Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)

SZÉPE, HELENA KATALIN: Civic and artistic identity in illuminated Venetian documents

44. Edge of the velvet binding and bolla of the Commissione to Paolo Contarini as Capitano of Crete, 1575. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W. 484 The dogale is a distinctly Venetian book form and their miniatures a unique contribution to the art of illumination. Three classes of these documents emphasized personal achievement, as the contracts of duty and conduct for individual patricians elected to the highest offices of the state. These were thepromissione of the Doge, ihecapitolare/ giuramento of the procurators, next in importance and voted in for life, and commission} granted to the numerous overseers of territories of the Empire, such as the bailo of Constantinople, or podestà of Padua, upon election. Thousands of these manuscripts were produced from the fourteenth century to the fall of the Republic. Some of them have elaborate illuminations of high quality, others only simple borders and heraldry, and some were never illuminated at all. They are of importance to art historians, not only for the miniatures, but also because, if the miniatures are still within their book, they are dated sources of painting and iconography, and of portraits and information about individual patricians and the offices they held.

7 7 D.S. Chambers has pointed out that the term 'dogale' encompasses all documents issued in the chancery and is therefore rather broad. 1 agree, but retain it here as a useful umbrella term that includes promissioni, capitolari and commission!: Merit and Money: The Procurators of St. Mark and their Commissioni, 1443-1605, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 60 (1997) 23-88. This article is preliminary to a book I am writing on illuminated dogal documents from information collected in a database of over 1500 documents. Scholarly interest in these manuscripts was initiated by Cheney, E., Remarks on the Illuminated Official Manuscripts of the Venetian Republic, Miscellanies of the Philobiblon