Ms. cutting of illustration for Book XVI of the Speculum Historiale with King Anemur of India Giving Orders for the Killing of Christian Monks; written and illuminated in the Loire Valley, France, ca. 1460s.
Artist: Illuminated by the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio.
The Vincent of Beauvais manuscript in Lisbon (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, MS. il. 126) was probably decorated with a miniature at the beginning of each of its sixteen books. Four of them remain in the volume. Six cut-out miniatures, from the album of Daniel Burckhardt-Wildt (1759-1819) where they were pasted on fol. 31; these cut-out miniatures were sold in London, Sotheby's, 25 April 1983, lot 129. At least six additional miniatures are presumed lost. The known miniatures are as follows: Book III, The Finding of Moses (Morgan Library MS M.1251.1); Book IV, The Dream of King Astyages (Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1409); Book V, Olympias and Nectanebo (still in the volume); Book VII, Cicero Discussing the Definition of God (Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1409); Book IX, The Emperor Tiberius Assassinated by his Guard (still in the volume); Book X, Emperor Claudius Designating Nero as Successor (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987.4); Book XI, The Coronation of Vespasian (still in the volume); Book XII, The Enthronement of Antonius Pius (still in the volume); Book XIII, The Persecution of Christians by the Emperor Severus (Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1409); Book XVI, King Anemur of India Orders the Execution of the Monks (Morgan Library MS M.1251.2)
The Vincent of Beauvais manuscript in Lisbon (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon, MS. il. 126) lacks its first quire and nine other leaves. Only four miniatures survive in the volume, and at least a dozen more are missing from it, including the present miniature. The manuscript and its four surviving illuminations were studied in detail by Claude Schaefer in 1974. He attributed the illumination to the Master of Jouvenel des Ursins, one of the painters of King René of Anjou, to whom more than ten works can be attributed, dating from c. 1460 to c. 1475, and suggested that he could be the artist Coppin Delf, who is documented working for King René. One of the manuscripts listed by Schaefer is Geneva, Bibliotheque de Geneve (formerly the Bibliotheque Publique et Universitaire), MS fr. 191 (on which see Gagnebin, 1976). Eberhard Konig distinguished at least three artists among those grouped together by Schaefer, and gave the painter responsible for the Lisbon and Geneva manuscripts a new name: the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio.
The artist worked mainly for René, and the king's inventory includes five copies of the text and a Repertorium, plus the Tabula of the text, all illuminated in France but now in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon (MSS il. 125-130), from one of which (MS. il. 126) the present miniature was cut.
Cutting from the "Speculum historiale"