P.P.Vergerio, "De principibus carrariensibus et gestis eorum" Padova, Biblioteca Civica

.Walt Disney would have been dumfounded. Strips, comics, cartoons of current times make a sorry figure, here at Padua, in front of the inexhaustible fantasy shown for centuries by the local miniators in the very wide book production of the town. In a Divine Comedy of the Trecento, for example, a beautiful as unreachable Beatrice throws with a glance a hail of gilt little daggers over the poor Dante, who falls to the ground terrorised just as Donald Duck after the umpteenth outburst of his uncle. The Thebaid by Stazio miniated in the same period is a great cloak-and-dagger soap opera, worthy of the Guerrin Meschino and of the Salterio of the nuns of Saint Peter, in the previous century, a refined sacred picture story, all golden, azure and purple, for the use of those cloistered and very exigent readers. Well then it could be said that the nowadays civilization of image was born some centuries ago just in the prosperous, rich and very cultured town of Padua. So here it is the out of common richness of the Padua figurative civilization as it appears in the illustration of the hand-written book and the first imprinted book, it does not regard only a formal elegance display but also, a very high style and thought density levels display, a display by images of the contents and meanings of the text. With the purpose, more than evident (and actual as never before), to entrust images with the task to transmit the sense of the sacred and profane text with an efficacy far greater than the written word. It is not a case however that the catalogues of the exhibition are care of Franco Cosimo Panini, the publisher of Modena passing easily, and with excellent results, from the footb cards to the 'picture

"Salterio delle monache di S.Pietro" Padova, Biblioteca del Seminario

cards' of the illuminated code. The most meaningful and surprising work of the exhibition remains anyhow the Bible decorated by the time by Francesco Novello da Carrara, between 1390 and 1405, and by now divided into Rovigo and London. Fortunately gathered together at the Accademia dei Concordi of Rovigo (one of the three seats of the exhibition along with Padua and the Abbey of Praglia, in the Euganean Hills), it is a powerful manuscript wherein the sacred text, summed up in a very succinct form, has been translated into the Paduan vernacular. A dialect worthy of the best Ruzante, this case sounding as proud assertion of patavinitas. But furthermore surprising is the very rich illustrative apparatus, spread into 860 vignette displayed four by sheet so to cover almost all the available space. As in the old “Corriere dei piccoli”, the text has an

Divina commedia (Paradiso - Sez. XIV) "Dante fulminato dallo sguardo di Beatrice" - Padova - Biblioteca del Seminario

accessory function as to images, all inspired to costumes, environments and societies of this time. Well then, a cartoons Bible where the people could recognise itself and find a collective identity. For once it's worth overlooking pictures and sculptures to approach with curiosity and interest the miniature world. A world still to be discovered at all surely having in store many surprises.   

 

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"Parole dipinte. La miniatura a Padova dal Medioevo al Settecento"  21 marzo – 20 giugno 1999 Padova, Palazzo della Ragione, Palazzo del Monte Teolo,Abbazia di Praglia Rovigo, Accademia dei Concordi

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