Una miniatura giuridica bolognese della metà del Trecento nella fototeca della Fondazione Longhi

Two pictures in the photo archive of the Fondazione Longhi in Florence reproduce a one-column miniature depicting a ‘University class’. The miniature is there said to decorate the Vat.lat. 1456 and is attributed to the famous Illustratore, the main Bolognese illuminator of the second quarter of the fourteenth century. The miniature actually embellish the beginning of a text by the jurist Baldo degli Ubaldi in the Vat.lat. 2233 (fol. 167). This manuscript opens with a two-column miniature representing a ‘University class by Giovanni di Andrea’ already attributed to the Illustratore. I prefer to consider this illumination as a work of a follower of the Illustratore, the Master of 1346. Also the miniature in the Longhi photos can be attributed to the same artist. This artist’s work represents a tendency starting at the middle of the fourteenth century to normalise the fantastic and expressive outbreaks of Bolognese Trecento art in a more plain and direct style.