in the British Museum. Its stem and foliage
ornament is very brightly coloured in fine green, scarlet, rose,
ultramarine, and gold. The miniatures which occasionally contain evident
attempts at portraiture, are painted in the manner of the school of
Cimabue and the earlier Italian painters, more particularly that of
Simone Memmi. It is substantially the Byzantine manner, but improved and
enlivened by attention to natural attitude and expression. The greenish
under-painting of the flesh-tints is often noticeable. The decorative
portions are very skilful and elaborate, as well as extremely neat and
symmetrical; the gold profuse and brilliant. Indeed, the whole
production may be studied as a typical example of its time. The text,
though good, is not so beautiful as the Bolognese hand usually found in
Italian MSS. of the following century. But perhaps this should add to
its value as a proof of its being absolutely contemporaneous with the
foundation of the Order, and therefore of its being the identical MS.
ordered by the magnificent founder, Louis of Taranto, second husband of
the too-celebrated Joanna of Naples. Their marriage took place in the
August of 1346, and on the 27th of May, 1352, being Whitsun Day, they
were crowned. In memory of this happy event, Joanna founded the Church
of the Virgin, Louis instituted the Order of the Holy Spirit, or of the
Knot, the symbols of which appear frequently in the illumination of the
MS.
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