Portal to the Past: Depiction of Space in the Book Miniatures in the Renaissance Venice

Abstract

This article investigates the painted miniatures of manuscripts and early printed books of the second half of the 15th century performed in the art workshops of the Renaissance Venice and Padua. The author determines the main development stages of the principles of space depicting in the picturesque design of manuscripts and printed books. The relevance of study of this topic is caused by the fact that it has been on the periphery of research attention for a long time, obscured by other historical and artistic problems. The scientifi c novelty of the research revealed the new principles of constructing spatial composition and formation of new typology of landscape in Venetian art. For the main research method, the author uses the formal-style analysis and structural analysis. It demonstrates how simultaneously with the change of the sheet decoration structure there appeared the new opportunities for the placement of spatial composition. At an early stage, the manuscript sheet decoration consisted of the depiction of painted architecture treated in the guise of triumphal arch or classical altar with inscription, which gradually has been getting form of imaginary façade with ornaments and fragments of text upon it (the so-called architectural frontispiece type). The next faze consists in the emergence of natural motifs near it and its progressive development in the form of autonomous landscape, which one can see in the works of leading Venetian illuminator in the time circa 1500 Benedetto Bordon. The author investigated the basic types of manuscript decoration that included the depiction of landscape as well as its basic iconographical formulae. The signifi cance of the study lies in that fact which helps to explore the new sources of Venetian mythological painting, going back to the stylistic features and compositional principles of the Late Quattrocento miniature.