)
The splendid volume on exhibit, containing the texts of the Registrum epistolarum and the Homiliae in Evangelia (preceded by the Symbolum fidei, the Credo in the edition attributed to the pontiff), is a significant and important example of both Medici family collecting and the Gregorian book and text tradition. As evident from the coat of arms on f. 13r, it belonged to Giovanni de’ Medici, Pope Leo X (1513-1521) and throws light on his character as bibliophile, less well known than that of his immediate relatives, such as his father, Lorenzo, and brother, Piero. […] Major professional copyists and artists of the book and book decoration were involved in the production of the volume. In fact, the amanuensis was Sigismondo de’ Sigismondi, comes palatinus native of Carpi. The renowned Attavante, who could be called the illuminator par excellence of the Medici family, was the decorator. So extensive was his involvement in the luxurious decoration of the manuscripts that, from almost serial production from 1485 on, they were destined to “establish” the family library. Sigismondo was also closely tied to the Medici family (and to Leo X in person), who commissioned from him various manuscripts, among which we should at the very least note those which ‘complete’ the Gregorian cycle with Moralia in Iob (Pl. XVIII, 1-2), ordered by the more active Piero de’ Medici. […]. The manuscript finish with a double subscription. With respect to the explicits given date […], according to recent criticism, the decoration of the volume did not follow immediately on the completion of the text. As the illumination detail characterising various initials in tempera and gold leaf proves – now showing the pontifical arms (associated with the Medici coat of arms with the yoke and the motto Suave topped with an N and with the many elaborations of the family arms) – Attavante worked after Giovanni de’ Medici had ascended to the papacy, fifteen to twenty years after the date of the copy, […]. The hiatus between the true copy and the decoration would lead us to posit that this manuscript, with a few others, was part of the group of texts commissioned by Mattia Corvino (for whom both Sigismondo and Attavante worked.) […]. The text under examination was part of the limited number of examples (only 16 items) which, known by the name Registrum Hadriani, constitute the richest collection of the three that have come down to us, including some 386 letters by the pontiff. According to common practice, they are in ‘order’ of indication in fourteen books corresponding to each year of the pontificate […].
DONATELLA FRIOLI
Reproduced here: f. 13r where the Symbolum fidei, embellished with the Medici coat-of-arms, begins in the version attributed to Gregory.
The complete record can be found in the exhibit catalogue Gregorio Magno e l'invenzione del Medioevo, ed. Luigi G. G. Ricci, Florence, SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo 2006 (Archivum Gregorianum, 9).