Master of the Breviary of Jost von Silenen

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Master of the Breviary of Jost von Silenen is the emergency name of an anonymous illuminator who decorated his handwritten liturgical books with splendid illumination around 1488 to 1510 in Savoy , Piedmont and in western Switzerland. This miniaturist was given another name in Italian publications: Meister des Georges von Challant (Italian: Giorgio di Challant , Miniatore di Giorgio di Challant ).

plant

Breviary of Jost von Silenen, entry page of the psaltery: David enthroned. David with a royal crown, in the garden of his palace, holds the harp with golden strings placed on the floor with his right hand and the golden ruler's staff with lily tip in his left.

The unknown miniaturist got his emergency name from his researcher Albert Jörger for his main work, a Latin breviary from 1493. This book of hours was provided with magnificent miniatures for the temporarily powerful diplomat and church prince Jost von Silenen (* 1435/1445, † 1498), es has been kept in the National Museum Zurich since 1899 .

13 works can be ascribed to this illuminator. His oldest, dated work from 1488 is a Latin antiphonary ( antiphonale ) with music notes for the book owner Rudolph Stos (alias Roletus Stoss, frater OFM, fl. 1483/1500), today kept in Friborg (Switzerland), Franciscan monastery (Cordeliers, library Ms. 6).
Then the book painter working in Bern, where he founded in 1485 for the canons at Berner Munster helps create a Antiphonar in six volumes. The six volumes (three volumes for each page of the choir, each 59 cm high and 41 cm wide) comprise more than 3000 pages, which corresponds to the skins of almost 400 calves. In 1485 the pen bought parchment for 100 pounds of Bern currency, the following year they paid another 200 pounds for parchment and for the work of the scribe. Most of the paperwork was done by a certain master Michel together with an assistant whose name "Conrad Blochinger" was only found in 1989. They added all sorts of decorations to books: plants, birds and grimacing faces. Three volumes of the Antiphonary have been provided with book illumination of the highest quality by the famous but unnamed Master of the Breviary of Jost von Silenen . Another anonymous illuminator carried out the remaining book illuminations and decorations of the volumes. After the Reformation of 1528, four volumes of the Antiphonary came to the collegiate church of Saint-Laurent in Estavayer-le-Lac ; the other two volumes were only discovered and identified in 1989 in the Musée historique de Vevey .

Overview of the double antiphonal volumes formerly of the Bern Minster from 1485/1490

  • Volume I, today Estavayer vol. 1: Winter part (Temporale, Sanctorale and Commune sanctorum), text and music notes mostly written by Master Michel; with illumination by the master of the breviary of Jost von Silenen p. 1, 86, 218, 447, 502, 557, 596, 665, 683. ( digitized at e-codices )
  • Volume II, today Estavayer vol. 2: Summer part (Proprium de sanctis, Commune sanctorum), with illumination of lower quality than in volume I. ( digitized at e-codices )
  • Volume III, today Estavayer vol. 3: Summer part (De tempore), written by Master Michel; decorated with 5 initials of the Master of the Breviary of Jost von Silenen p. 1, 65, 87, 109, 125. ( digitized at e-codices )
  • Volume I to, today, Vevey Musée historique, Inv. No. 1346: Winter part (Temporale, Sanctorale, Commune sanctorum), written by Master Michel; Of the original 8 initials, 2 of Conrad Blochinger's book decorations have survived: p. 71 and 429. ( digitized at e-codices )
  • Volume II up to, today Vevey Musée historique, Inv. No. 1347: Summer part (Proprium de sanctis, Commune sanctorum), written by Master Michel and Conrad Blochinger (whose signature p. 518); with book decoration by the master of the breviary of Jost von Silenen, initials p. 207, 271, 397. ( digitized at e-codices )
  • Volume III to, today Estavayer vol. 4: Summer part (De tempore), written by Master Michel; decorated with miniature p. 1.
  • Another handwritten work with church chants ( motets , today in Sitten , archive of the cathedral chapter L 87 No. 1), composed by the cantor Bartholomäus Frank , was also produced by the anonymous illuminator for Jost von Silenen.
  • The "Book of Hours of Thomas Schöni and Johanna von Arbignon", a parchment manuscript made by the master scribe and miniaturist around 1490, is kept in Sarnen (Benedictine monastery Muri-Gries, library, cod. 35) .
  • Other manuscripts with his illumination are now kept at the other places where the master worked in Aosta, Ivrea and Turin.

literature

  • Les antiphonaires de St-Vincent de Berne: le destin mouvementé d'un chef-d'oeuvre liturgique ; catalog du Musée historique de Vevey, textes de Marina Bernasconi Reusser, Andrea Giovannini ea; Infolio édition, Gollion 2017, ISBN 978-2-88474-784-4 .
  • Albert Jörger: The miniaturist of the breviary des Jost von Silenen: an anonymous illuminator around 1500 and his works in Freiburg, Bern, Sitten, Ivrea and Aosta ; ed. Valais State Archives, Sitten 2001; (= Supplements to Vallesia 6), ISBN 2-940145-45-8 (dissertation at the University of Friborg Switzerland 1976).
  • Kathrin Utz-Tremp , Fanny Abbott: Le chapitre de St-Vincent (1484–1528) et ses antiphonaires . In: The Bern Minster = La collégiale de Berne… ; Art and Architecture in Switzerland , vol. 68 No. 2, 2017, pp. 46–54.
  • Alessandra Vallet: Il miniatore di Giorgio di Challant: l'arte e la vita di un artista itinerante nella regione alpina occidentale alla fine del Medioevo . Le Château Edizioni, Aosta 1999, ISBN 88-87214-29-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alessandra Vallet: Il miniatore di Giorgio di Challant: l'arte e la vita di un artista itinerante nella regione alpina occidentale alla fine del Medioevo ; Le Château Edizioni, Aosta 1999; 157 p., Ill .; ISBN 88-87214-29-8 .
  2. ↑ Joseph Leisibach: The Antiphonare of the Bern Minster St. Vinzenz, an unexpected new discovery ; in: Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Kirchengeschichte 83, 1989, pp. 177–204.
  3. ^ Albert Jörger: The miniaturist of the breviary of Jost von Silenen: an anonymous illuminator around 1500 and his works in Freiburg, Bern, Sitten, Ivrea and Aosta ; ed. Valais State Archives, Sitten 2001; ( Supplements to Vallesia , 6), pp. 435–470, with illus.


personal data
SURNAME Master of the Breviary of Jost von Silenen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silenen Masters; Miniaturist of the breviary of Jost von Silenen; Miniatore di Giorgio di Challant
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Illuminator, miniaturist
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 16th Century