leaf on parchment from a manuscript antiphonal, approximately 543 x 415 mm, written in Gothic script in a single column of five lines with corresponding musical staves. The recto is dominated by a monumental polychrome initial V, approximately 168 x 160 mm, painted on a gold ground with delicate foliate extensions and enclosing a commanding figure of Saint Benedict. The saint is shown as an elderly, bearded and tonsured monk seated on a Renaissance marble bench. He holds a pastoral staff in his right hand and, in his left, an open manuscript clearly alluding to his Rule. Behind him stretches a rocky landscape beneath a blue sky streaked with white clouds. The halo, once inscribed “Sanctus Benedictus,” is now partially rubbed. The iconography is entirely traditional, preserving all the saint’s principal attributes: the book, the crozier, the monastic habit, and the beard. A smaller initial appears on the verso. The leaf also preserves cancellations and textual revisions introduced through later liturgical adjustments. The chant, opening “Vir Dei Benedictus…”, belongs to the Mass of Saint Benedict, whose feast falls on 11 July. Condition is notably fine, apart from minor pigment losses and light abrasion in the beard, halo, and sky, probably the result of devotional use. Although unquestionably part of the North Italian manuscript tradition, this leaf is conceived on such an ambitious scale, and with such painterly force, that it approaches the authority of a small panel painting. Its monumentality, composure, and sculptural handling place it firmly within the refined culture of the Ferrarese Renaissance. The treatment of the face, and above all of the eyes, identifies the hand of Francesco del Cossa. The saint’s gaze, with its heavy, delicately lowered eyelids and its inward, suspended, slightly withdrawn expression, belongs to the most personal and recognizable aspect of Del Cossa’s art. It is here, in the eyes, that one finds his truest signature. The comparison with Saint Lucy, Saint Florian, and Saint Catherine is especially telling. In Saint Lucy, one finds the same softly lowered gaze and introspective calm; in Saint Florian, the same weighted eyelids and psychological gravity; in Saint Catherine, the same rarefied sweetness and spiritual remoteness. These are not generic similarities, but specific and repeated physiognomic features. In this miniature, the “signature” of Francesco del Cossa is visible precisely in that grave, contemplative, unmistakably personal gaze. One of the supreme masters of the Ferrarese school, Francesco del Cossa was active from around 1430 until his death in 1477. He was the brilliant author of the frescoes in the Salone dei Mesi at Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, executed around 1467–68, and later worked in Bologna for the Bentivoglio family, producing, among other works, the celebrated Griffoni Polyptych. He is also documented as a designer of stained glass and intarsia. This leaf therefore stands not merely as an exceptional Ferrarese illumination, but as a work by Francesco del Cossa himself: monumental in conception, painterly in execution, and of particular art-historical importance for extending his oeuvre into the field of manuscript illumination. Poised between miniature painting and Renaissance panel painting, it is distinguished above all by the unforgettable intensity of Saint Benedict’s eyes. Provenance: Hoepli,Manoscritti, Incunabuli, Libri Figurati, Libri Rari, Opere Da Biblioteca, Edizioni Di Lusso, Legature, Milan, 1923, no 1 [described as a leaf from an antiphonal]. •⁠> This lot is located in and ships from the UK. A UK export license is required prior to shipment. Import duties and taxes in the destination country are the buyer's responsibility.