Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
SZÉPE, HELENA KATALIN: Civic and artistic identity in illuminated Venetian documents
51. Valerio Mariani(?): Detached opening leaf of the Capitolare/Giuramento Francesco Duodo, Procurator de ultra Canale, 1587. San Marino, California, USA, Huntington Library, EL9 H 13, 20 to associate the work of such a fine and prolific artist with the Venetian miniaturist most praised in the late sixteenth century, Giovanni Maria Bodovino, but no signed or documented works by him survive, so I suggest that the artist of the Duodo miniature of 1578 be called the 'Huntington Master'. 32 In the folio which originally prefaced Duodo's capitolare as procurator de Ultra, the highest office he held, and which was granted in 1587, a faux gilded frame with triumphal armor reinforces the victory of the Resurrected Christ presented in the main miniature (fig. 51 ). 33 The form of the Roman centurion echoes those of the enslaved Turks below, blind to the light of the resurrected Christ, which Duodo envisions. 34 Duodo is represented in prayer, as dignified statesman in the mode of so many portraits by Tintoretto of procurators for their offices. Duodo was among the prominent group of patricians who supported conciliatory relations with the papacy, and he won the procuratorship despite protest 32 For Cesare Vecellio's assessment of Bodovino in 1590, see note 50 below. Francesco Di Manzano wrote in 1884 that there was a work by the miniaturist 'Bodino o Bodovino Giovanni friulano', owned by the Pascati family in San Vito in Friuli, with the inscription IOHES M.a BUDOVIN.s F. IULIEN.s F. MDLV, Cenni biográfia' dei letterati ed artisti Friuliani, Udine, 1887, 38-39. This work was lost after WWII. It is unclear whether this artist, who designates himself as of Friuli, is the same Giovanni Maria Bodovino, because the miniaturist of Venice cites his father as being from Vazzola, a town which was under Venetian dominion to 1813, but in the province of Treviso in the Veneto (see note 50 below). The Duodo miniature is contemporary with Giorgio Colonna's signed Mariegola dei Calafati of 1577-1578 (Museo Civico Correr, IV, 214), but this miniaturist can be distinguished as distinct from Colonna. Both miniaturists work in the manner of Veronese, but the particularly doll-like features of the face of Justina are not found in Colonna's miniatures. More importantly, the artist of the Huntington miniature consistently uses a prominent stippling technique, in contrast to Colonna. Don Secondo Lancellotti stressed that Bodovino 'Fu inventore della miniatura granita, cioe punta di pcnnello, che riesce una facitura troppo esquisita, ed e come una quinta essenza della pittura.' Later scholars have noted that Bodovino was not the first to use a stippling technique, but that he codified it and passed it on to his assistant, Valerio Mariani. Padre Don Secondo Lancelotti, L 'hoggidi' , ovvero gl'ingengi non inferiori a'passati, Venice 1662, 2, 242; Zani, P., Encyclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti 4, Parma 1820, 283. 33 San Marino, Huntington EL9 HI 3. 20. Dutschke, op.cit. (note 27) 27. 34 The figure of Christ shows a remarkable semblance to that in the altarpiece of the resurrected Christ by Tintoretto, of 1565, which is still in the Church of San Cassiano in Venice. Pallucchini, R. - Rossi, P., Tintoretto 3, Milan 1982, fig. 383.
