How often we find the names of
artists with the words Dallemagna, il Tedesco, le Poitevin, Veronese,
Franco, Crovata, etc., employed in Italian houses, indicating the place
of their nativity. So that even when we know every feature of the work
we have much to learn ere we can say with truth that it was executed in
such and such a city. We must take into account details which are liable
to escape the ordinary observer, such as quality of vellum or paper,
choice of pigments, mode of application, and other particulars quite
distinct from style of ornament or varieties of form in foliage. In the
Fitzwilliam Library at Cambridge is an Italian MS., the characteristics
of whose ornamentation are unequivocally French, but whose mode of
treatment shows not only that it is Italian but that it is Milanese, but
whether executed in Milan or not is more than anyone can affirm. In the
British Museum is a magnificent service-book called the Padua Missal,
but the probability is that the Paduan artist who painted its splendid
pages, painted them at Venice. That it was executed for Sta. Justina, at
Padua, is no proof that the work was done in that city.
In monastic times we have seen why the artist rarely signed his name.
After the thirteenth century the lay artist had no such scruples, and
hence we often find particulars of origin and purpose which explain all
we wish to know.
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