Initials from Choir Books

Painting the flesh

Artists' Techniques

In the two initials painted by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (see Artists), the flesh tones were painted with a technique which closely resembles contemporary panel painting: variable amounts of lead white and vermilion were mixed and layered on a base of green earth.

The use of green earth is less apparent in the other two initials, where flesh tones still contain vermilion and lead white as well as red and/or yellow earth pigments. The shadows in the face of Christ the Redeemer were painted with brown umber, as were his hair and beard.

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1
Detail of the green palm leaf under magnification (60x). Blue particles of two different hues can be seen. They were identified as azurite and ultramarine by spectroscopic methods.
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2
Detail of the Saint’s tunic under magnification (20x). Distinct orange and red highlights can be seen, identified as red lead and vermilion respectively by a combination of spectroscopic analyses including XRF (Pb and Hg in the spectrum below).
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3

Detail of the mosaic gold leaf, outlined with a dark red earth pigment, under magnification (16x). Its shiny aspect and the characteristic peak at 308 cm-1 in the Raman spectrum (below) confirm the presence of mosaic gold.

St Laurence

Historiated initial L from an Antiphoner, 1390s

The initial L belonged to the office of Matins for the feast of St Laurence (10 August) in Corale 19, an Antiphoner made in the 1390s. St Laurence is shown with a book, a martyr’s palm branch and his distinctive attribute, the gridiron on which he was tortured. The image has been attributed to various artists: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci; his collaborator known as the Maestro delle Canzoni; or the Florentine painter and illuminator Mariotto di Nardo.

It is also possible that the figure of St Laurence and the decorated initial were painted by two different artists; despite general similarities, some differences exist between the pigments used in these two areas. Green hues, for example, were all obtained using a mixture of azurite with a yellow pigment. The palm leaf held by the Saint, however, seems to contain ultramarine as well (hotspot 1). The XRF data also suggest the presence of gypsum in most of the border areas analysed, but not in the figure of the Saint.

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