The Artists associated with the initial of Christ the Redeemer

Artists

There is no consensus regarding the authorship, dating or provenance of this initial.

Christ’s figure has been associated with Corale 3 and assigned to the Maestro delle Canzoni, a collaborator of Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci named after his work in a Book of Songs (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ital. 568). Corale 3, which is dated 1409, was produced at the Santa Maria degli Angeli scriptorium when it was under the leadership of Don Silvestro’s successor, Lorenzo Monaco. Alternatively, Christ’s figure has been attributed to Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni, who was based at San Pietro Maggiore in Florence in the 1380s, and linked to a lost set of Choir Books illuminated between 1373 and 1382. The letter shape and surrounding acanthus were added by a different artist. If the initial belonged to Corale 3, which contains post-1409 additions, the ornament might have been painted by the illuminator Niccolò Rosselli (1407-1471), who became a monk at Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1429, contributed to other leaves in Corale 3 and was paid for his work at the scriptorium in 1454.