|
Pietro da Pavia
( fl c. 1385c. 1390). Italian illuminator. The leading illuminator in Pavia before Michelino da Besozzo, he painted a self-portrait and an inscription, frater Petrus de Papie me fecit 1389 in an initial of Plinys Natural History (Milan, Bib. Ambrosiana, MS. E. 24. inf., fol. 332r). The initial opens chapter 35, On Painting, and the self-portrait shows him as an Augustinian friar at work on the manuscript. Pietro was presumably a member of the Pavian convent of the Augustinian hermits of S Pietro in Ciel dOro. This manuscript and several others illuminated in the same style, including Pietro dAbanos Commentary on Aristotles Problems and Petrarchs Res memorandae (both Paris, Bib. N., MSS lat. 6541 and 6069T), were made for Pasquino Capelli (d 1390), the humanist who was secretary to Giangaleazzo Visconti, ruler of Milan. The earliest dated manuscript with decoration in Pietros customary style, Caesars Conquest of Gaul (Leiden, Bib. Rijksuniv., MS. BPL 16A), was written in 1385, and much of Pietros surviving work must have been completed before Pasquinos execution for treason in 1390.
|