Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 100. (Budapest, 2004)

URBACH, ZSUZSA: Ein flämischer ikonographischer Bildtypus im italienischen Quattrocento. Bemerkungen zur Studie von Éva Eszláry

newer parchment sheets in such a way that they would fall equally between the beginning and the centre of the quire. By doing this, the quinio forming the centre of the model-book could remain unmoved. Nevertheless, it is uncertain that at this time the master paid special care to the arrangement of the parchment sheets according to flesh- and hair-sides, and thus, Gregory's Rule cannot offer assistance in determining the placement of the newer parchment sheets. At the same time, the telltale creases at the centre of the folded sheets reveal the contours towards the interior of the quire as increasingly sharp and clear, while the external parchment sheets at the middle manifest a decidedly distinct double fracture. But the damages inflicted by mould are also important, these being crater-like sinking holes in the surface of the parchment and also crumbling, heavily lacerated edges. The damages of the margins of the former neighbouring leaves (and here, the most spectacular is the devastation of the mould) demonstrate similar tracery However, since the parchment sheets undulated at their edges from moisture, they did not lie perfectly upon each other, and thus the damages in the margins of the neighbouring leaves are only approximately the same, but in no way are their contours identical. But even if the neighbouring leaves do not mirror each other one for one, their comparison nevertheless reveals a great deal about the sheets' former placement within the quire (see chart 2). According to Loránd Zentai, among the questionable three bifolios, two parchment sheets (bff. II, VIII) stood at the beginning of the former quinio, while one (bf. VII) was at the centre.

78 Comparing the bf. II forming the first side of the quinio and the damages in the margins of the bf. I newly bound in front of it, the order of the two sheets, one alongside the other, seems to be correct. Progressing further, however, the bf. VIII that has arrived at the beginning of the model-book and the damages in the margins of its neighbouring bf. I are now dissimilar. The creasing at the centre of the sheet of the bf. VIII is also sharper than the wide double fracture running over the centre of its neighbouring two first parchment sheets (bff. I, II). Due to all this, the questionable bf. VIII most probably stood at the centre of the quire, and not at the beginning. The damages at the margins of the bf. VIII demonstrate kinship with the surviving bf. VII, which Loránd Zentai regarded to be the centre of the model-book. Alongside the similar damag es in the margins of the bf. VII and the bf. VI comprising the centre of the quinio, the sharp creases at the centre of the sheets also indicate this. The bf. VII, therefore, could have come after the bf. VI, the place suggested by Loránd Zentai - however, taking into account the damages in the margins - in reverse order, i.e., it is not the hair-side of the bf. VII, but its flesh-side that faces the flesh-side of the bf. VI. And the bf. VIII, again in following with the tracery of the damages in the margins, is bound after the bf. VII, constituting the centre of the quire. This arrangement of the eight bifolios constituting the Budapest Model-book is supported not only by the codicological evidence (Gregory's Rule, folds at the centre of the sheets, moisture damages), but also the uniformity of the motifs within Zentai, op. cit. (n. 3), 34-35.